What part of N. FL? What zone - 8b or 9a? It's too bad that you couldn't be generous enough to give your plants to someone who would be willing to baby them back to life instead of ripping them up and "burning" them. That's just so sad to me.

I'm going to tell you what I told the woman who came to the garden center asking for plants that stayed 2 feet tall, never had to be trimmed, and bloomed all year -- there is a silk plant store right down the road. You won't find those in Florida.

Even the everblooming varieties hardly ever bloom in our hot, humid summers. The ever-blooming daylilies bloom in the spring and fall, same for the ever-blooming azaleas and roses. In the summer, we use annuals and plants with colored leaves to fill in for color. Coleus (sun and shade) and Caladiums (shade) are very popular for color in the summer.

There are some roses that stay small and do well, but I'm not a rose grower, so you'll have to see if someone else comes through with that one.

There are a few annuals that bloom in the summer, but not many. Of course, this all depends on what zone you are in. My best advice is to find a locally-owned garden center and ask them for advice, or drive around and see what other people have in their yards.

Thanks for the reply.

Don't feel bad about the roses. I didn't ruin them. They looked awful when I arrived, and one appeared to be dead. Not an asset to the property. I won't be buying new roses. Never liked them. The flowers are fine, but the huge, thorny, ugly plants you have to put up with to get them are not my cup of tea.

I tried replacing them with blueberry plants, but that was before I knew blueberries grow about an inch per decade.

I am in Marion County. We had very short (pre-dawn) periods of sub-freezing weather last winter.

Coleus plants look great, but the Internet says they will die every winter. I looked up caladiums, and I saw the same warning. There is zero possibility that I will suddenly develop the self-discipline to store tarps and wrap delicate plants, so whatever I get has to survive the winter, just like the beautiful plants my grandmother had in Kentucky. I have some great-looking shrubs that appear to be indestructible, but the little flowery stuff has proven to be terminally wimpy.

I think the people who used to own this house were in denial. They were well out of the tropics, but they seemed determined to have tropical plants as though they lived in Miami. They left me three citrus trees, all of which have to be cut and burned because of citrus greening.

They also had ixoras, which are awful plants that produce a few tiny flowers on big, unattractive plants.

I just discovered bugleweed. Looks promising. I'm worried that it would overrun the yard, though. Probably wouldn't be a bad thing. I have bahia grass, which is the worst grass imaginable.

I fear you are doomed if you don't want to do any yardwork or plant care and want perfect, small blooming plants all year. Maybe just stick silk plants here and there like some other people do. Or fill your yard with rocks and cactus. Honestly, you sound kind of grumpy to me.

I'm doing yardwork NOW. I'm just not willing to turn it into a huge job. I don't expect perfection, but I think I can do better than the scraggly things I have at the moment. I want to replace high-maintenance plants with low-maintenance plants. In Miami, my yard required very little maintenance to look good, so it should be possible here, too.

I'm not unusual. Many people want reasonably nice plants yet have no interest in taking up gardening as a serious hobby.

The landscaping I had when I got here was cared for well, but it was haphazard. Maybe 8 kinds of hedge shrubs. Three badly chosen citrus trees (ponderosa lemons...the worst), planted 10 feet apart (should be more like 30). They put a maple tree about 15 feet from the house, in an area which gets the edges of hurricanes. I want less variety, more consistency, and fewer things that require pampering.

I already have a number of wonderful plants that look great no matter what I do, so there have to be other species that will work.

I had to get rid of more than just roses. The side yard has a stand of live oaks, which rot and fall over, and the previous owner allowed new volunteer live oaks to grow. I had to cut them. I plan to get rid of every small live oak and water oak on the property. I have lots of volunteer maples, and I am trying to help them grow so they'll push out the oaks. I wish I knew someone who would give me 500 free pecan saplings.

He also had a big magnolia growing up through the middle of a spreading live oak, so it has to come out. None of my magnolias were pruned correctly when they were young, so they are spindly and unattractive. Then there's the poison ivy by the chicken house.

I also have stumps, including a 2'-wide oak stump 10 feet from the house. Luckily, I discovered potassium nitrate, so stumps are dissolving all over the property. He also left me a lot of projecting underground rocks to beat up my mower, so I put a subsoiler on the tractor and started ripping them out.

