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The greening of the garden

An environmentally friendly showcase home takes the indoor concept of "green" living outdoors.

By JUDY STARK
Published March 25, 2006

LITHIA

In the noonday heat and a brisk breeze the other day, a couple of butterflies were dancing around the garden in front of Nohl Crest Homes' "Windermere'' model at FishHawk Ranch.

The house is the Showcase Home for the Tampa Bay Builders Association's Parade of Homes, which starts today, and is the first "green'' home the builders have ever featured as their showcase. (See the box on Page 6F about visiting the Showcase Home and touring its garden.)

It's also the first model home that landscaper Shea Hughes of Sunrise Landscape in Tampa has ever landscaped "green.''

The butterflies' presence suggests that the native wildlife habitat is working. Maybe it's the Confederate jasmine.

The garden is designed to attract, feed and shelter wildlife (cue the butterflies); require minimal watering, fertilizing and mulching through the use of native and drought-tolerant plants; and minimize stormwater runoff.

Hughes credited Marina Pryce of the Florida Yards and Neighborhoods program in Hillsborough. "She gave us a lot of advice on what we needed to do to certify it as a green yard,'' he said.

That included adding edible fruit trees - loquat, grapefruit, navel orange - and a cistern, or rain barrel, to harvest stormwater runoff that can be used to water plants.

In the front yard, two palm trees "give it a touch of Florida,'' Hughes said. Other plants include magnolias, Nellie R. Stevens holly, orange bird of paradise, crape myrtle, a roebelenii palm, Indian hawthorn, royal blue plumbago, pink and red begonias "for seasonal color'' and gardenias. Those planted areas are all watered with drip irrigation. Sodded areas are watered with popup sprinklers.

More drought-tolerant plants create a wildlife habitat behind the rock-rimmed pool.

But landscaper Hughes' favorite part is the tropical plantings at poolside. "A pool has to look like Florida,'' he said. The plantings include palms: Washingtonian, queen, multistemmed Chinese fan, European fan and roebelinii; crinum lilies; and variegated ginger for color. "The plantings give it a nice tropical setting and a touch of Florida and make it feel like a tropical environment.''

[Last modified March 24, 2006, 11:57:37]