Deja vu? Haven't I seen this post before?

You do not say where you are, but Floridata.com has a great plant encyclopedia of FL friendly plants for every region - you can even filter by features like flowers, shade or salt tolerance, plant type, etc...

http://floridata.com/plantlist/

Location is Boynton Beach Florida a hundred yards off ICW. Going to look into that "Back Ten Feet" project. We have a lot of wildlife in area.

Okay, I garden primarily for butterflies and hummingbirds, so my first thought is Hamelia Patens, or "fire bush". This is a great wildlife plant. Its flowers attract many butterflies and hummingbirds. Florida's official state butterfly, the Zebra Longwing, especially loves this plant. It grows fast where you are and produces berries that the birds love.

Another great plant for your area is the Odontonema strictum, or Firespike. There are at least four different colors that we have in Florida. The most common is the red one, but I also have pink, magenta and purple. I think they would bloom most of the year where you are. They are excellent hummingbird and butterfly plants and would grow quickly where you are.

Both of these plants would get pretty big, pretty fast where you are. In my experience the purple firespike gets the tallest and the pink is the most compact.

My native restorationist's hat is off to Michael for bringing up this ultra-important concept-that of wildlife corridors in the midst of burgeoning development. It's all about what kind of world you want to have-one completely given over to just one species-Homo sapiens-or one in which we still somehow manage to leave room for our fellow travelers-all the other lifeforms. I saw places doing just this in the immediate vicinity of my folk's S. Fort Myers condo. some of it was-I believe-the result of benign neglect. that is, in some cases, I felt certain that what had developed was not at all planned, and not every plant was necessarily a native type. But still, a very important feature in the landscape, again, if we are to share the world with our feather, furred, scaled and all the myriad other beings.

+oM

To remove or not remove. In thinking about going with a native plant environment. One major question comes up. While heavily trimmed, the backyard still has five Brazilian Peppers, three wild mangos and one huge "good" mango. The wild mangos must go. During the mango season they drop hundreds of mangos that attract millions of flies and gnats if every single one of them are not immediately picked up. My understanding is that the BP's are a scourge in the state.

So I guess what I'm asking is that it is probably best to rip everything out and start from scratch.

If there are no established plants you can work with, then a clean slate might be the best approach. Which may be beneficial when it comes to dealing with the Brazilian Peppers. I have no first-hand experience with these, but from what I have read from others on this forum over the years, BP can be a real pain to get rid of. I am not sure if this is due to root resprouting or just numerous re-seeds... or both. It is this resilience to removal along with the fact that it can easily escape into the wild that makes it a prime nuisance in Florida.
As for the mangoes, they are less of a nuisance ecologically, but can be a nuisance to quality of life. If there is more fruit than you can or will deal with, then the falling fruit becomes a magnet for all sorts of pests, with gnats and flies being on the more numerous but smaller end of the scale. But before pulling out all the 'wild' mangoes, check to see if mangoes need a cross-pollinator. If they do, you may want to keep one for the 'good' tree to cross with, at least until you can get another good one growing.
Check with your local UF Extension Office for methods of removing the BPs, they can give advice on the most effective methods and maybe, just maybe, point you toward state resources for removing them? I haven't heard of such, but it seems to me if the State and Counties want these trees removed so badly, they might be willing to offer assistance in their removal.

Good luck.

I'm uncomfortable with putting in a wood fence. They tend to rot quickly in Florida, and having to replace them piece by piece can be expensive and time consuming.

I think you are already answering some of your questions. The wild mangoes and the Brazilian Pepper trees must go. Why would you kill off the other "good" mango tree?

Where you are things will grow very fast, so perhaps putting up with a little less privacy for a year or two might be worth it. There are many, many plants that you could put back there. You need to try to be clear on what is most important for you. If your primary concern is privacy there are a number of viburnum that grow quickly, are good for birds and are long-lived. Most are not deciduous--they never lose their leaves. If you want to attract butterflies and hummingbirds there are a number of excellent plants. If you want primarily showy, colorful plants there are many of those.

You are in southern Florida. There are literally hundreds of options and most will grow rapidly.

One of my thoughts is to put the wood fence up for immediate privacy and plant for long term privacy when fence starts rotting away in 10 years or so. Not stuck on having a big lawn back there; maybe plant native in depth for long term privacy.