To get back to questions, I have two little hedges that border the walk up to my door. Right now, there is pine bark under them. Would it be a good idea to move the bark and put bugleweed or maybe creeping thyme in? The bark doesn't seem to discourage weeds all that well, and I was thinking ground cover might choke them out.

The front of my house has tall hedges against it, and in front of the hedges, there is pine bark with scrubby, shorter shrubs I want to replace. I was thinking I could either make holes in the pine park and install separate flowering plants or colorful foliage plants, or I could remove a whole strip of pine bark and put down ground cover. If I did that, I could put some sort of stones between the ground cover and the driveway, to keep the ground cover from hanging over it.

I think I'm going to get rid of the pine bark in one area, put in stones for a barrier to protect the yard, and add some ground cover to see what happens.

Any chance we could see some pictures. i'm having a hard time imagining why you would need stones except as a retaining wall. What plants are you happy with? p.s. roses are an extremety diverse species. I think you must have had hybrid teas. Not all roses have the "leggy" look; many are shrubby and extremely attractive. Have you visited any local gardens to see what does well there? Also, how large is your property? It sound huge if you want 100 pecan trees! ; )

You woud probably be best served by hiring a landscape designer for at least an onsite consultation. Local desigers tend to have the best knowledge of plant material suitable for your area and you are not alone in wanting it to be low maintenance.........that is the number one request of my clients and I'm sure that's the same for most other designers :-))

I would also add that very few groundcovers will offer the same sort of weed suppressing characteristics that a good layer of mulch will. And not until they are fully established and relatively dense.

It is also important to understand that low maintenance is not no maintenance :-) Routine and frequent gardening chores are just part of homeownership if you want any sort of attractive and tidy garden.

Thanks for the tip on the mulch. Nonetheless, if you have any recommendations for ground covers that would do the job as well as possible, I am all ears. It would be nice if I could have something other than mulch in at least part of my beds.

Right now I'm looking into edging. It looks like plastic edging doesn't work, and other products are very expensive. I have maybe a ton and a half of red bricks. Wondering if there is a way to use them for edging, without looking cheap. I was thinking I might put some kind of barrier under the edging to prevent weeds and grass from putting roots down between the bricks.

I have several dozen acres of farm and a big yard, and I also take care of my demented father, so you can understand why I don't want to dedicate my life to gardening. To make matters worse, I get several tons of fallen oak leaves every year, and they can't be moved with leaf blowers.

RE weeds, can I get away with lifting the mulch, putting a barrier under it, and allowing desirable plants to come up through holes? That wouldn't be hard at all.

" RE weeds, can I get away with lifting the mulch, putting a barrier under it, and allowing desirable plants to come up through holes? That wouldn't be hard at all. "

Most landscapers, garden designers and other gardening experienced homeowners will tell you that's not a very efficient plan. Weeds will root just as easily in the mulch above the barrier and are much harder to remove if their roots grow through it (which they do very easily as well). And it does impede nutrient penetration when you fertilize and can also impact how easily water perks through the soil profile and oxygen exchange.

the barriers can be a disaster. Just put THICK mulch to suppress weeds. It's even worse ripping them out of rocks. Look up french edging for your bricks. I have that on my 100 yr old home and it does the job, but will take a while to install correctly. Digging a deep angled trench at the edge of your beds is the easiest to maintain and extremely attractive. We're not dissing your desire for low maintenance; your way of expressing it just seemed extreme! ; ) I love gardening, but still want some areas low maintenance so I can focus on those I want.

Thanks for the help. I was sure that fabric idea was genius, and it sounds like it would have been a disaster.

I can't find "French edging" on the Internet.

Two comments: 1. I came from KY And had beautiful perennial gardens there. Those beautiful gardens your grandmother had I bet kept her pretty busy to keep looking beautiful. At any rate KY gardens don't happen in FL.

2. Why not leave all those oak leaves blanket your yard. They will make a great ground cover. Since you hate yard work this should make you happy…no mowing!

matersammiches, I'm sorry I was unkind. You have a lot on your plate, and it's hard taking care of all that land and looking after an ailing loved one. Pecan trees would be wonderful, but they aren't good in hurricanes either. Just plant them way far away from the house.

