The Basics

Gardening in Florida is different from gardening in most parts of the country, and gardening in west central coastal Florida is different from gardening in north or south Florida. We hover in a tricky zone, not quite sub-tropical, not quite southern temperate, with a variety of microclimates. Visitors expecting all palm trees and hibiscus are surprised when they venture down country lanes to find pine forests and oak hammocks amid the orange groves and cypress in vanishing wetlands.

Here in Pasco county, coastal gardeners enjoy the temperature buffer offered by the ocean, but contend with salt, and sand. Inland soils may be acidic, and sudden freezes send us scurrying to the linen closet for every spare blanket to protect our tender plants. Yet it rarely gets cold enough to offer us more than a brief respite from the weeds, insects and disease that die back in northern climates.

We have more than our share of insects not just in quantity, either. We have more different types, and more coming in every day. Two new arrivals moving up from South Florida are pink hibiscus mealybug and lobate lace scale. Even our critters are different. Armadillos and gators join the regular crew of four legged pests that appear across the nation--deer, raccoons, opossums.

Pasco County is hovering in an awkward zone between its rural agricultural past, and the present where development is sprawling east from the coast, and booming up from the south and Tampa. This affects gardeners

County at the Master Gardener sub-domain. But here are a few tips to get you started.

Consider your location--will you have to contend with salt, or perhaps muck soils? A lot depends on where you're located in the county. Know your soil; this too changes across the county. Get your soil tested before planting or test it yourself with an inexpensive test kit from a local garden center like Home Depot or Lowe's. If you don't have trees plant them; even sunloving plants benefit from some sun protection especially at high noon in our Florida summers. If you have too much shade, do some trimming to open the canopy to light and air. Use mulch to conserve moisture particularly during our periodic cycles of drought.

Read the material on the Articles page for more in-depth information on these and other issues. There will be more at each update.

both because we're having to deal with chronic water shortages, and because we need to learn new methods of gardening that reduce our impact on the environment. We have a new county ordinance directing that developers putting in new landscapes use 30% native plants over the next couple of years. And when we don't have enough water, we have too much--Pasco gardeners have to learn how to cope with seasonal flooding exacerbated by changes in drainage caused by development.

There is a wealth of information about actual gardening under these challenges by real gardeners succeeding (or not) right here in Pasco