One of the design benefits of planting out the border is that it will eventually give the illusion that your property goes on further than it does. If the foliage is thick enough, it will 'blur' the boundary of your yard. Unless your backyard neighbor is in a two story house, it can give the impression that your house is on the edge of a woods. Some people do not care for this look, but I have always found it appealing. Especially in these days of yards getting smaller and smaller and houses getting closer and closer, any little trick to give me a sense of space and privacy is very much welcome. If it were my yard, I would put a tree in each corner and put dense shrubs between them. Probably a mix of viburnums and stoppers. Then I would put in a mix of ground covers and perrenials on my side to fill any gaps. With the green backdrop of the shrubs, the flowers and/or any variegated foliage will stand out more. All the foliage will also help with noise cancellation, making it so you don't have to hear your neighbors and vice versa.

But the effect won't be instant. Tom mentions that things grow quicker down there and with shorter dormancy periods, this is likely true, but the first year most of the plants will be just trying to get their roots established in the soil. There is a saying I have been told regarding plants and it seems to hold true for all but annuals: "First year they sleep. Second year they creep. Third year they leap." It is that third year and beyond when the benefits of your plantings really come into their own. In 15-20 years, if you plan on being there that long, you will likely forget that you had neighbors behind you.

Don't know if you noticed in the picture but I have a humongous ugly two story apartment building directly behind backyard. Going to need something back there with a lot of height.

I had not noticed, but you are right. Viburnums and Stoppers can both get to 15-20 ft tall. They might not eliminate the builing completely, but they can block out the winows for sure.

The fence will need to be quite tall to block out even the first set of windows. It will also slow down the growth of almost anything that you plant back there.

I like what Michael says. Two fairly large trees in the corner would block out quite a bit of the apartments and set off the rest quite well.

If you want to block out the second set of windows you will need trees. For quick growth of about ten feet in one year the magenta and purple firespike will grow that much. I planted two magenta firespikes in May (from cuttings) and they are now over six feet tall and three feet wide. The purple get tall in a hurry also. But there are many shrubs and trees that will work.

I stay away from the fruit trees. They get lots of bugs and the fruit seems to ripen at pretty much the same time. One ends up trying to give some away or picking up the rotting fruit from the ground.

You could put in ten small trees for less than the cost of a ten-foot fence. Slash pine would grow well there. It grows fast; is wind, fire and mostly insect resistant and it's relatively cheap.

Perhaps when you have (planted or installed) some thing(s) that you want to look at in your yard, your eyes will stop going to the the thing(s) you don't want to look at.

Whenever I'm down in S. Florida, I especially like the slash pines-there's still a few left, lol-and to my way of thinking, any naturalistic planting should incorporate some of these pines into the plan. And generally, things like coontie, saw palmetto, maybe some nice purple-fruited beauty bushes...obviously I promote native species...would do good service. Then, some palms. I like the FL state tree-the "cabbage palm" just fine, and especially in your summer rains and humidity, its predilection to having resurrection and other ferns and epiphytes growing in amongst the "boots", very interesting. Maybe for contrast, some Bismarkia palms, for their amazing glaucous tones of blue...that's the kind of stuff I'd be looking at.

+om

My only issue with Slash Pine in this situation is that they eventually get to be as much trunk as they are canopy. That is to say, for a while they might provide some privacy, but once the canopy gets high enough, the only things 'blocking' the view will be their slender trunks. I could still see a few being planted, perhaps on the left side where building isn't as close to the fenceline, but for the right side, something more dense would be needed to block off the view from both sides.

Yes, you're right on that Michael. Still, the trunks are beautiful IMO, and maybe a bit of density in the planting could still offer the all-important screening function. FWIW, the exact same situation applies up here when folks reach for say, the white pine, as a part of a screen. In time, same deal-it's all trunk for the first forty feet or so. Spruce tend to retain lower branches much better for that purpose, but of course, no spruce in Florida.

Another native plant I really like in S. Florida is sea grape. Might have some utility here.

+oM

Sweet viburnum will grow fast if watered and fertilized.

Can someone tell me why putting up a privacy fence would slow the plant growth?

Splats, I missed that comment-if it is in this thread, and I'm not going back to look, lol-but about the only thing I can think of is reduced light on one side. Still, given the phototropic response of plants, this might not actually reduce overall growth. It may instead redirect it, as trees along a river bend out for light.

+om

It would reduce the light to small plants that were put near it. The further away from the fence and the taller the plants or trees the less effect it would have.

copperleaf plant? Pretty and gives good screening and no know bugs to deal with. Not particularly fussy. 3 varieties to choose from.