You may regret removing large oaks that are shading your house. Live oaks are actually pretty tough, which is why they live for so long. Laurel and water oaks, on the other hand, not so much.

Maples are not good in hurricanes, but they're gorgeous in the fall, so keep a few for the back of the property.

If I had all those leaves, I'd be leaving them on the ground as mulch, as nature intended. I use leaves every year as mulch. Not pretty, but certainly cheap and effective. Bark mulch up next to the house can draw termites, so if your house has a wood frame, I wouldn't recommend it. In fact, many people in FL forego flower beds right up next to the house for that very reason, although a few small, slow growing shrubs like Japanese holly. Also, giant liriope makes a very good low-maintenance foundation plant, and it blooms with very pretty purple flower spikes once it's established.

You might also look at some of the smaller elephant ears, although they will die back in the winter, but come back up in the spring. I have Buddha's Hand, and it's a nice, compact specimen. They're very good for wet areas.

You just aren't going to find anything that blooms all year long and doesn't get burned back by our occasional frosts, or that don't go dormant in the winter, unless you stick with evergreens, which don't bloom.

I've been gardening for 62 years, and N. Florida is an enigma to me. I grew up in 7a, moved to 9b/10a, and now I'm here, just north of you in Gainesville. I moved here to have more temperate plants, but so far, it's a PITA because I have to either protect plants or they die back in the winter.

I wish that wasn't how it is, but this isn't Miami and it sure as heck isn't Kentucky!

Bea, I never saw my grandmother do yard work, so she could not have been doing it often. She had a guy who mowed the yard, but that was about it. I'm not even sure who planted her flowers. Someone must have applied fertilizer on occasion. She had a couple of beds of petunias, plus a few flowering shrubs. Looked great all the time.

Dirtygardener, live oaks fall over like crazy. People claim they don't, but I spent the last year cutting and moving dead live oaks. I checked the leaves on a lot of the trees, and they didn't look like leaves from other species, such as water oaks. The soil here is sandy and deep, and when it gets wet, the oaks--all types--get loose.

Florida oaks are terrible trees. Nothing like the nice oaks up north. The wood is useless. They produce no nuts. They shed leaves for most of the year. The leaves are heavy, like leather, and they don't respond to leaf blowers. When you cut live oaks, they send up shoots, so you have to poison them with diesel and fill the stumps with potassium nitrate.

They also kill off desirable trees by crowding them out.

I had to buy a machine to pick up the leaves, and I can't keep up with the trees. Also, when I burned the leaves (maybe 5% of the total leaves in my yard), they burned for three days, and I could not put them out. You can put a hundred gallons of water on a live oak leaf fire and not even faze it. I had to see it to believe it. When I burn them now, I have to put a sprinkler next to the burn pile when I leave and keep it going all night.

The leaves have killed a lot of my grass. It's too bad they're not like maple leaves, which respond instantly to a blower and rot quickly.

I should also add that oaks attract squirrels, and squirrels are pests. This place is crawling with them, and they love fruit and vegetables, not to mention patio furniture. I shoot them for pest control, but I don't think I can make a real dent in the problem. I have considered getting a couple of independent barn cats to keep outdoors.

I didn't lose maples during the storm. I assume that's because they don't rot like oaks.

My house has a concrete foundation, and I have a termite monitoring service, but I will look into the issue of mulch near the house. I can always go behind the hedges with glyphosate.

Sorry for not responding, but Houzz isn't notifying me of follow-up comments for some reason. I'll try to find a link to the two methods of edging that I mentioned later today or tonight when I have a moment. With such a large property couldn't you compost at least some of those leaves? It may take a year, but it so helps sandy soil. I have clay here in the Ohio River Valley, but the compost they provide still helps. I just keep them in out of the way areas. A fellow in IN has a great pile surrounded by standing logs as an enclosure. It looks fantastic and it's no labor (except for the raking!) and initial cutting the trees. I do understand about trees, even nice ones when they volunteer and grow huge before one even notices them.

I don't understand your view on oaks...i love my s.w. Florida oaks... fantastic shade and the leaves make wonderful mulch. And when i lived in north florida the large oaks with their azalea surrounding their trunks screamed the South.

When i lived in north florida it was perenials aka azaleas, dog woods, magnolias, gardenias, camilias and mamosia for flowers...for sturdy no care plants look at what plants are planted in parking lots.

i love my squirrels btw. All part of the circle of life.

