I'm in Lakeland. Growing about 500 species of plants, so too much to list. If I counted everything and listed them starting with what I have the most, let's go with: cycads, Dyckias, hot peppers, palms, agaves, aroids, clivias, and gingers.

What's up plantsman56?Thanks for hitting me up.Was wondering if anyone was ever going to respond.500.Wow !That sounds very impressive.How long have you been bit by the bug?How much land do you have?I am in Ormond Beach.I only have about 3/4 of a acre.But on it I have alot too.I have been crazy into it for about 10 yrs.In that time I have amasted a large collection too.Around 60 varities of palms.Some from seed from old Dent Smith property.11 bamboos.Alot of cycads.Agave.Cacti.Fruit trees.Ginger.Ariods.Orchids.Bromes.Birds O.P.& lots of tripical trees.Too many to list all.Some include rainbow euc.,sausage tree,royal p.,jacaranda.It is a full time job so it feels.But I love it.Got anything u want to trade?

I'm in Gainesville. I don't have a lot of space, but I grow as much as I can. I love anything that flowers, and I'm into edible ornamentals. I also love hibiscus -- but not the tropicals. I love hardy and perennial hibiscus. If anybody has any Hibiscus acetosella (cranberry hibiscus) seeds, I'm still looking for some. I'm still learning what will and won't grow easily up here. I don't like things I have to baby.

I just planned out my veggie beds in my courtyard, and I'm going to be planting my ornamentals out soon.

Hey dirty.Thanks for joining in & giving a shoutout.Gainsville.Super hot in summer.Cold in winter.A tricky area.Love Kanapha.I'm sure you have been there?I have a nice taraw palm from seed from there.Don't tell anyone.Go gators!

Lake County, north of Orlando. I'm growing habaneros, broccoli, rainbow chard, kafir lime, figs, candy stripe beets, lemons, snap peas, lots of herbs (basil is not doing well for me this year), and a surprise avocado tree. A friend just told me about Okinawa spinach...looking to order some seeds for that.

Hey liz.When the apocalypse hits...I'm coming to your place.Thanks for shouting out.

Also in Lakeland. I grow palms(especially dates and coconuts), cycads, bananas, avocados, a variety of citrus, and sea grapes.

A possible trick to overcoming the "super hot in the summer, cold in the winter" conundrum that those of us away from the coast face seems to be overhead canopy from a large tree of some sort. It seems to compress the temperature scale, making it a few degrees cooler during the day, and a few degrees warmer at night. Unless the plant you desire to use can only grow in full sun, they tend to grow well under the partial shade and cover of a large tree.

I have noticed that the grass under my large oak in the back doesn't turn brown from cold/frost in the winter, nor does it dry out in the intense heat of a dry summer. In other areas of the yard that are exposed, not the case.

Just my 2 cents on how to compensate for a wide temperature scale. We can't all live in St. Pete after all ;)

Hey kinzyjr.Thanks for posting.This question is going to sound rude ,but here I go.How big are your coconuts?Lol!Impressive.I had some from miami.Winter 2010.Need I say more?

I'm from SC, so the super-hot in summer and cold in winter doesn't bother me. The lack of a breeze in the summer does, though. Makes fungus a serious problem. The problem I have with winter is that it doesn't get cold enough to just take a rest for a few months; it's just cold enough to have to rush out and protect things once in awhile when the temps drop below freezing. I'm not doing that anymore. I'm just going to let things die and replant the next year. This past winter, I still had a lot of things in pots because I wanted to see what winter would be like here, but they'll all be planted out soon, so I'll have to get used to having actual "annuals" that die in the winter. Never had that problem much in Z10. It's an adjustment, for sure. If I had room to keep them all inside, that would be o.k., but I'm in a tiny place now, so no room. This winter was crazy, bringing things in and out. Can't go through that again. Of course, I'll always have some tropicals that come in and out, but I'm done with propagating annuals to save for next year's planting. If they die, they die, and I'll replace them.

