by Gary Knox | Nov 25, 2014
View of the Discovery Garden in Gardens of the Big Bend.
Weeping false butterflybush, Rostrinucula dependens, is a new and unusual perennial being evaluated in Gardens of the Big Bend.
Gardens of the Big Bend is a new botanical and teaching garden located on the grounds of the University of Florida/IFAS North Florida Research and Education Center in Quincy. The goals of these gardens are to evaluate new plants, promote garden plants adapted to the region, demonstrate environmentally sound principles of landscaping and provide a beautiful and educational environment for students, visitors, gardeners and Green Industry professionals.Located just 10 miles south of the Georgia-Florida border in Florida’s “Big Bend,” the Gardens are in USDA Cold Hardiness Zone 8b and have sandy-clay soils more typical of continental conditions than those of peninsular Florida.
Gardens of the Big Bend is a series of gardens, each with a theme or plant focus:
- The Discovery Garden contains over 170 species or cultivars of new, improved or underutilized trees, shrubs and perennials. The garden’s purpose is to help gardeners, landscapers and nursery growers “discover” new plants.
- The Magnolia Garden is part of the National Collection of Magnolia in recognition of its’ more than 200 species and cultivars, including some of the rarest magnolias in the world.
- The Crapemyrtle Garden includes six species and over 100 cultivars.
- Conifers can be found throughout the Gardens but are featured in the new “Jurassic” garden. More than just pines and junipers, the Gardens contain over 50 conifer species and cultivars, many of which are rare. In recognition, the American Conifer Society has designated the Gardens as a “Conifer Reference Garden”, the only one in Florida, and the southernmost in the U.S.
- The Dry Garden is the newest addition and contains about 140 different types of agave, aloe, cactus, dyckia, sedum, yucca, bulbs and other dry-adapted plants. It consists of a south-facing berm of boulders, gravel and sand about 160 feet long, 35 feet wide and 6 feet tall.
- Other gardens feature native, shade, Southern heritage, and weeping plants as well as collections of Japanese hydrangea and shrub roses. Additional gardens will be installed as time and funding permit.
Parana pine, Araucaria angustifolia, is a rare type of conifer in the Gardens.
Gardens of the Big Bend formally began in 2008 thanks to the happy marriage of a new volunteer organization coupled with this University of Florida off-campus facility and plant collections I developed as part of research and extension projects. The volunteer organization, Gardening Friends of the Big Bend, Inc., formed in 2007 to support horticulture research and education. This group quickly seized on the idea of transplanting these existing plant collections into a series of gardens. Accordingly, its members hold fundraisers, provide volunteer labor and sponsor extension programs to raise awareness, provide funds and support garden development and maintenance.
Gardens of the Big Bend is located in Quincy at I-10 Exit 181, just 1/8 mile north on Pat Thomas Highway (SR 267). The gardens are free and open to the public during daylight hours year-round; professional staff are only available during normal business hours. To make a gift to the Gardens, please go to this website! Come visit us and watch the Gardens grow!
by Mary Salinas | Oct 21, 2014
This autumn you may notice shrubs with long, arching branches sporting clusters of shiny purple berries. That beautiful sight is the Beautyberry, or Callicarpa americana. This native is found throughout Florida and the southern United States, west into Texas and north to Tennessee and Virginia.
Beautyberry in the fall. Photo credit: Mary Derrick, UF IFAS Extension.
In the spring, lavender flowers adorn the branches and are a favorite of bees. The flowers eventually give way to the shiny purple berries in the fall. Birds find the berries very attractive and will feast on them when found. Mockingbirds and cardinals are especially fond of them. If you plant this shrub for the birds, one or two plants will provide more than enough of the berries to satisfy their appetites.