You would understand my point of view after burning tons of oak leaves, cutting and burning tons of fallen oaks by yourself, and watching the leaves kill your lawn.

Someone just advised me to get petunias. Said they bloom in the winter. They sound like a great choice.

"With such a large property couldn't you compost at least some of those
leaves? It may take a year, but it so helps sandy soil. I have clay here
in the Ohio River Valley, but the compost they provide still helps."

I have given up burning leaves for now. I have a cleared area where a burn pile used to be, and I am going to try piling the leaves up there and letting them rot. It will still be a gigantic job, but if it works, it will be better than getting burn permits and trying to kill stubborn leaf fires. My only concern is that lightning might set the pile on fire, and if that happens, only the fire department will be able to put it out.

Grass is over rated. Rotting leaves feed the tree, keeps them healthy.

Pea I agree with you. I live in a live oak forest with only a small open area where my veggie garden and flower beds are. Only have to mow 3-4 times a year. The leaves make a great no-care ground cover.

Maters, please take the following suggestion as it's meant…kindly not meanly. Have you ever considered moving to a condo? You wouldn t have to deal with any of these issues with tress and wildlife, which are, after all, a part of living in the south and in a house rather than apartment or condo.

Maters - JFYI, it's illegal in FL to pour any kind of petroleum product int the soil (You mentioned poisoning oaks with diesel), Our aquifers are very important and highly protected. Plus, diesel would kill off any beneficial bacteria in the ground, besides being a fire hazard. Just imagine lightning hitting the ground that's full of diesel fuel. If you're afraid of fire, you should think about that. Plus, I hope you don't have a well you drink out of. Just sayin'...

Pea, as you know, I also love oak trees. Oak trees are the symbol of my religion, so I'm especially protective of them. Grew up climbing in the ancient oaks on my grandmother's property in SC, and I just love driving down roads covered with moss-laden oaks. I cried for days after Hugo, when quite a few of the large oaks lining the road going to my grandmother's house went down. They were like old friends.

There were literally men out there with heavy equipment cutting off limbs, pulling the trunk back upright and anchoring them with heavy wires trying to save them. They managed to save quite a few. The rule is that if more than half of the rootball is out of the ground, they can't be saved, but these were so big that the tops actually lifted them up enough so the rootballs didn't come out very far. These guys did this voluntarily, all over Charleston. They also did the same in NOLA after Katrina. So other people love these stately oaks just as much as we do.

I don't blame you for wanting to get rid of any oaks near the house. During Irma we lost the only live oak on the property (it toppled completely over) and the crown landed only 10 feet from the house. If it had been 20 feet closer we would have been killed.

Since you want low maintenance but also want color, may I suggest foundation plants with colorful foliage that is hardy to your area? Then, if you want extra seasonal color you can always sink plastic pots of perennials or annuals in pre-dug holes in front of the shrubs. Then when they wear out you can pull them out and replace them with something else. I've discovered a wonderful shrub which I have supplied a link to the page, Sunshine Ligustrum, it can be kept low and it really wows the eye with bright yellow-green foliage. It would look wonderful along with some burgundy leafed Lorapetalum or Azaleas. Or some Barberry if you don't mind the thorns.

Sunshine Ligustrum

You said someone mentioned petunias. Petunias are generally annuals, which means they die eventually and will need to be replanted next winter. Regarding weeds, I have recently discovered Preen. Yes, you have to remove the existing weeds but using Preen has truly helped my extremely large beds remain fairly weed free for most of this summer. Last summer, I had to spend days weeding. This summer I could go out and pull the few weeds that came up in a matter of minutes.

" Have you ever considered moving to a condo? "

The fact that I don't want exactly what you do doesn't mean I want to move to a condo and be smothered in people. I love being able to walk outside and shoot rifles in my own yard. I hate oak leaves, but other than that, I enjoy looking after the property.

Getting rid of oaks and planting desirable trees will improve this place a great deal.

" JFYI, it's illegal in FL to pour any kind of petroleum product int the soil (You mentioned poisoning oaks with diesel)"

Don't worry. You don't pour it in the soil. You apply it to the plant or tree you want to kill. When you treat a stump with diesel, little or none makes it to the soil. Diesel isn't a problem, but I wonder about the immense amount of glyphosate I use here, with full government approval.

