Mostly Palms here

[Dave-Vero]

Redant has a good Florida attitude.  South of Gainesville, the native vegetation (and your plantings) are usually in some stage of recovery from the last disturbance.  For the natives, that is likely to include the last fire.  For the cultivated stuff, freezes, hurricanes, and droughts (for some reason irrigation water never makes the plants as happy as rain).  Deluges have a quality all their own.  So you hedge your bets so something will survive, regardless.

Practical rules here seem to be:

1.  Native canopy!  Live oaks, Magnolia grandiflora (they're actually native to mid-peninsula), possibly gumbo-limbo (Bursera simaruba,  and certainly tropicals as you get into the Palm Beach area.  Canopy provides some frost and radiational freeze protection.  If a hurricane is bad enough, the canopy will be shredded (just like in Queensland), but for the most part, canopy helps protect your house.  In Miami, Fairchild Tropical Garden was at the edge of Andrew's worst damage.  The garden's canopy came back nicely.  

2.  Smaller trees and shrubbery.  Look first at natives.  The Morikami Japanese garden is big on natives.  I think they're on to something.  Myrcianthes (stopper), hollies, fruit trees (Mango, avocado, jaboticaba, etc.)

3.  Things that can freeze to the ground.  Heliconias and gingers, among others.

4.  Permanent cycads.  Plenty of choices.  Coonties are cute.

5.  Ground-dwelling bromeliads are superb groundcover and surprisingly cold hardy

6.  Figure out where to put some nice Acoelorraphe wrightii, Sabal minor, Coccothrinax, Thrinax, Roystonea, Cuban species, other Antillean and Bahaman palms, and some bombproof ones like Rhapis.

7.  Other palms likely to be hardy, or at least worth having until the next horrific freeze.  I'm growing a little Archontophoenix-Carpentaria stand with a Dypsis decaryi posted where it should end up in a good relation with the new live oak.  Now to figure out where Copernicia alba and C. berteroana will go.  I'm impressed that adventurous planting in West Melbourne, Florida--a bit inland and certainly freeze-prone--after the devastation of 1989 proved to work very well.  The yard I'm thinking of might get ruined any time now, but it's even survived moderate hurricane winds nicely.

Phew.  Too much post.  Too lazy to prune it.

[chris.oz]

(Dypsisdean @ Jan. 01 2007,21:28)

QUOTE

In the most simple sense, a plot of land is to a gardener, what a canvas is to a painter. Painters can and have created beauty as Impressionists, Cubists, Surrealists, or even Cartoonists. They can create in the abstract or as a realist, with water colors, oils, with crayons or just a pencil for that matter.

There are Japanese gardens, Victorian gardens, Cottage gardens, Formal gardens, Rose gardens, and Palm gardens. There are xeriscaped gardens, water gardens, and even rock gardens for heaven's sake.

IMO, you should decide for whom you are gardening. Is it for others or for yourself? Because what everyone else may find incredibly pleasing, may do nothing for you. I have seen $10,000,000 paintings that I wouldn't want hanging on my wall.

As a landscaper you should be gardening for others. In your own garden, you should be gardening for yourself.

Dean,

That pretty well sums it up Dean,   but seems as though there might be 2 other categories:  Dicot Gardens and Monocot gardens and these represent the ends of the spectrum in the context of this thread.

When you consider that huge numbers of desirable tropical  species are monocots,  need I say, palms, bromeliads,  heliconias, dracaenas and cordylines,  agaves,  bananas,  bamboos, etc etc  with wonderful diversity of form and color it would be possible to plant a garden that had not one dicot ,  and still have very tall trees in it, and was at least as colorful as a dicot dominated garden.

[redant]

"I'd agree with you that pines and palms look odd together"

Wow, strange thought as they seem to complement each other so well in my yard. The very large old pines provide such nice filtered light for palms it's as though they where made for each other.