I'll only be planting cold-hardy perennials from now on. I don't have time to baby a garden.

Kinzyjr you are right about the tree canopy. I live in Middleburg just SW of Jax in a forested area. In the winter we tend to be about 4-5 degrees warmer than the surrounding areas. The opposite happens in the summer. And no mowing because no grass. Our whole acre yard is covered with leaves! The only issue I have is lack of sun.

All my sun loving plants share a 40'x20' area. They get about 5 hrs of direct sun. That's all my full sun area. On the edible side I grow tomatoes, cukes, peppers, eggplants, potatoes, beets, chives, basil, oregano, chocolate mint, parsley, Rosemary, laurel (bay leaves) and zucchini. Half of the edibles are in containers. On the just-for-beauty side I have a perennial flower bed and pots of BOP, datura, Duranta and some carnivorous plants. Then there is my orchid room but that's inside.

I started growing plants very young. I remember, back in Hollywood, when I was 6, I would take cuttings from coleus and the artillary Pilea and plant them in the yard. Then, when my dad needed slave labor, each spring I would turn under the ground in my dads garden. In turn, he would give me a row to grow what ever I wanted. He would always do beans and tomatoes, I used to do radishes, carrots and leaf lettuce. I think it started from there. When I was 12, I had a 54 type succulent collection, mainly coming from leaf cuttings from throw away Sears garden center plants. That was the same garden center spot that the Walsh kid got abducted at, so many years later. When I was in high school, I paid for my first car by taking African violet leaf cuttings and sold plants at the Sunrise flea market. I went to college here in Lakeland and about 8 years later, I thought I would do what I love and start a plant nursery, which was in 1986. Now, every day, all I have to do is go out my back door and play with plants. I am a hopeless plant collector, but I can buy a new plant and write it off. It is like Christmas every month. I usually buy plants for breeding or for other types of propagation, depending on the plant type. I do a lot of seed producing and send seeds all over the world.

I'm sitting on 3 1\2 acres. At one time I was growing 275 species of palms and 200 different cycads. I was landscaping at that time and didn't have the time to take care if all that, and that is when I decided to specialize in cycads, which I now have 30,000 of. I landscaped for about 12 years and during that time, I designed and installed about 1400 landscapes all around Lakeland and other parts if Polk county.

Wow, great story! What experience. I'm still so "green" trying to adjust to FL after living in a concrete jungle (Los Angeles) for nearly all of my adult life. I have SO much to learn.

Things are so different here. Over there you have the Mediterranean climate and we have the tropical climate. Totally different plants do better either here or there. I have written piles of articles on cycad cultivation, so you can learn to grow cycads here, if anyone is interested. I've also been the president of The Cycad Society for about a decade, but not in the last 2 years.

Plantsman,your Tom!I read your articles & shared.Coffee grounds for scale.What a small world.

Yes, but I try not to make that obvious here. Several years ago I got kicked off this forum because a group of members wanted to come out and check out my place. I put a link to my site for the contact info, and boom, couldn't submit anything the next day. Until I got this new tablet, I still couldn't write in, even using other names. I like to help people with their cultivation, so I have kept it low key. I may even delete this post just in case. If I want to send someone a copy of an article, like with the coffee, and they know I am me, I might get dropped again, and I don't want that happening again.

Things are very different since Houzz took over. I don't think you need to worry anymore, Tom.

Roger that.

I concur - your advice is invaluable and you shouldn't have to hide! I don't think Houzz cares.

Plantsman, there is always appreciation and room to learn, experts are the best!

Your story is uplifting and just like you I have been gardening since I was a child, different places and different plants....