I probably shouldn't talk about all the CO2 I produce with the burn pile. I probably burned 30 tons of wood last year, and I have several tons waiting to go right now.

" Sunshine Ligustrum "

Thank you. I'll check that out. Right now I have a big jumble of random shrubs. I can't figure out what the previous owner was thinking.

" If it had been 20 feet closer we would have been killed."

Tell me about it. A friend of mine ended up living in a trailer after her husband went to prison for stealing from clients. She and her three young sons live on a farm that belongs to her brother, and her eccentric mother, an animal-hoarder who spent money on a headstone for a dead goose, runs the place. Mom, who is so extreme she puts out food for coons, insisted on diverting the tree service budget to cutting oaks to protect her barn full of worthless livestock, and she refused to cut the trees by the trailer. You can guess what happened. My friend and her kids were homeless for weeks, and she had to find money to buy a used trailer barely fit for animals. Thank God no one was hurt.

" Petunias are generally annuals, which means they die eventually and will need to be replanted next winter. "

I have been told they will make it here unless we have an unusually cold winter. Someone showed me a photo of petunias covered with blooms in winter. I haven't bought them yet, so there is still time to look at other options.

I will look into Preen. I've been cornering the market on mulch this week, so I haven't gotten to the planting stage.

That's entirely possible regarding the petunias. I know when I lived in Texas begonias were perennials for the most part, while here in NC they are annuals. I'm telling you, I love Preen. I wish I had known about it earlier. Good luck with your project!

I don't know if Preen will work for me. The area in front of the house where I want to put new flowers has already had a fair number of weeds pop through the mulch. I'm sure there are weed seeds under the mulch. I don't know whether that rules out Preen or not. I'll have to find out.

It would be great if petunias worked out.

I took out the vine near my electrical transformer. It may have been a Florida flame vine. Really nasty. Tries its best to spread and doesn't look very good.

Today I finished lining the area with bricks and burying it in mulch, but I can't do anything about the roots the vine threw in every direction. I hope they don't revive and come up through the mulch. I have grape vines on order. I know those will grow, since the property is already covered with wild grapes.

I think the idea behind Preen is to stop the weed seeds from germinating. No, I'm not working for Preen. I've only just used it this one season and it seems to work for me. I feel your pain...the previous owners here planted SO many invasive plants that I have been trying to eradicate for the past couple of years. They planted a blackberry bush that is throwing up shoots all over the yard...I think I will be fighting that darn plant until the day I die.

I use Preen because I have a bad back and anything that cuts down on me having to get down and pull weeds is a blessing. But it will not work on already emerged weeds. Also, if you get excessive rain it won't last as long as the label says it will, and it isn't cheap. Petunias are one of the Winter annuals for here in Florida, so are Dianthus, Pansies and Johnnie Jump-ups, also Snapdragons. Check with Lowes, they carry the Sunshine Ligustrum, also Lorapetalums. They usually don't have the red-leafed Azaleas until Spring though.

Both Ligustrum japonicum (privet) and barberries suggested above are listed invasives for most of the east coast. Invasive means that it spreads into wild areas via birds or wind and replace native plants. So I would recommend against either one.

Considering your other responsibilities, the easiest maintenance is lawn because you just mow it. If you don’t feel the urgent need for gardens, and it seems you have enough on your plate without adding gardening chores, grass probably involves the least time and skill to maintain. There are no maintenance-free gardens.

If you want flowers and healthy plants, proper bed preparation is important. The first thing to do is to get rid of all the weeds currently there. If you are comfortable with glyphosate, go for it. Get a soil test done through cooperative extension to see what if any improvements you should add to the soil. For instance, if you have some of those old oak leaves that have rotted, dig them in to add organic matter which will improve the soil texture, moisture-holding capacity, and some nutrients. Or if you have a pile of rotted bedding or manure from your animals add that. Make your beds a minimum of 5’-6’ front to back so there is actually room for plants and the garden looks proportionate to the building. Then mulch deeply (several inches) with a fine-textured mulch, tamping it down to keep light from getting to the soil surface. Use a deeply buried edging and add bricks on the inside edge to help keep grass from growing into the bed, but you may need to use grass-be-gone periodically or more glyphosate. Use Preen as directed on the box to prevent weed seeds from germinating. You will still need to check every couple of weeks and pull up any weeds that sprout to keep them from getting a foothold. And mulch will need to be added periodically to the surface since it breaks down. Preventing weeds is far easier than getting rid of established weeds.

