Plants that make you feel better

Researchers are claiming that gardening can be much more than just a hobby, and that honing those green-finger skills could actually have many benefits, including making us healthier! The presence of plants has been found to be helpful in many different settings, according to results of several experimental studies:

At school and work:
1. Improve your learning abilities
2. Improve reaction times, attentiveness, and attendance
3. Increase energy and your performance, purpose and motivation
4. Raise productivity and job satisfaction

At home
1. Relax and feel closer to nature while indoors
2. Make you feel needed
3. Have a clean air
4. Improve relationships and increase compassion.

In recovery:
1. Lower blood pressure (systolic)
2. Improve well-being
3. Lower levels of anxiety during recovery from surgery
4. Accelerate healing process

Get a plant, feel better, be needed and loved!

Winter Flowering Plants

Take advantage of the late season tropicals! Brighten up your winters with spectacular flowers and winter producing fruit trees!

Many Floridians move up North during hot summer months, our snow-bird season usually starts late September and ends by Mother's Day in May. Many of our local seasonal customers planting those flowering and fruiting species that they can fully enjoy while staying in Florida. Below you will find a few specials that are in bloom right now.
Check out full list of winter bloomers and late season plants, and download a PDF chart of the most interesting tropical plants that will flower and fruit for you in Fall, Winter and early Spring. Some of them are ever-blooming, others are late- or early season.
Visit our Garden Center in Ft Myers FL and see those blooming specials right now at our front office display!

Florida winters and gardening

From Anna Banana, our Garden Center customer advisor.
Cool weather - no sweat. Here in Florida we are blessed to have warm winters. We just went to the beach for Christmas! Winter time is not only a good beach time, but also the best planting time here. Why? I always refer my customers to Murray Corman's article Tropical Planting Breaks the Rules. "...Wintertime does not just mean hard work for tropical gardeners. It is also a time to enjoy the fruits of our labor. Winter-blooming plants and the visitors they attract - birds, bats and butterflies - make the garden as enjoyable in winter as any other time of year. Tasks performed during the spring and summer up north have to be done during the fall and winter here. Why? The answer is elementary: It's too hot! Taking advantage of the coolest months of the subtropical year for heavy chores like planting trees has a twofold benefit: The gardener can make hay while the sun shines without getting heat stroke and the plants appreciate the moderate temperatures, enjoying a break from the stress of 93 degrees in the shade..."
Continue reading...

Winter flowering plants - are a blessing for a tropical gardener. See below what's blooming now! See our recommendations for winter flowering and fruiting plants (PDF).