Thanks all for your suggestions! We're going for tropical in the front yard, so will probably settle on queens for the center bed since they're one of the only ones that held up to this past winter. Below is the bed from a side angle, I'll get a better photo this weekend. And below is a doodle for plants I'm thinking about. Ignore the orphaned yucca on the bottom, he should be up with the other 2. Any suggestions for this bed? The robellini is planted and doing fine, now we just need to add some plants around it before we get the edging and gravel (pea gravel the shade of sand). I LOVE the daisy bush (Gamolepis chrysanthemoides) and have wanted to plant one for a while, and they stay green throughout the year when they're not flowering. The yucca is ok, it's hardy and green (maybe look for soft leaf yucca). I'm open to suggestions! I think we need more color. I was looking for the name of the plant I know as Thai Plant, it's thin stalks aboud 3 ft high to start and has reddish pinkish broad leaves. Anyone? I think we'll add a small coquina or two to this bed too. So suggestions are appreciated, also, has anyone dealt with pea gravel instead of mulch? We're just tired of the fading and replacing the mulch several times a year, so we're really leaning toward gravel. I know it's more expensive up front, but less work in the long run? Remember, I'm a newbie to gardening! :)

I'm in Lakeland and most of mine are in pots. I have a couple of plants I bought from a guy in North Lakeland. He has his trees in the ground and they are fairly tall even though they froze to the ground last year. He also sells frozen figs by the gallon ziplock bag. (I haven't figured out what to do with them but they are great frozen - kind of like popsicles.) My 2 brown turkey never really went dormant last year even though I never covered them and we have frost quite a few times. (The pots were near the house). This year I planted a couple next to the house to see how they do. The Lowe's on Lakeland Highlands road near the Polk Parkway had brown turkey and magnolia figs about 10 days ago for $4.25.

I know it can seem as overwhelming that people are almost chanting, "No rubber mulch, no rubber mulch", but please try to understand that there are reasons for this. People who aren't 'in the know' think that aesthetically-speaking rubber mulch is the way to go, but mulch is supposed to do a number of things. For one, it helps trap moisture around the roots of plants and prevents evaporation. It also normalizes the soil temperature, which puts less stress on the plants. The mulch brings a sense of cohesion to the entire bed. And the mulch also feeds the soil, breaking down over time, which, again, helps with moisture control. Finally, mulch helps to suppress weeds. Rubber mulch does some of these things, but I do not believe it is as effective at temperature control as the rubber can get quite warm itself (could be wrong) and it absolutely doesn't feed the soil. It will have to be replaced just like the organic mulches. Whereas the organic mulches pretty much just need a new layer each spring, the rubber mulch needs to be raked back, disposed of and then completely replaced. So really you are just replacing one inconvenience for another and unlike the organic mulches, the rubber mulch doesn't go on to do anything beneficial. While both rubber and organic mulches suppress weeds, the organic mulches have a slight edge here as there are many weeds that thrive in poor soil. An organic mulch will improve the structure and nutrient content of the soil, making some weeds less likely to thrive and all weeds are easier to pull. As others have mentioned, rubber also has a tendency to float or move during our summer storms. I find that large pine bark, like the type the builder used here, also tends to move about and escape the beds. I personally have had better luck with smaller pine nuggets or, even better, shredded wood. My hands-down favorite purchasable mulch is Florimulch. Florimulch is made from Melaleuca trees (a weedy invasive tree from Australia that Florida has been trying to remove from the Everglades), has a very nice golden color that doesn't fade all that quickly, lasts for a good long time (even on my paths that I walk on frequently) and is, so far, the cheapest of the bagged mulches.

Yes, I understand that the immediate intention for the play area is not to install a play set. But it's coming eventually and do you want the planting scheme to do dual duty by working now and also be ready for the future without any major alterations? Or do you want to subject yourself to the possibility of making a lot of changes when a play set is installed? A year is NOT a long time. As the play area develops, it is divided from the planting area with a bed line. The bed line is something to be figured out now, on the plan (as information about the play set/area becomes known.) The bed line divides places where people could possibly walk ("floors": lawn, low groundcover, mulch-only) from places where they couldn't ("walls" & "furniture": shrubs, perennials and tall groundcovers.) Trees ("ceilings") could be located in either areas Another possibility with the pitts is to cut them down and do a total rejuvenation -- where you control/shape their re-growth (which will happen very quickly since they already have developed root systems) -- and trim them so as NOT to reach way out into the yard. Let them grow as a much narrower hedge which is later trimmed into tree forms and reaches and screens above the fence. Based on some of the prior discussion, I'm going to speculate that one potential problem that could come up is not devoting enough depth to the planting beds (that are likely to surround most of the yard.) In general terms, this bed(s) ought to be allowed 6' depth as an average minimum. There are usually instances where it can easily be deeper, and possibly some instances where it can be shrunk to 4' when sacrifices must be made. Plants require space and trying to maintain a bed that is too skinny/shallow is not only difficult & more demanding of maintenance, but it doesn't look very good either. That's something to be mindful of.