As far as planting, few if any plants other than annuals will bloom all season. You want an overall combination of perennial plants (both shrubs and herbaceous), including some evergreens along with some annuals that need to be replaced each season (so perhaps 2-4 times annually in your area) to provide a lot of flowers. In choosing shrubs and perennials, choose some with evergreen leaves and some with colored leaves for the times when flowering isn’t happening due to adverse weather conditions. Use a range of leaf sizes for textual interest. Even in times of no flowers, you still want the garden to look nice, and there will be times with no flowers. For me, the no flower season starts now, but in youR area it may well be the hottest time of year.

Way up near the top of this thread, someone suggested getting a consultant. It need not be too expensive, and can save some potentially expensive mistakes since gardening successfully has a good learning curve. But if you don’t want to go that route, at least go to a good independent nursery with photos of the beds and ask for suggestions. Then do research, looking up the plants for the potential to be invasive, their ultimate size (tags typically give 5 year estimates), any disease issues, etc. Less variety is usually better than using one of this and one of that. Plant in sweeps or blocks of one kind of plant for more impact. You can also look around at plants that you like in gardens in your area and seem healthy. Take photos and post on the Name that Plant forum for ID. https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/namegal

Generally, my area is too different from yours for good plant recommendations, but for one plant I love that is perennial and long-blooming here, but also does well in Georgia, check out the native honeysuckle Lonicera sempervirens such as Major Wheeler. Mine blooms from May until now, though in your area, I am sure that will be different. Japanese honeysuckle are invasive and so should be avoided, but this native is very attractive to hummingbirds as well as beautiful and long-blooming. It is a vine and so will need a stout support that it can twine around, but it can be pruned when it gets larger than you want.

Having a nice colorful garden that looks good year-round takes work. Petunias are very short lived. So that's a terrible suggestion. It's probably best to just go for a walk around your neighborhood and see what thrives with abandon, maybe check out your local park, take pictures of plants you like, and look into native plants that don't require constant care.

I also don't like the look of many of the common scraggly plants I see around with just blooms at their tips but I've realized I could avoid that scraggly look by planting all those scraggly growing plants closely together so they always look full and more like a wildflower field.

Florida_Joe's, flowers always look better planted in masses. Other than specimen plants like Brugmansia (angel trumpets), I've found very few flowering plants that look good all on their lonesome.

Thanks for all that advice. I am convinced live oaks are worthless, however. They really do fall over. The stories about them resisting storms are greatly exaggerated. I've been burning fallen live oaks all year.

It's too bad the people who live in this area haven't thinned them out and planted better trees. Very poor management. If half of my oaks were pecans, I'd be sitting on a fortune in timber, and I would also have free nuts. It's a mystery to me, why people tolerate so many of these trees. I'm planning to see to it that every small oak on the property goes down. I don't know if the maples and hickories can ever catch up, though.

I'm not thrilled about the pines, either. Beetles eat them, they're ugly, and you can't even use them for firewood. Oaks and pines are great grass killers, and oaks also clog gutters.

Another weird thing I've seen here: camphor trees. Nice for shade, but otherwise useless. I found one growing by my patio enclosure, and I ripped it out. The people who sold me this place could have had peaches, persimmons, and other nice trees, but they chose an invasive weed. They even put a hedge around a camphor tree.

Throw in the three citrus trees that have to be killed because of greening and poor placement, and it's a confusing landscape scheme.

My muscadine vines have arrived, so I'm excited about that.

Laurel oak looks almost identical to live oak (especially immature trees) and there are many other species that also look similar. I have live oaks on my proprty and have been through many hurricanes as I have lived here since I was in kindergarten. I also am studying to be a systemic botanist, I'm not making a misidentification of a common tree I can assure you haha. The reports are true. It is far more likely you are misidentifying your trees than literally every botanist in the state being wrong about this tree. 90% of liveoaks survived hurricane Andrew , a major storm with intense winds that set the strict building codes in South FL, This is a long-lived coastal plain species that dominates many ecosystems in Florida for a reason. However, if you still doubt me plant some Sand live oak yourself which is marginally more wind-tolerant. :P

But yes you are right to try to remove the camphor.

