Fragrant garden

Q: I love fragrant plants and I want to make a fragrant garden. Your website offers amazing selection. A friend of mine told me I should be careful with planting fragrant plants next to each other, and that mix of fragrances may create a funny combination. Are there any flowers that don't go together?

A: Flower scents, unlike perfumes, are pure natural and not as intoxicating to create funny combinations. Although some of them can be strong and even overwhelming. Example - Night Blooming Jasmine, Cestrum nocturnum, which fragrance at night is super-sweet; however most people like it. Reality is, even Night Blooming Jasmine planted next to Gardenia won't create a bad mixture, although one scent may somewhat take over another. In any case, with wind blowing in your garden, you will never be disappointed with fragrant garden. Some plants, like Ylang Ylang - Cananga odorata, or Magnolia champaca, create very fine fragrance that can be smelled yards away, other flowers you will need to stick your nose into.

Check out plants for fragrant garden

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

See full list of Rare Tropicals that are great house plants.

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..."
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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).

Growing Bougainvillea and Plumeria in Florida

Q: I have recently moved from New Jersey to Florida (Orlando area) and I am so excited to start my own Tropical Paradise Garden! A few years ago I visited Hawaii and saw many beautiful colorful Bougainvilleas as well as fragrant Frangipani. Do they grow well in Florida? These are flowers of my dream!

A: Both Bougainvillea and Plumeria grow well in most parts of Florida, especially South and Southwest. Bougainvillea can tolerate some light freeze and can be seen in the streets of Central Florida (young plants require some cold protection for the first year), so it is a very good candidate for your new garden. Keep in mind that unlike in Hawaii, where they bloom year around, Bougainvilleas tend to have a distinctive flowering season which in Florida is winter time - these plants enjoy dry weather that triggers their bloom. To enjoy Bright bougainvillea flowers for a long time, apply balanced fertilizer, prune regularly (this promotes flowering on new growth) and keep established plants on a dry side. Dwarf cultivar Pixie is super compact and can be grown in pots or in a small garden without any pruning! See photo of Pixie on the left.
Plumerias, all-time perfume favorites and symbols of Hawaii, are also residents of many gardens and collections throughout state of Florida. Their cold hardiness is close to the one of Bougainvillea, however keep young plants protected from frost. There are also many new exciting cultivars including multiple "rainbow" colors, and several dwarf varieties, some of them are evergreen - Plumeria obtusa. Plumerias are very undemanding and can stay happy and blooming in a pot and without regular watering. Give them as much sun as possible, and enjoy the fragrance for many months!