[Happydaz]

I attended the recent palm talk and enjoyed it. I had done everything the speaker had said was a good idea, such as using pine straw as a mulch and planting palm varieties such as Sylverster and European palms. Unfortunately, for many of the attendees who had landscapers put in Queen Palms (The speaker said they will die in 5 years, don't replant) and rock mulch (speaker said that rocks cook your palms and landscape fabric is not a goid thing to use) they were all visibly upset. When the speaker asked who planted Queen Palms a whole bunch of people raised their hands only to get slammed that their palm trees were going to die. I spent a half an hour at the end of the talk trying to console a gentleman who had spent $26,000 on landscaping and he was all upset that his professional landscaper had recommended rock mulch and landscape fabric around his palm trees. He was wondering how to move all that rock, etc. I told him that most homes are landscaped that way because most people who come to the Villages want "neat" yards with no work. They often believe pine straw harbors all kinds of terrible insects and they want rocks and hacienda walls. I am a gardener so I read all about Florida gardening before I landscaped. But I must say that a professional landscaper I hired was surprised when I wanted to use pine straw and design large beds to put palms and shrubs in. Another poor fellow who sat next to me crossed his arms after he heard that
queen palms were a mistake to plant and left early. He had five of them!

So bottom line why doesn't the extension service let newcomers know as early as possible after they purchase their homes about these things? Why do all the professional landscapers recommend queen palms, rock mulch, and landscape fabric? My observation has been that most homes are landscaped this way. As I told that poor gentleman, his palms may still do OK as long as he uses a good palm fertilizer and the rock mulch is not that extensive around his palms. Most of the Villages is planted that way anyway.