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Have you ever heard the phrase, “Out of the frying pan and into the fire?” Although originating from Aesop’s fables, I immediately think of the chapter in Tolkien’s The Hobbit. In the chapter Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf and the dwarves escape the goblins to find themselves trapped in trees by Wargs. This idiom essentially means escaping one bad situation and getting into an equally or more difficult situation.
With the arrival of May, many of us spend our weekends and evenings tending our gardens. In fact, after many of you read this article and finish your morning coffee, you will wander outside to work in your garden. As we spend time in our gardens, there are many management decisions where we inadvertently end up out of the frying pan and into the fire.
“Taylor…I see you mowed your lawn,” he said with a jokingly condescending tone. My neighbor, in fact, had no reason to mow his lawn because it was filled with flowering lyreleaf sage (Salvia lyrata). If he mowed his lawn, he would cut back the beautiful wildflowers in his lawn. Dichondra (Dichondra carolinensis) covers the remaining portion of his yard and does not require mowing. My neighbor, in fact, had no reason to mow his yard.
My lawn is diverse, which includes dichondra, lyreleaf sage, winter rye, tall fescue, St Augustine grass, and wild geranium. Like many others, my lawn is a mixture of groundcover plant material that forms a green mat within their yard. Alternatively, other homeowners may use only turfgrasses within their lawn. Most importantly, plants chosen for landscapes should adhere to the Florida-Friendly Landscaping Program’s “Right Plant, Right Place” principle.
How can you make your garden work for Floridaâs environment?
The Florida-Friendly Landscaping program aims to help people design better gardens.
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A group of ibis feed in a front yard designed with native plants in Tarpon Springs. [ DOUGLAS R. CLIFFORD | Times ]
Updated Mar. 17
The Florida-Friendly Landscaping Program tries to encourage residents, local governments and landscapers to use plants that need less water and offer better habitats for wildlife. Itâs a partnership between the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Extension and the Department of Environmental Protection.
The program puts out a free app for people to start designing a garden or yard that helps the environment.