Silvia

@secretsquirrel007

I have a Malay Dwarf and a Jamaican Tall. My Malay was planted after the winter of 2010, and my Jamaican Tall was planted in October 2015. Keep in mind that mine are protected on any night that is projected to go below 45 degrees. Here is a link to a thread on the Palms forum:

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3602815/any-coconut-growers-in-central-florida?n=13

@plantsman56

An interesting story to say the least! I came here in 2005 after a few years in other areas of Polk. Always had a green thumb, but mostly grew stuff up north as a kid. When I came to Florida for the first time in 2002, palms and tropicals became a big interest. Here is a link that shows some of my work here at home:

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/2104737/before-and-after-a-few-others-of-interest?n=18

Thanks everyone! I think you are right about the new owners here and I'll leave my post. I'm still not going to put links to my site though. You know, it is funny, if you look at the somewhat new cycad seed germination thread in the palm and cycad forum, it was brought up from an 8 year old post. In the start, my old user name is in there, and now, my new one, but unless someone reads this one, they won't know it is the same person.

Kinzyjr, I like what you have done with your place. I think you need to get that bamboo out of there though, before it is to late and becomes a 10 foot diameter clump. That stuff is like rock to try and cut out. There is actually a good reason for that, bamboo had a high silica content and will dull a chainsaw in no time. Without being specific, where abouts do you live? You must have a decent microclimate to be trying sea grapes and papaya. Have you harvested any ice cream bananas yet? So what was your lowest temperature about 5 years ago when we had so many cold nights? I am in a terrible location North of old Polk city road and my lowest was 15f.

@plantsman56

Thank you for your compliments! I still have some work to do on the front. I actually like the giant timber bamboo and am OK with it clumping at that one location. My only concern before I got it was to make sure I got clumping bamboo instead of running bamboo. It is only about 18 months in the ground.

My lowest recorded temperature from 2010 forward is 24F for 3 nights. That was enough to damage the pygmy date palms and drop the bananas in the open to the ground. Under my oak tree in the back, it has never frosted, and the bananas that are partially covered by the oak did not freeze back that year.

The sea grapes have only been in the ground a few years and were knee high when I got them. They haven't been bothered at all by cold, and I've heard they are actually hardy to 15F-20F. My papaya plant is only about a year old, and got tore up by caterpillars early last year. Since then, they have come back fine. No cold damage during their time in the ground.

I was told when I bought my little slice of paradise that it sat on some of the richest soil in Central FL. I haven't gotten any ice cream bananas yet, but I do get Dwarf Cavendish every single year. I actually just harvested a stalk of them (yeah, they're gone). I stay on the south side of town, closer to George Jenkins HS.

On a side note, the warmest part of Lakeland, from my experience, seems to be the urban area around the Lakeland Square Mall. I've not seen the temperature go below 26F there in my 11 years here.

I would think the warmest spots would be around Dixieland going over to around lake Hollingsworth because it is in the middle of town and so many miles of concrete and pavement warming up the air by the time it gets down there, coming from the north and northwest. Just a short distance NW of the mall, you have open areas in Kathleen which get pretty cold. I have no heating at all with the cold air coming through the green swamp, and my place just happens to be 6 degrees colder than it is 1000 feet to the south because I am at the bottom of a hill that is about 40 acres. When we have those 2 day freeze events, my place is the same temperature as up the hill, and then when we have those second days when the high pressure is sitting on top of us and there is no wind, it is 6 degrees colder. Even within my own property, it can vary about 4 degrees. With the cycads, there is a huge difference in what happens when it is 20f instead of 24f.

I, too, have been gardening since I was a child. My first real memory of gardening is my grandmother teaching me to root coleus cuttings at age 4. She was an avid gardener, and she made us work in the garden to earn our keep when we vacationed with her in the summer. I loved her so much, and followed her around all the time, which is where I learned how to harvest wild herbs and edibles. I clearly remember her giving me her cutting basket when I was nine and saying "Go get us some lamb's quarters for supper, and take the snake stick! (a long stick to beat the weeds and scare snakes away before you dove into them)" and I did. There was a huge patch of them growing right down the road at the edge of the woods. I'm surprised I never got bit by a snake, the way my cousins and I traversed those woods and overgrown back roads. My sister, who was too prissy to go with us, later in life was bit by a copperhead in my grandmother's back yard, because she forgot the rules about looking down at the ground and making as much noise as possible when walking through weeds.

