Talk of The Villages Florida - Did you Know? This is important!!!

Talk of The Villages Florida (https://www.talkofthevillages.com/forums/)

- Landscape Talk (https://www.talkofthevillages.com/forums/landscape-talk-129/)

- - Did you Know? This is important!!! (https://www.talkofthevillages.com/forums/landscape-talk-129/did-you-know-important-217431/)

We are part of what makes this place beautiful, and range from goofballs with a pick up truck and a slick sales pitch, to college educated horticulturists with engineering and utilities certifications from the State of FL. and 30 plus years of landscape design experience. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I almost think you are using 'greenie' as a derogatory term, but I myself have brought years of experience, education, and "Mama'd be proud" integrity to this group you call greenie. TYVM

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Originally Posted by Ozzello (Post 1348239)

:BigApplause:

Not to mention that water availability...is always an issue.

On the other hand, I heard that even the trees, grass and bushes...think the water tastes bad here. :1rotfl:

We have rock at our house in the beds around the house installed by a professional, it's hard to keep plants and trees and grass in the summer without having $100 plus water bill. However house down the street has a all stone, pine straw and cactus backyard, really not a fan of the look. But I am sure water bill is much less.

Centipede grass, would need no irrigation barring extreme drought, and no fertilizer.

Would take a long time to offset the cost of removal of original lawn and installation with just these 2 bills.... but It only needs mowed about ONE a YEAR.

I know had they given me the choice I would have paid the 20% more for the sod to upgrade Zoysia to Centipede.

5000 to remove and replace w centipede, I spend 1200 a year watering, 1000 for pests and fertilizer, 1200 mowing.. so in the black in 2 years with Centipede.

Mowing $1200.....wow.

Not exactly correct. I had a centipede lawn for 10 years and I mowed it weekly during the growing season. It is more accurate to say it requires less fertilizer than zoysia. I fertilized mine twice a year and it looked great. Centipede can get by with the ambient rainfall but that is also true of a well established zoysia lawn. I do prefer centipede over zoysia but the zoysia is starting to grow on me now that I have figured out how to care for it. I spend about $300/year on irrigation, about $100/year on fertilizer and pesticide, and about $10/year on mowing.

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Originally Posted by Ozzello (Post 1349177)

if you cut Centipede once a week, it wasn't because it needed cut

The grass clippings from the mower would indicate differently and during the growing season it most definitely needed weekly cutting.

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Originally Posted by Ozzello (Post 1349457)

if you cut Centipede once a week, it wasn't because it needed cut

My guess is the property owner did not like getting our very expensive and necessary (water) bill. Taking out all the grass on the surface may seem like a good idea but consider the erosion that will follow. Enough erosion and now you have an even more expensive bill because the soil must have a way of holding together like a California mud slide.

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Originally Posted by Hummintwo (Post 1349501)

Agreed, though other groundcovers and plantings can be used to prevent erosion, or gravel. Most of the full blown sod removals with pine straw or mulch I have seen in TV, were poorly done and begging for a good rain to 'fix' it.

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Originally Posted by biker1 (Post 1349496)

The grass clippings from the mower would indicate differently and during the growing season it most definitely needed weekly cutting.

I assumed you were growing Common or Oklawn Centipede, and minimal fertilization & water. Some of the varieties more common in the North or keeping the nitrogen and water available would require more mowing than the local Centipede lawns I have experience with.
There is a lawn in Fruitland Park that has been Centipede for over 30 years. He never fertilizes or waters and when he mows it once a year, it is around 3 inches tall...prior to mowing.

I don't recall the exact flavor of Centipede but it was not in the north - it was southern GA. 3 inches is well outside the recommended growing height of 1.5-2 inches. All of the centipede lawns where I lived needed cutting weekly.

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Originally Posted by Ozzello (Post 1350767)

Florida Statute Quote

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Originally Posted by cheryl2court (Post 1317270)

Did you know that the Architectural Committee's (ARC) cannot be challenged? This is so, even if a resident totally removes all grass and replaces it with Pine Straw (4 sides of his property) on his golf course lot without prior approval. As long as the resident uses "Florida- Friendly plants, this is so in District 5, the Villages of Poinciana.

When we purchased a home in the Villages we agreed to abide by certain covenants, as are still stated on the Villages website. On one condition is: Florida Statute 373.185:
"A deed restriction or covenant may not prohibit any property owner from implementing Florida-friendly landscaping on his or her land. Florida-friendly landscaping refers to the utilization of drought tolerant "plants". It does not mean that sod may be replaced with rock, decorative stone, pine straw, mulch or similar non-plant material; however, those non-plant materials may be used as an accent around the said plantings."

If this covenant has been amended, it is not mentioned on the website. Why not?

Yet, a resident can be threatened with a fine/day if a Patriotic flower is not removed from their front lawn; also a covenant- no lawn ornaments.

The key wording regarding "It does not mean....etc. Two specifics are "it does not mean," example change lay of land (grade). The other word "accent" means just that not impacting the grade - lay of land necessary to not impact the neighboring properties in a negative way.

I am not reading or looking at our resident covenants to know for a fact that only a front yard grass requirement exists but State Statute referenced here does not limit protections to a front yard.

State statutes supercede any covenants we may have when express requirement that is less than state law. The same thing would apply regarding Federal Statutes. We read all the time about challenges but in the end it is to have consistency for all regardless of where we live or at least we like to think so.