Hello,.. Just joined

dede

Hi,.......I go by the nic name dede.. My husband and I just recently moved to another county here in Florida. Now living in Pasco County, we have a home that is backed up to the woods. We just fell in love with the area, and knowing our son and family live right next door is even more of a joy. We get to see and have our grandchildren over all the time,, coming and going..lol. The backyard is big and we had to put a 80ft. lattice fence (5ft.) high, to keep the wildlife out. The river is about 300ft. from us, so yes we are in a "flood zone", tho the worst has never gotten more than 1/4 of the backyard. The woods are just full of all kinds of trees, and I only know of a few of them. One is the big magnolia, as well as the "swamp magnolia" or better known as the "sweet bay". We have quite a few tropical palm trees of different sizes as well. I don't know what other kind of trees there are, but hope I can find out more from this site. The original owners I guess at one time planted some hibiscus shrubs and a avocado tree that are now part of the woods. The front yard and the sides are not fenced sooooo, we do have our share of wildlife coming and going... ie ... armidillos, raccoons, snakes, turtles,turkeys & feral cats. We do know that there are also deer, wild boar, owls, gators, and goodness knows what all else. The birds are awesome! I see cardinals all the time as well as finches, fishhawks, mocking birds, eagles, and a few weeks ago a roseate spoonbill flying overhead!

Well guess I've said enough for now..so I will go and take a look around and see what info. I can find about trees.

Do you also have info. on shrubs and plants?

Thank you for allowing me to join, your site looks very informative...de

Eric Frei

We got lots of experience with all sorts of stuff, I had a forte' for large flowering hibiscus many years ago, starting to collect and plant some unreal ones.

There's a fantastic book well pictured of hibiscus called Palmers Hibiscus in Colour, yes an Australian publication and it is the best I have ever seen. What I liked about hibiscus was the variety of colour and long flowerings.

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Victor Lindsay

Welcome to tree world.

stargazer

Hi Dede!

I went to Florida for a fast visit in March and really enjoyed it, especially I enjoyed the people. The strange (to me) southern growth was interesting. In the interior the woods looked so thick I don't know if you could walk through them.

It was great to see the night sky with the planets much higher than I'm used to.

Overall, it was the people I met that made me think living there would be nice. I actually wanted to move down there. How is the summer? Is it like winter up here where people stay indoors except to get in their heated vehicles? How are the mosquitoes?

I also enjoyed seeing orange and grapefruit trees, and palm trees everywhere. I quickly learned that the palms were introduced ornamentals, and that the native palm was that scruffy looking one with the cut off stalks all the way up the trunk.