One book that I have been enjoying is called Gardening and Landscaping in Central Florida by Marlys Bell. It does not tackle the Tropical look specifically, but illustrates all the issues that living in zone 9a/b has to take into consideration. Throughout the book it gives suggestions for what types of plants to put in for what kind of situation and goal. "If you want green and lush through out the year, try these..." type of suggestions. It also doesn't cover some of the more exotic types of plants that might be used, but more covers the ones that you "plant and forget" as the book tries to follow the Florida Friendly concepts of "Right Plant, Right Place", "Water Efficiently", "Mulching", "Appropriate Fertilization", "Responsible Pest Management", "Recycling", "Reducing Storm Runoff" and "Protecting the Waterways". I don't think this book by itself will help you to achieve that Tropical Look, but it can definitely help you to make sure landscape works instead of having to be replaced a few years down the road. Another book to look into is free over the internet and has lots of good information about Landscaping in Florida. The Florida-Friendly Guide to Plant Selection and Landscape Design (for some reason the Update Message button keeps adding a space at the end of this link and breaking it. If/when you follow this link, check the address bar and remove the spaces from between the d and f in pdf) was put out by the University of Florida and is chocked full of good information. And at the end of this pdf is a rather large illustrated list of plants to consider for use. But you have to read over this list with care as it covers all plants for all of Florida, so a beautiful, tropical looking palm might turn out to be Zone 11 recommended. I like this book so much that I downloaded it to my computer so that I always have it on hand instead of having to find an internet connection and to check online. If the above link takes you directly to the PDF file instead of giving you the option to download it, you can right-click the link and choose "Save Target Link as..." to save it to your computer. Those are the only two books that I have to suggest, as they are pretty much the only books I have so far (well, I also have Florida's Best Native Landscape Plants but this will definitely NOT help you to achieve the Tropical look... well... it could... but not to the extent that I think you're looking for.). But these two are so full of information to take into consideration that I wish I had found them when I first started working with my yard. Edit: And now that the caffeine has penetrated my system a little more and my eyes are a tad bit more open... I realize you never really said you wanted the Tropical Look... just you wanted a book about Tropical Gardening... Oops. This post was edited by Leekle2ManE on Sun, Apr 14, 13 at 7:52

hey Al, the mangos would need winter protection. The condo mangos, sugar apples, and carambolas can be grown in pots and brought indoors, or at least moved to a covered area. Warning, if you do the large potted tree thing, in a few years you will start looking into a greenhouse. So far, I have not tried a feioja that I like (I've had smooth skinned and bumpy). Tropical guavas on the other hand can be quite good. If you like sweetish fruit, strongly consider planting a white sapote in the ground. Possibly you could find some fruit at a farmers market to try first. Seedlings grow fairly fast, you could then graft over to a known flavor later. Make sure to keep one branch of your seedling to try the fruit, just in case it is cultivar of the future. You could also just buy a ready grafted variety to make things easier and achieve fruit faster. Jaboticaba would also make a great conversation piece for your yard. -Ethan

I vote for horseherb, has pretty yellow flowers, ground hugging growth pattern. I treat it as a weed and it is easy to pull when soil is soft. But you must keep a watchful eye as a tiny bit of leftover root will regrow.

if you bought a bargain bag at bigbox ... just treat them as annuals.. and be done with them in fall ... and dont even bother with winter storage ... the peeps who get into winter storage of things.. are usually the hardcore collectors ... whose bulbs are valuable .. and their passion high .. two thumbs up for them.. but for the rest of us.. whatever .. lol .. up here in my ground freeze MI ... they are basically sold as annuals .. hence my opinion ... ken