Anyone who lives here or who has visited Vero Beach during the summer knows it gets hot here in Florida. We are luckier than the folks who live inland because we almost always get a nice breeze from off the ocean, but it’s still hot in the middle of the day. 

When I sit down to make a landscape/garden plan with you, the one big consideration is your soil. Not all soil is created equal, especially so close to the beach. Our soil in general is not of great quality for plantings. However, we can compensate for poor soil by supplementing with nice, rich top soil or making raised garden beds.

The next item to think about and plan for is sunlight. If your home is positioned so that it gets sun for most of the day, then we are going to want to choose plantings which tolerate heat and sun better than others. If you have shade trees or you home is facing North, then we would want to choose plants and shrubs which are more shade tolerant, but still able to thrive in our intense heat during the summer months. 

Because we are in a tropical weather belt, we often get a nice rain shower most afternoons, so that helps to cool everything down, but some years we get more rain than others. Some years, we get drought conditions, so having native plantings which can survive on less water and fuss is also a good idea.

Lemongrass or Lapine or Lemon grass or West Indian or Cymbopogon citratus were planted on the ground. It is a shrub, its leaves are long and slender green. It is an herb which was made into food and medicine.

Lemon grass will grow well here and it’s said that bugs don’t like it. But it’s great to use for cooking. The Lantana is a pretty flower that grows well here in Florida and it can withstand our warm weather. It’s also fairly drought tolerant.

Palm Coast Landscape Design, at your service