[BobbyinNY]

I'd agree with you that pines and palms look odd together, but nature has done that in some places herself!  Have you been to the Florida Keys?  I believe you've said you have....areas there like Deer Key have many pines and palms mixed together, and I'll never forget how odd I thought they were, complete with their miniature deer mascots

Yeah, Kathy... that's true... Been to the keys more times than I can remember.... some of them not to sober...lol..... But, yes, there are alot of pines in Big Pine Key...however, they don't look the same as the towering pines that we have here in NY or in like Vermont..... They seem to fit in with the tropical ambiance there..

[Dave-Vero]

Big Pine Key is very much like parts of the Bahamas.  Rainfall on Big Pine is low, so things grow slower than in mainland pinelands.  The little palms (especially Coccothrinax argentata) are utterly typical of the Keys habitat.  

http://www.plantapalm.com/centralfl/NewsNativePalms.asp

[mnorell]

Despite the controversy on this topic, perhaps everyone would agree that it would be an excellent mind-stretching exercise for anyone interested in landscape design--whether professional, semi-professional, student or amateur (and that's certainly not a dirty word, since it would be nice if most professionals were also amateurs of what they do for $$$)--to design a landscape using only palms. Finding the appropriate sizes, shapes and colors of overall plant, individual stem and leaf, etc. would be a real challenge and something that I think could be done effectively for a variety of situations. It would of course be easier and perhaps more realistic to permit using any monocots...this would add in liliaceous plants, grasses/bamboos, gingers, aroids, the arborescent aloes/dracenas, bromeliads, and much more, for added variety.

While the results may not be to everybody's taste, we might be surprised what we all could come up with. Some of those paint-by-numbers landscapers and landscape architects could use the exercise...most of today's landscape architects have little horticultural knowledge outside of a few plant i.d. classes in college, and have sadly fallen into an obsession with hardscape, forgetting or perhaps just not realizing that nature's creations can outdo just about any concrete slab or building element!

[John Case]

(Dave-Vero @ Dec. 31 2006,19:07)

QUOTE

John,

It's even worse in Florida with respect to plant materials and design.   Most landscapes are pretty dismal assemblages of cheap mass-produced stuff.  Even in horribly expensive neighborhoods.  

If you know who to contact, there's remarkable landscape practitioners, from beach vegetation restorer Rob Barron to some wonderful native design specialists (eg Bill Bissett in central Fla).  And if you hunt around, an incredible garden flora is available.  Searle Brothers are remarkable, but there's expert nurseries for fruits, cycads, roses (!), orchids, bromeliads, heliconias, and even caladiums--they're a Lake Placid specialty.  

I think Pacific Northwest gardeners are spoiled by the region's plant mania.  I think you could actually get the materials for a Japanese garden in Portland!  Portlanders can certainly find outstanding garden consultants.

Dave,

I think we have a disadvantage as people whio have an idea of what we want in our backyard landscapes.

After talking with a lot of folks in my city, most want a low maintenance yard that can be kept up to date by their yard maintenance guy who comes by once a  week to mow the lawn and pull the weeds.

We may be making a mountain out of a molehill here. Let me pose a question. If your yard had a specific microclimate that accommodated a particularly rare and beautiful palm (something that few people could grow in their yards), would you dedicate yourself to that particular species? (I would).

I think that many of us, who have an appreciation for palms (or in other forums, an appreciation for Aroids, or other plant families), would work very hard to keep rare species alive and thriving.

The average homeowner want something attractive aand easy to maintain, therefore the 'commercial' landscape is hat they want.

To reiterate, my neighborhood is overrun with Queen Palms. They are easy to grow, as of recent, they are cheap (a 1 gallon pot is not under $15 each), they grow fast, and provide a tropical look in the summer.

They have replaced the Sago Palm as the most planted tree/shrub in my area.

This will change again as the next plant fad hits (and I have no idea what it is).

Sorry for the ramble, biut the point is that thos of us who have a real interest in palms are looking through a very narrow spyglass. We have interest in the culture of palms and are interested in the peculiarities of each species, trying to find a way to grow one that may not succeed in our geography.

Most folks do not have our level of interest, expertise, or passion. And that's OK.

Enough of this prattle, what do all of you have to say?

Thanks,

John Case