First of all, I am a new fig gardener. I am on Longboat Key -- the barrier island off of Sarasota. We are in residence here only seven months of the year. We head North in mid-May, and return mid-October. I started last winter, around Christmas time. I now have a grand total of five trees. I started by buying two -- a Brown Turkey and a Green Ischia. They came in as four feet tall -- and bare-rooted. I planted them on the south side of my house -- actually right next to the foundation. I soon added another store-bought into the ground, a Black Violette from Paradise Nurseries (Sybil). (I also bought two Celestes in one gallon pots, which I carried back North and stuck in the ground. We are in Princeton NJ. Hopefully they have over-wintered (carefully wrapped) and should surprise me -- or disappoint me -- on my return.) I have a Greek neighbor, who started me in this, and who gave me a couple of cuttings. (What he called a "black" and a "white.") I applied some Rootone to them, and started them in one-gallon pots, and transplanted them when the roots started to show from the pot. We returned here last July, and the Brown Turkey was very fruitful. We picked about a dozen. Well, this fall, on our return the Brown Turkey and the Violette were producing, deliciously. Now, the Brown Turkey has lost all of its leaves, and has dozens of buds. The Green Ischia is fully leafed -- and has a couple of dozen figlets. We have a dozen Violettes filling out -- they are black from the start, but still small and hard. But, my prize and joy is the Greek "White." It is fully leafed out and is putting out the most gorgeous and delicious pale green figs. Twice the size of the Brown Turkeys. It started from a twelve inch cutting, and is not double-trunked and four feet tall. The Greek "black" is healthy and growing leaves -- but that's all. My neighbor is "green with envy" while eating my "whites". His father tree is still bare -- and he swears that he has still not gotten it to fruit. They do not require a great amount of irrigation -- I try to keep the soil from baking out. Fertilizing, minimal -- but they do require liming. (Actually they are a great source of calcium.) So -- I think it is the fact that having the trees against the house -- and baking in the noon-day sun -- is the answer. They all just sat there all summer, untended except for occasional spraying by the gardeners -- irrigated only once a week. (It was a rainy summer, anyhow.) Come back to me if I can help. Be well :)

@ keraurduck For Northwest FL (zone 8ish) For tropical gardens I recommend making evergreen hedges (or a wall) on the north side, just to increase the protection from winter winds. I also recommend letting things get full and lush as that really enhances the tropical jungle sort of feel. All of the following are definitely hardy in your zone and I have personal experience with almost all of them Understory tree/large narrow shrubs: - Red Buckeye (one of my favorite natives, leaves are large and give it a tropical look+ has red flowers) - Florida Flame azalea - many bananas and relatives are hardy for zone 8 - Coral Bean Erythrina herbacea there is the native one listed or the hybrid Bidwell's Coral Bean which has a longer bloom season. bright red and unique flowers (these love sandy soil) Palms: - Cabbage palm of course - Sabal minor/Dwarf Palmetto (could function as a hedge/shrub "backbone" of a bed) - Needle palm - Butia/Pindo palm (edible golden fruit hardiest feather-type palm but silvery foliage might not match the theme) - Mule palm (hybrid of Pindo and Queen) MIGHT be hardy but I'm not sure, it is definitely the hardiest green feather palm there is Shrubs: - Winter Cassia can get tree-like but most likely a shrub for you - Hibiscus coccineus native Red swamp hibiscus - dwarf figs, various for foliage interest. 'Brown Turkey' and 'Celeste' both do well here for me - Red Florida Anise very cool plant, evergreen (not the edible star anise) - Small-flower Anise 'Florida Sunshine' another native star anise, this one has more chartreuse foliage that brightens up a shade garden (not the edible star anise) Perennials: - Coontie cycad (absolute must IMO, prefer native sandy soil I think, adaptable to a lot of different light conditions) - Red cardinal flower (needs a lot of moisture so good in a swampier spot) - Spigelia marilandica (another native shade-lover, very unique red flowers) - Salvia elegans, Pineapple sage. (edible red flowers in fall, lush and tall, benefits from some relief from sun during the day so dont put it in full exposure) - Salvia blepharophylla shorter red-colored shady sage - Salvia miniata another red-colored shorter shady sage - Cannas of course - Cuphea 'Vermillionaire', Cuphea 'David Verity', Cuphea micropetala - for ferns stick to native species as most others in cultivation are for northern zones or are invasive (like the tuberous sword fern). Christmas fern is evergreen -Hedychium coccineum (shade) Vines: - Manettia cordifolia, Firecracker vine - Red trumpet honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens a native evergreen vine. 'Magnifica' (orange) and 'Major Wheeler' are popular selections'. not aggressive - Carolina Jessamine, evergreen with very lush-looking foliage but a bit bigger than the other vines Two other plants I am unsure about for your zone but love are Firebush and Red Firespike, they might work if sheltered from north winds as I hear some people growing them in zone 8b. Lastly be careful about Elephant ears, many are very invasive. There is the clumping Hawaii series that is less invasive if you must have one. I really like 'Blue Hawaii'.

one of the great things, fawnridge, about growing roses is there are so many right ways to grow them, and, in my experience, very few wrong ways to grow them. ask 10 rose growers for their opinions on pruning, fertilizing, and disease control, you'll get 8 different answers, many of them contradictory. the one thing that no one will disagree about -- keep them well irrigated. i'll tell you a quick anecdote: i planted a bunch of roses at my mom's place a few years ago, then set up a drip-hose irrigation system (i don't like them any more, but i used them then) on a timer. i went out of town for a month, and when i came back, i walked into her back yard and immediately noticed that the roses were dead, or nearly so. except one, a knockout on fortuniana. it had grown THREE FEET in the time i had been gone. it was crazy-covered with blooms. i checked, and the soaker hose that was meant to water 10 roses had broken right under this knockout. so, for a period of at least a couple weeks, this rose was getting about an hour of water straight from the end of a hose, three times a week. i don't know how much water that translates into, but a LOT. the roses that had been just planted, on the other hand, were subjected to our very dry may-june conditions. believe or not, every one of them survived, but it took all summer for them to recover completely. so, i drew two lessons from this: 1) you cannot overwater a rose; 2) roses are VERY tough. about pruning, there are many competing theories. many sources tell you to never cut back more than 1/3 of the rose. that's nonsense -- depending on the rose, some roses thrive on being severely pruned (my teas do). other roses, esp. hybrid musks and climbers, should never be pruned, aside from nips and tucks to keep them in bounds. i have enough roses now that i choose to prune them throughout the year. pruning always encourages new growth, and rosa always terminate new growth in buds. i am myself loathe to prune them much in late winter (tho many people do), because you lose the blooms that come at the very beginning of spring, and these blooms are of VERY high quality. you might get more blooms later in the spring by heavy pruning in late winter, but they won't be as nice. a rule of thumb -- the longer it takes a rose to go from bud to blown, the nicer and larger the bloom will be. you can see here how the rules are fluid and your practices will produce certain results, while other practices produce other results that are neither better nor worse, just different. roses are my favorite flower in the garden because they respond so clearly to care.

Welcome to Garden Web, Maja! I live in NC, so can't really help you with your Florida-specific questions. However, I would suggest that you choose a zone from the link below to put after your user name (edit your member page) and put FL as well. Then people can see at a glance where you are gardening. http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/hzm-se1.html Also, there is a Florida forum which seems to be pretty active. You might get a quicker response if you post there. I've posted the link below. Your property sounds wonderful! Good luck and have fun with the landscaping. Carolinakate Here is a link that might be useful: Gardening in Florida