Landscape Seminars
 

We often attend the seminars given by the Uf/Master Gardeners monthly at Seabreeze and Eisenhower. They are so informative. Yesterday I attended the one about palms, and learned so much. There are a few changes I am going to make in my yard such as: removing the rock around the Palm base and replacing it with pine bark. :posting

Where can I find out about the schedule of these seminars?

seminars????
 

when do they have the seminars ??? I would like to go

Hi Mary, I think the schedule is in the Home & Garden section in Saturday's Daily Sun.

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.

To get their schedule e-mail them at:

Sumter@ifas.ufl.edu

Or call: 352-793-2728

E-mail then at

Sumter@ifas.ufl.edu

Or phone: 352-793-2728

Why doesn't the extension office go door to door to new homeowners to provide them with individual landscape plans between the time they close and they choose a landscaper? Wow, we are going to have to have a state tax to do that, for sure.

The Villages does not put in the palms and the rocks, the homeowner makes that choice. It would seem to be that individual's right and responsibility to make choices without intrusion by a land grant university/state sponsored program, of which, by the way, Sumter Co. is one of the most active extension offices in the state, and whose outreach is largely sustained by volunteers trained as Master Gardeners.

Jim discourages Master Gardeners from naming a brand of fertilizer....but you got the numbers right for palms. 8/2/12 plus 4.

When looking for palms for my house, I looked at what the developer had planted. I saw no queen palms so I figured it was a bad idea -- then I had 5 of them planted at my house :-(
But I was at a top notch nursery the other day talking to a cracker jack nursery woman. Yes queen palms are short lived but they had some on their lot that had been planted 8 years ago and they looked fine. So three years must be a low estimate. Pray for warm winters and enjoy them. With any luck I'll be dead in 8 years and won't have to worry about dead palm removal.

We have lived here 7 years and have had no problem with our 2 Queen palms surrounded by landscaping fabric and Seminole chips (not very high). I am angry, though, that nurseries sell all kinds of plants that are not cold-tolerant; they should be more pro-active about this with newbies.

[B]Queen palms are cheap (that's means they are less than inexpensive!) and that's why landscapers in this area sell them and plant them. If they survive, the homeowner is lucky because we are a little too north for them to really do well. Cockroaches love them and they harbor many other insects. No offense meant to the homeowners who have them, but they really are "trash palms." They no longer are a desirable palm to plant anywhere in Florida.

I've said it before and will say it again . . . I have not seen a single Queen plam anywhere in The Villages that does not have "frizzle top." Even newly planted trees that I actually see being planted, have it. Landscapers who plant these trees should be ashamed of themselves.

Agree, they wholesale for under $100, they carry a lot of moisture in the trunk, when the freeze they look ok, until 2-3 years later when they rot out and fall.

There are about 30 great cold hardy varieties that you can plant here no reason to buy a queen.

But if you want the look of it get Mule, they are great I have a beauty.

They are about $225-250 5-6' high.

Thank you for that information on Fertilizer Direct. Really like the seminars UF/Master Gardener's sponsor in The Villages. Information from them and the input from others has been extremely helpful.