Peaches can work in FL and I've worked with them here but they are often short lived (20 or so years of productiveness compared to CA where it can be double that). You say you have irrigation, put it in an irrigated but well-drained (high) area. Look for low-chill varieties also yellow peaches tend to fare better than white. Persimmon is a native tree so it can absolutely work and I've seen wild ones. Sadly they are hard to find for sale.

I rarely bother with citrus unless its the really tough Meyer's Lemon and similar varieties. too much disease sadly.

Oh and figs can be nice but with global warming making our summers hotter they perform less well/benefit from a few hours of shade in the day. Leaves look cool too. Look for dwarf humidity tolerant forms like Celeste, LSU series, and Violette de Bordeaux. Can also be grown in large pots.

Groundcover I forgot earlier is English thyme. I grow it in my large fig pots as a weed suppressing mat. It's not French cooking thyme but it's quite close and smells nice and is evergreen typically and I have not had any reseeding issues.

I am judging the oaks by their leaves, and according to the websites I've seen, they are live oaks. I compared them to other species. It may be that I have made an error. Whatever they are, I kill the small ones when I can. Whether they fall or not, nearly any hardwood is better than a Florida oak. No lumber, no nuts, no fruit, lots of destructive squirrels, tons of heavy leaves that are very difficult to move and which take days to burn, volunteer trees threatening to tear every thing up with their roots...I would almost prefer Brazilian peppers.

I don't understand why people here are obsessed with defending trees that cause so many problems, especially when there are many superior alternatives. A few live oaks on a university lawn, where grounds crews are paid to move the leaves, look nice and provide shade. Dozens of them around a house...stupid idea, as my friend with the crushed trailer could tell you.

I am an Andrew survivor, so I know all about the trees that did and didn't make it. The winds were over 160 mph near my house, which was close to the National Hurricane Center. Live oaks did well down there, but that's compared to garbage trees like banyans which have shallow roots and Australian pines which snap off halfway up. I had a nasty laurel oak in my yard, and unfortunately, it survived along with the live oaks. It used to fill the pool with leathery leaves that sank right to the bottom.

I think oaks did well down there because they grow into the oolite, although my neighbor had a big one--very typical live oak with the arched trunk--fall across the front of his house. Here there is nothing but soft, deep sand. I have some large live oaks right now that have humps under them where their roots are lifting the soil as they tilt.

This farm was all woods not too long ago, so most of the oaks grew straight up without spreading much. Only a few look nice.

I keep hearing dubious things that don't pan out with experience, so I don't automatically believe the local folklore, and I try to research things before taking advice. People tell me maples fall over, but I haven't lost a single one, on 34 acres. Not unless you count the little ones oaks fell on! They also push citrus at Lowe's and Home Depot, even though every informed person knows citrus has no future.

All the oaks here, regardless of species, are full of rot. In addition to keeling over and killing the grass with leaves, they also drop heavy limbs without warning. There is really nothing good about them. Everything they do, a hickory or maple does better, without causing problems. I have read that chestnuts will grow here. If that's true, planting an oak should be a felony. I saw a house with what appeared to be black walnut trees. I would kill to have those instead of oaks. You can eat the nuts, the leaves will cooperate with a blower, and if one falls, you get free lumber.

RE citrus, a friend gave me a Meyer lemon, against my wishes. It will develop greening soon, like the other citrus trees. I planted it in order to be nice, and now I'm waiting for it to experience dieback so I'll have an excuse to get rid of it.

I know figs will grow here, but figs are not exactly tasty. Supposedly, plums will work.

I planted my grape vines today. I think I have a good shot with those, based on the way the wild ones have taken over.

I may plant some thyme to see how it does.

I feel like Live oaks are only hurricane resistant when their center of gravity is low. That is when they're allowed to branch out low on the trunk and spread their limbs horizontally far and in all directions. Prunning to lift the canopy up higher will make their center of gravity much higher up too. That would make them much more likely to topple over in hurricane winds. In Forest settings, the intermingling of all their wide spreading limbs would further help them resist winds (almost like a net). We tend to plant them as single specimen trees however.