As a child, our front yard was bordered by Surinam Cherries...The only thing with them is that they DO get wormy if not treated, but make the most amazing jellies! I'm also a huge fan of figs. I do have a Loquat tree that I LOVE! I've learned (on here) that they can be pruned not only to allow sun through (I have pineapples growing around mine) but you can do the "bonsai" thing with them as well. I also love my dwarf bananas. I chose RajaPuri because of the compact size. I started with one sick little plant that someone at ACE hardware was throwing out...he said it was dead. Well, no it wasn't, but it WAS almost dead...waterlogged. Six months later, I now have 9 banana trees! I'm really glad to hear about the nuts that grow here. I used to have pecans in Lake Wales, but they never fruited heavily and the goats got most of the ones we could reach anyway! One should always have a citrus tree. They're fantastic for more than just fruit. I keep a pineapple orange (my favorite) and a Meyer Lemon (dwarf) that does beautifully. I also use the rinds as a disinfectant (I use everything for everything, lol) in my kennel, as well as a deodorizer! One thing about figs: They're pollinated by wasps, so if anyone grows them, cut them in half before biting into them...or you'll never eat another one! Just like Surinams, figs are used by the pollinator to lay their eggs.

Something that helps me is to have a backbone of plants that get aphids but are not adversely affected by them. That way you have a constant "backlog" of predatory bugs ready to pounce when other things get infected. In my yard this is the attractive ever-blooming FL native firebush shrub which hosts a lot of lacewings and ladybugs, I have never seen the specific aphid species that likes it move to my veggies but this might be chance. Also I have tons and tons of predatory and parasitic wasps that are brought in by my many pollinator-friendly flowers. Flowers good for this in FL are: Lantana (VERY easy to root via cuttings, I do it without hormone in about a week) Porterweed (do not grow in South FL if u do not have native species) Butterfly bush (fragrant and easy. I prefer large old-fashioned ones like Black Knight and White Profusion because they choke out weeds/fend for themselves) Blanketflower Zinnia (cheap and easy to grow from seed, you probably are familiar with them. My favorite is the heirloom 'Envy'.) Gaura (long-lived perennial native to Southern USA. interesting flower shapes) Pentas (tolerates more shade than others on this list, available basically everywhere in FL for a reason) All of those have very long bloom times (porterweed and lantana are ever blooming if there's no frost). Winter cassia, Chaste tree, Purple coneflower, Flatwoods plum are also great but their bloom times aren't quite as long. You might also want to experiment with "sacrificial plants". I've only had lubbers once but they only ate my sweet potato vine (grows like a weed so I don't care) and my zinnias, perhaps they prefer them over the others? Might be worth testing. But that's just me/my view. I don't like spraying and also I don't have the time to spray, I work and go to college. I'll let the bugs eat each other instead LOL Other than that raised beds definitely helped when I grew tomatoes. Peppers in my experience are basically pest-free, they're just heavy feeders is all. Also they perform best in protected/partial sun for me. Epsom salt is good against slugs if those become a problem after heavy rain. It's literally magnesium so it doesn't hurt plants and personally my FL soil is deficient in the mineral so plants appreciate it. My last tip: don't bother growing squash. Hope that helps and best of luck

I wonder if this is Richardia brasiliensis (stems densely hairy toward the base) or R. scabra (stems modestly hairy or glabrous toward the base). Richardia does have flowers with 4-6 lobes. Similar genera, such as Diodia, Diodella, Mitracarpus, and Spermacoce have flowers with 4 lobes.

Pristine lawns are pretty. They give your eyes a rest between garden beds and hardscapes. Kids can play on them. They help prevent soil erosion and create fire barriers. OK, now I'm trying to think what else is good about pristine lawns. To me, pristine lawns are a throwback to the rich landowners who grazed sheep and cattle on them. I'm not saying that people shouldn't have lawns but I think that in this day where so many are so concerned about the environment, using chemicals and water resources, and promoting biodiversity, why do we keep insisting on trying to have these vast expensive lawns and just be happy with whatever grass will grow there? Florida is a very difficult place to have a lawn. It's not like other areas. What works in another place won't work here. We live in a rural part of the county where no-one does anything with landscapes or lawns - they are too busy farming or ranching. But when we built this house we were forced to install a minimum square footage of sod which was very expensive, took enormous amounts of water to get started, and was very expensive and labor intensive to maintain until we finally just started relaxing and saying this is ridiculous. No-one out here cares what our lawn looks like. So now it has weeds in it and bugs in it and sometimes fungus spots in it. In the Summer when it all gets mowed it looks green and unless someone comes on our property and gets close, it looks pristine, too. Yes, I do know that there are deed restricted neighborhoods that require the pristine lawns and I am so glad we don't have to put up with that.