Anyway, my father grew up on a farm, so he taught me a lot, and I taught myself the rest. I studied horticulture in college, but honestly, that was a lost two years and I didn't really gain much practical knowledge. I did learn how to manage greenhouse growing, but as for growing in my yard, I use what my grandmother taught me. I like to say I learned to grow plants by killing them.

Nice story dirty.Funny you learned more hands on than in school.Lamb's quarters?Did you eat them like salad?Did you like them?

My grandmother cooked them like greens, and yes, I did like them and eat them to this day when I can find enough of them.

Good story. I guess we all start with coleus cuttings huh? +1 on the last sentence. You learn the best things by killing plants. As long as you save more plants by killing some, it works out. If nothing else, you find out what kind of tolerance each plant has by exceeding what they can take, whether it is cold hardiness or water requirements.

I have a finance degree, but also took some horticulture classes, mainly just for electives I would enjoy. I didn't learn anything really practical either. What I did do that really helped was that once I decided to have a nursery, while I was waiting for my speculation house to sell, I worked at a big wholesale nursery over in Plant City for $3 an hour. I got a $250,000 education though. I learned about what happens when you buy bad soil when we threw away $125,000 worth of azaleas in the 9 months I was there. We put in 7 acres of overhead irrigation and ground cover areas, put together the timers for propagation tables, and all kinds of other things I never thought I would learn. When the house sold, that gave me the money to put the well in, fencing, new truck, and all that kind of thing.

@bea

Now you have me thinking... lots of shade, no grass to mow, compressed temperature range... maybe I need more than 2 live oaks ;)

@plantsman56

Initially, I thought the Dixieland area would have been the hot spot in town as well. The urban area between the Lakeland Square and Target on US-98 is warmer. My old apartment complex didn't get snow in 2010, even though some areas in Lakeland did get some snow. Lake Hollingsworth is a very low spot, and it's always windy down there in the winter.

The weather station at Southeastern University on N. Crystal Lake always seemed to report higher temperatures than other weather stations in my area. Then I went over that way, and it looks like their weather station is mounted fairly high in the air on a pole. I'm not sure how it compares to the height of the other stations, so I can't say for sure.

Regarding the cold spot on Kathleen Rd. behind the mall, I've actually seen the leaves change color like they do up north on that road (Jan. 2010). Never expected to see that in Central Florida!

Your property seems like it has a good variety of hot and cold pockets. I guess it could be a blessing or a curse, depending on what you want to grow. With your experience, you've obviously compensated well to be growing over 500 plants.

Shout out from Pensacola. I love flowers! Especially roses. Just finished planting my spring garden. As you know, in Florida our spring is very short and must get everything in before you die from heat exhaustion.

True about the heat exhaustion! Just glad this March has not been like last year -- mid to upper 80s all month. Gardening was hard, to say the least. This year, I actually may get something done before it gets too warm.

Me too, just did a complete overhaul of the front yard, now working on the back. If only I could get a break from all this rain.

@plantsman56

All I can say is ... wow!

That's insane, Tom!

How about a few cycads? A few out in the yard.

Those are some big ones.Been growing a long time in those pots.These the ones u sell?

Actually, the top picture was part of an order that went into a lady's yard 2 weeks ago. I had designed a cycad garden for her 10 years ago, and now she bought the property next door to her and wanted some cycads there as well. I just happened to have that picture in my tablet already. The bottom picture is part of the planted cycads in my front yard. They are a sexed pair of Encephalartos hilldebrandtii, and E. gratus.

Here are a couple of cycads in a greenhouse I haven't shown yet. The The first one is an Encephalartos gratus from Mozambique in a 45 gallon container that has about 30 inches of trunk.

Here are table after table of Dyckias. About 5000 of them. I'll make a new thread to explain them more and show more close ups in. Everything doesn't look perfect here, but the plants are great.

Wow! That's amazing, I so wish I had a greenhouse and room for one