Beautyberry is adaptable to a wide variety of soils and moisture. After it gets established it is drought tolerant, however it can also do well in a moist area. A spot in your garden that gets partial sun is a perfect location. Plants in too much sun sometimes get a bit yellow and those in too much shade get leggy and don’t set as much fruit. Beautyberry is deciduous, meaning that it will lose all its leaves in the winter. Therefore, you may want to place it in an area of your yard where it won’t be a focal point in the winter.
This lovely plant is usually readily available at independent nurseries. If you prefer to grow your own, beautyberry is easy to propagate and grows rapidly. Snip off an approximate 6-inch piece from the end of a stem; the cut piece should have 5 sets of leaves. Snip off the bottom 2 sets of leaves – this part of the stem will be in the soil and roots will emerge from where the leaves were removed. Also snip off the top of the stem to include the top set of leaves. Your cutting will end up with only 2 sets of leaves. Immediately put the cutting in a good potting soil, making sure that the lower part of the stem where the 2 sets of leaves were removed is below the soil line. Keep the soil moist as the cutting develops a good root system.
You and the birds will enjoy this lovely shrub for years to come!
by Julie McConnell | Oct 7, 2014
Flowers on Sweet Olive. Photo credit: Julie McConnell, UF/IFAS Extension
Sweet Olive Osmanthus fragrans is a versatile evergreen that produces fragrant flowers from the fall through the winter months. This upright-growing large shrub or small tree has medium green leaves and small white flowers that form in the leaf axils. The tiny flowers are not very showy, but have a light lemony fragrance that will have you searching for the source.
Sweet Olive is not a fast grower but will need space in the garden to reach maturity (15-20 feet tall x 10-15 feet wide). It makes an ideal privacy screen for outdoor living spaces where you can enjoy the flower scents while temperatures are cool.
Sweet Olive will grow in sun or shade, although the foliage is less dense in heavily shaded spots. It performs well in all soil types as long as they are well-drained and once established tolerate drought conditions. Sweet Olive is cold tolerant to zone 7b and has few pests. Although it is in the same family as olives, the fruit is not edible or showy.
To read more about Sweet Olive visit http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/ST/ST42500.pdf
by Eddie Powell | Sep 9, 2014
Throughout the year I get calls asking about this mossy-like stuff growing on the bark of trees. For the most part, the calls are in the spring time when people have come out of winter hibernation and see their landscape plants covered with this alien figure. I am here to say that it is not an alien figure, though it may look like it is. These are lichens.
Photo Credit: Eddie Powell
Lichens often get mistaken for some unusual fungus that is killing trees. However, lichens are not single organisms, but rather a combination of two organisms that live together in a mutually beneficial way. There are over 20,000 different types of lichens found in nature. Lichens consist of a fungus and an algae; the fungus is more dependent upon its algae partner which produces enough food for both to survive. Lichens are very different from plants in that they can survive a complete body water loss. During this time, brittle pieces that flake off can later grow into new lichens. When moisture becomes available again, the lichen absorbs water and returns to its fleshy form.
The lichens growing on trees and shrubs are not parasites and do not harm the plants in any way. The lichens use the landscapes as a structure to become established.
There are four different forms of lichens found, crustose (crust-like, growing tight against the substrate), squamulose (tightly clustered and slightly flattened pebble-like units), foliose (leaf like, with flat sheets of tissue not tightly bound), and fruticose (free-standing branching tubes). Colors range from white to gray, green, red, yellow, and black. Lichens commonly found in our area are in the crustose, foliose, or fruticose form, and are white, gray, or gray-green in color.
Because lichens produce chemicals, they have very few natural predators. However, the most serious threat to lichens is air pollution. Most lichens will not grow in a polluted atmosphere and therefore you should be glad to see lichen here or there in your yard, as this is an indication that the air is relatively clean.
by Gary Knox | Aug 19, 2014
A new IPM guide is making it easier to grow five common southeastern shrubs. Growing five southeastern shrubs is now easier thanks to a free, new IPM resource from the Southern Nursery IPM Working Group.
