The UF/IFAS Extension Bay County Pollinator Garden is the proud recipient of a Little Free Library built, stocked, and installed by the Bay County Library Foundation. We were incredibly fortunate the foundation had the perfect box designed and painted by local artist Heather Clements just waiting for the perfect place to be installed!
You might be asking yourself, how does a Little Free Library work? It’s very simple, if you want a book you take one and if you have a book to donate you leave it in the box. Our box includes books for all ages and reading levels including children’s books in English and Spanish and of course gardening and wildlife topics. As people exchange books the titles and topics will change and evolve over time.
If you are in Panama City I hope you will take a moment to pick out a book and enjoy our demonstration gardens at 2728 E. 14th Street, Panama City and visit the virtual garden for educational information about the garden inventory.
Looking for a Little Free Library near you or Interested in starting one? Visit https://littlefreelibrary.org/start/ or contact your local library to find out more information.
We are kicking off our fourth season of Gardening in the Panhandle LIVE! on February 9th and hope you will join us to learn Florida Friendly Landscaping Principles from UF/IFAS Extension Faculty from the Florida Panhandle.
There are several ways to participate in this free webinar series. Join us live on Zoom by pre-registering at the links in the table below, watch on Facebook, or check out the recorded sessions on YouTube (also embedded at bottom or page).
Cold damage on kumquat. Photo by Beth Bolles, UF IFAS Extension Escambia County.
In December, winter rolled in with extreme low temperatures that affected landscapes across Florida. Horticulture Agents have been receiving a high volume of calls asking about the long-term fate of landscape plants impacted by the cold, so the Gardening in the Panhandle team decided to offer a special episode addressing these concerns.
Gardening in the Panhandle LIVE! Special Episode Freeze Damaged Landscapes will be held on Thursday, January 12, 2023, at 12:15 p.m. CDT/1:15 p.m. EDT. We will follow our usual format where the audience can join on Zoom, Facebook, or watch a recording on YouTube. The only change is that this program will be condensed to 30-45 minutes, rather than a full hour.
Have you ever visited a public garden or a park and wondered what type of plant you were looking at? Or found the name on a sign but wondered – can I grow that at my house? How big will it get? Does it have flowers, berries, keep its leaves in the winter? We feel your pain, fellow plant lovers!
Gardens are ever evolving and providing up to date printed information on all the plants can become difficult to manage and involve a lot of wasted resources. In Bay County, we have several gardens at the Extension Office, and we try to keep everything labeled, but space on signs is limited to plant name and we want to teach gardeners how to grow not just identify plants. To expand outreach of Florida-Friendly plants, we have created a website with all the plants in our demonstration gardens.
The site is organized by garden area, common name, and botanical name to ease navigation. Each plant profile has photos at different stages, basic cultural information, and links to additional research-based information.
Whether you are visiting our gardens in person or just want information on plants that perform well in the Florida Panhandle, we hope you will check out our new site and let us know if you found it useful and how we can improve.
Pollinator hotel. J. McConnell, UFIFASGinkgo leaves. J. McConnell, UFIFASBlanket flower. J. McConnell, UFIFASAmerican beautyberry. J. McConnell, UFIFASEastern redbud. J. McConnell, UFIFASPollinator garden. J. McConnell, UFIFASMaypop flower. J. McConnell, UFIFASAutumn fern. J. McConnell, UFIFASHummingbird at red bottlebrush flower. J. McConnell, UFIFAS
The UF/IFAS Extension Northwest District Horticulture Team is excited to announce our third season of Gardening in the Panhandle LIVE! free webinars! Please plan to join us this Spring and Fall for all new episodes where we will tackle gardening issues relevant to the Florida Panhandle!
There are two ways to join the Gardening in the Panhandle LIVE! webinars:
Facebook Live – Follow us on Facebook and follow individual webinar Events.
Zoom Webinar – Pre-registration is required for Zoom. Users must have an authenticated account (free at Zoom Link). Be sure you have security settings up to date to prevent connection delays. Links to Zoom registration will be added to the topic one-two weeks before the webinar and a closed captioned recorded link to YouTube will be available approximately one week after the program. (Underlined words have active links!)
Although we do accept questions from the audience during the broadcast, we may not have time to read them on-air. If you have a great question you think other viewers need to hear, please pre-register through Zoom and submit early!
All webinars are on a Thursday at Noon CDT/ 1:00 p.m. EDT
