There is a little ground cover known as Perennial Peanut. It is a thick low growing replacement for any lawn especially St. Augustine. You see, St. Augustine is a water hog, when St Augustine gets just a little dry, its immune system is weakened, it thins out and bugs and fungi move in. The scenario is that you spend a lot of money replacing it and then in two or three years the St. Augustine declines again. At some point this can become expensive. Perennial peanut may be the answer.

It is drought tolerant and with water restrictions becoming more prevalent, we really need to be thinking about economical and low maintenance ways to keep a good looking landscape. Re if you like it or not, you could try a sample by planting the median strip in front of your house first. If you don't want to go to that extent, just try one or two plants in another area of the yard but please be well aware that it will grow into the other plants, so normally we will not plan it within a bed, but this is only for the purposes to quickly see it will do well for you and to make sure that it's look appeals to you.

This plant will not freeze but certainly will not be as lush in the Winter as it will be the rest of year. It works well too in dryer soils and it totally insect resistant. I like it so much I am using it in parts of my yard.

A shameless plug by the way, If you are interested in purchasing this beautiful plant, just call us at Sims Landscaping and we can order it in large quantities. The number (352) 383-3303.

On Saturday at the nursery the following top quality plants will be on sale from 8:30 until 3:30. All are very high quality and are a very fair deal this is only a one day special sale and no plants will be able to be reserved ahead of time, if you need volume these are amazing deals so please bring a truck if needed.

1 Red and Yellow Firecracker, Big butterfly attractor 12.00
2 Sago huge 3 gal size plants reg 25.00 now 5.00
3. Liriope Evergreen Giant 1 gal reg 4.00 now 2.00
4 Aztec reg 4.00 now 2.00
5. Society Garlic, white and purple now 2.00
6 Mondo, now 2.00
7. Papayrus reg 22.00 now 15.00
8 Cast Iron reg 18.00 now 10.00
9 Purple Cardinal reg 15.00 today 10.00
10 Lemon Grass reg 20.00 now 10.00

Remember these deals are only for Saturday 26, 2009 and all plants must be picked up at the nursery as there are no call-in orders. Also, if you would like a landscape estimate then please have your name, number and address with zip and all phone numbers pre written on a card or paper and give to Mark at the nursery and we will call on Monday with an appointment time.
Thank you! Vince Sims

Just like all of your other teachers, as a professional landscape designer, I have my preferred suggestions for you garden's success. One of the problems I find with creating a beautiful yard is that many people stay perpetually frustrated. I believe the reason for this is that many folks tend to want to do too much too soon, then the yard gets away from them and the landscape frustration develops. So now the question becomes "how do we organize our yard so that we get what we want and have it all flow nicely when we finish?"

So my first suggestion would be in the sunny corners or the sunny parts of your side yards, to plant your favorite fruit trees and group them together say 12 to 20ft apart depending on the size of the yard and the variety. For example, you can have an early season orange and then 20 feet from it plant a late season orange and then you can plant an early season grape fruit and if you want something exotic and unusual to impress your neighbors then plant a star fruit also known as Carambola (pictured on left.).

A lot of people resist planting the fruit tress telling me that they will never live long enough to see fruit. Well I plant mine several years ago and they are now getting beefy enough to produce fruit. Once the fruit tree grouping is in and you are satisfied, you may want to consider planting trees and shrubs for privacy. For example, if your pool aligns with the neighbor's on each side, why should you feel like you are living in a gold fish bowl? Simply plant hedges along the side to grow up which will also block out some of the sound as it maybe a weird feeling to hear your neighbor's conversations.

Next, think about adding some color. One of the smart ways to add color is to add showy annuals each side of the front door. You can also border your back patio with them and grow them in pots on the patio. The nice thing about potted annuals is that they are annuals and you can change your variety each season which will make the landscape seem far more interesting. So, start with these basics and hopefully the landscape won't seem this overwhelming.

Dear Friends, I am excited about this Garden Rebel Cruise!

Now we have all of the basic info up about the first annual Garden Rebel Cruise coming this April. All of the primary info is on my sites home page at the bottom of the page. We will have garden talks and there will be plenty of time for questions and answers.Any additional questions that you have can be answered by the cruise company listed on my home page. It is very important to know that a passport is required for the Bahama's so you need to update if necessary now. Also the 25.00 deposit is required now to save your cabin. There will be plenty of free time as the garden talks will only be an hour or so depending on the day and we will be covering all of the main topics of gardening and if you bring photos of your house I will even make suggestions. The famous international artist , Donna Dewberry is also going to be giving her art classes and there is an additional charge to take her class so get all of the details from the cruise company as I have nothing to do with that, only to know that she is the best at what she does and a great person! I have no idea of her class times but I do know you must register now as she needs to have the correct amount of art supplies and will not have extra on the ship so now is the time to get the details from the cruise company.

Just some of the topics I will cover are.

Using Drought tolerant plants
Tropical Plant Landscaping
Indoor Plants
Landscape Design
Cold weather Plants
Bug resistant varieties
Natural Tonics
My personal gardens
Plenty of time for questions!

Please do not wait until the last minute as you must check your passports and get the 25.00 deposit in, please tell your family and friends and I think we're going to have a great time!

One of the big things in gardening right now is the art of creating privacy for your yard. I think privacy us one the most important issues, because it is our special time to relax and recharge our batteries. In order to achieve privacy you need to create a garden along the property line that not only shields out swimming pool cages, neighbors boats, and neighbors un-kept lawns but anything else you don't feel like staring at.

The first thing you may want to do is plant a few trees, make sure that you place your trees so that when they grow, their canopies will visually take out the neighboring houses rooflines, Most roofs are not attractive and a beautiful flowering tree like a yellow Tabeuela will do the trick.
Do not space them any closer than 20 feet apart. In between them you can plant fast growing flowering shrubs. The varieties that I use in my landscape, grow very dense, have beautiful foliage and also have seasonal flowers which always make the garden more interesting.

These plants can be planted in small three gallon size pots and over time can develop into large fat shrubs that literally can camouflage a wooden fence. The plant varieties that I like along the fence or property line are Primrose Jasmine, Red and Purple Cardinal, Red Cloak, Philodendron Selloune and English dogwood. Hibiscus of various colors would also be a good choice.

Once these plants grow in you have now created your own bird sanctuary and in addition you can out in your backyard a barbeque without the neighbors watching you throughout the window. Once the trees grow in and begin to provide a little shade you can even start thinking about a small paver patio under them and this creates a nice space to roll the barbeque on and extra square footage for your guests.