IPM for Shrubs in Southeastern U.S. Nursery Production is a compilation of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) information for five major shrubs in nursery crop production in the southeast. This 175 page book covers sustainable management for insects, mites, diseases, and weeds for these shrubs, as well as nursery production information. This IPM resource was developed for nursery growers although professional landscape managers and collectors of these plants also will find the information valuable.
Individual chapters cover abelia (Abelia spp.), camellia (Camellia spp.), shrub rose (Rosa spp.), blueberry (Vaccinium spp.) and viburnum (Viburnum spp.). Each chapter provides comprehensive information on the species, primary cultivars and their nursery production. Major pests, diseases, weeds and abiotic disorders are presented for each genus along with sustainable management methods and tables listing labeled pesticides and fungicides by mode of action and site. An additional chapter discusses weed management in shrub production. Future volumes covering additional shrubs are anticipated.
Edited by Clemson University’s Sarah A. White and University of Tennessee’s William E. Klingeman, this free guide was developed by the Southern Nursery IPM Working Group, including University of Florida NFREC’s Gary Knox and Mathews Paret. The award-winning, multi-disciplinary group is composed of experts from universities across the southeast. This group formed in 2008 to develop and deliver educational programming to the southern U.S. nursery industry and Extension personnel. The team recently won the 2014 Bright Idea Award from the Friends of Southern IPM and Southern IPM Center.
This resource joins the tree IPM book previously released by this group, IPM for Select Deciduous Trees in Southeastern US Nursery Production. The tree IPM book is similar to the new resource in that it contains IPM information for insects, mites, diseases, and weeds of nine major tree crops as well as production information. Individual chapters cover birch (Betula spp.), cherry (Prunus spp.), crapemyrtle (Lagerstroemia spp.), dogwood (Cornus spp.), chinese elm (Ulmus parvifolia), magnolia (Magnolia spp.), maple (Acer spp.), oak (Quercus spp.) and redbud (Cercis spp.).
Both books can be downloaded free through iTunes (http://www.apple.com/itunes/) or each chapter is available as a free pdf through the Southern Nursery IPM Working Group website, http://wiki.bugwood.org/SNIPM. A limited number of hardcopy books were printed and distributed to authors. Thanks to the Southern Region IPM Center for their generous support to make this resource possible!
by Mary Salinas | Jul 15, 2014
We all seem to have this dilemma: A desire to re-landscape or just add a few plants to an area, but not knowing what would be the best choice. Plants need to be compatible with their location. The right plant should be chosen for the right place. Many have particular light, moisture and zone requirements in order to do their best. The ultimate size of the plant is also an important consideration; if you want to avoid constant pruning, choose plants that only grow to size you would like to ultimately have. Some great resources are provided below to get you the information you need.
UF IFAS Extension has a brand new app for your mobile device or web! The app contains a database of over 400 Florida-friendly plants is searchable by plant name, type, shape, native status, light requirements and more. The yearly subscription is only $1.99 to have great info on the go.
The downloadable 104-page Florida-friendly Landscaping Guide to Landscape Design and Plant Selection not only has photos and detailed information about plants by category, it also has great ideas on how to improve your landscape design! 
UF’s Florida Yards & Neighborhoods maintains a searchable Florida-friendly Plant Database. Make choices based on region, plant type, light and moisture quantity, soil texture salt tolerance.
For native plants, the Florida Association of Native Nurseries has two websites where you can find plants for your particular zone, plant community (like at the beach or in pine flatwoods), plant type and by wildlife usage. There is a site designed for nursery professionals that lets you find local wholesale growers and also a similar site for homeowners that has resources on where to find desired plants at local nurseries.
Speaking of native plants, the Florida Native Plant Society also has a searchable list of plants appropriate for your particular needs.
Gardening Solutions has lots of great information for lawn, landscape and garden by category, and it is easily accessed.
Happy Gardening!
