On Halloween night of 1961 our family arrived at our new home in Plantation Florida, a fast growing suburb of Fort Lauderdale. To keep up with the growing population and demand for air conditioning, Florida Power and Light was building what was at the time the largest power plant in the world at the Port of the Everglades and my father would be the general construction manager.
This was the first new house that anyone in my family had ever lived in. Due to devastating hurricanes in the 1950s, building codes were very strict. All outside walls of the house were made of reinforced concrete block. The roof was heavy ceramic tile that required a conveyor belt to lift the tile to the roof. To keep from being blown in, all doors and windows opened out. The house had no air conditioning and everything was painted white to reflect the heat of the tropical sun. There was no landscaping and the yard and neighborhood was entirely sand. We were in paradise.
Most of the lawn was “sprigged” with Saint Augustine grass, Stenotaphrum secundatum. Tiny plugs of grass were placed every foot or so and runners from the plugs would fill in the open areas. But before it could fill in, Cenchrus echinatus (common name southern sandspur but we would come to know it as stickers) invaded and almost took over the yard. Stickers produce a seed pod that has a row or burrs about the size of a caper. When the seeds are dry the burrs stick in clothing, shoes, bare feet, socks and just about anything else and are difficult and painful to remove. My parents paid my brothers and me a penny for each sticker plant we pulled and we quickly had more spending money than we knew what to do with.
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| Our House in Florida |
This was the first new house that anyone in my family had ever lived in. Due to devastating hurricanes in the 1950s, building codes were very strict. All outside walls of the house were made of reinforced concrete block. The roof was heavy ceramic tile that required a conveyor belt to lift the tile to the roof. To keep from being blown in, all doors and windows opened out. The house had no air conditioning and everything was painted white to reflect the heat of the tropical sun. There was no landscaping and the yard and neighborhood was entirely sand. We were in paradise.
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| Tradescantia pallida purpurea |
Most of the lawn was “sprigged” with Saint Augustine grass, Stenotaphrum secundatum. Tiny plugs of grass were placed every foot or so and runners from the plugs would fill in the open areas. But before it could fill in, Cenchrus echinatus (common name southern sandspur but we would come to know it as stickers) invaded and almost took over the yard. Stickers produce a seed pod that has a row or burrs about the size of a caper. When the seeds are dry the burrs stick in clothing, shoes, bare feet, socks and just about anything else and are difficult and painful to remove. My parents paid my brothers and me a penny for each sticker plant we pulled and we quickly had more spending money than we knew what to do with.
Unusual for my parents, they had the front part of the house professionally landscaped. I still remember all of the plants and how they were placed to create a tropical garden. In the corner where the driveway and front walkway formed a right angle, a coconut palm was planted and leaned out from the house. On either side were placed smaller, more tropical looking palms. Where the curved planting bed met the front lawn a neat row of Mondo Grass, Ophiopogon japonicas, bordered the garden. Behind was a groundcover area of bronze and burgundy Ajuga reptans. Behind the ajuga was the slightly taller Tradescantia pallida purpurea, commonly called Wandering Jew. (After a 40 year hiatus of growing Tradescantia, I recently added it and a few deep burgundy bromeliads to a planting bed of mostly succulents. I associated this plant with tropical Florida and thought it required generous water. I was pleasantly surprised to discover it grows well with succulents.) Taller still and towards the back came 2 clumps of oyster plants, Tradescantia spathacea. Under the overhang from the house and lining the walkway from the carport to the front door were planted various types of crotons and between the 2 front windows was planted what my mother called an umbrella tree, Schefflera actinophylla. Mother would add in Elephant Ear, Colocasia and caladium bulbs in the open spots between the shrubs.
Along the back wall of the house, my mother planted some poinsettias leftover from Christmas. They quickly grew to be taller than the house. Mother would line me and my 2 brothers up in our scout outfits and take the annual Christmas Card photo in front of the blooming plants.
To screen the carport from the neighbors, a row of small flowered pink hibiscus was planted. Dad liked to tease my mom by calling them hot biscuits. In front of the house, as a foundation planting under the windows, was a dense row of some sort of bushy vine that had very fragrant white flowers and dark green leaves. Besides being plants that I was unfamiliar with, this was the first professional landscape I’d ever known. I would spend hours looking at the different plants and how they would grew and changed and occasionally bloomed; trying to understand why this are looked so neat and tidy and organized compared to the rest of our landscape. The front garden was the first garden I’d ever seen composed mostly of foliage plants that used colored foliage and textures to create a landscape. The design of this garden would influence my design style many decades later. The curve of the front bed, the massing of plants, a variety of leaf shapes and textures, taller accent plants and using plants with a similar tone are garden design elements that I frequently use today when creating a garden.
The back and side yards were planted by my mother with plants that intrigued her, were given to her or she had seen in other gardens. I suppose you could generously describe my mother’s gardening style as “early sustainability”. However, it could probably more realistically be described as “Darwinian”, as in survival of the fittest. Luckily, most of the year around 3PM we had tropical showers blow in from the Everglades, resulting in an average rainfall of over 60 inches and over 140 days per year with rain. Watering was seldom the problem.
The backyard was a large grass rectangle. The neighbor on one side installed a chain link fence. The neighbors behind us and on the other side planted hibiscus hedges. There was a screened-in patio off the living room. Mother laid a path of square concrete pavers from the carport around the side of the house to the back screen door. The walkway soon would be overgrown and almost impassable. The master bedroom stuck out from the back of the house. Along the bedroom wall mother planted trumpet vines, Bignonia campsis, which quickly covered the wall and grew up onto the roof. At the corner of the house she planted leftover Christmas poinsettias. These too quickly grew taller than the house and bloomed each fall and winter, looking nothing like the short greenhouse-grown plants. Across the back of the lot there were several 18-inch squares cut into the lawn. In these mother planted fruiting plants: strawberry, raspberry, orange and grapefruit. To my young designer eye, it seemed strange that the squares didn’t all have trees the same size and type of plant.
Against the screened patio and along the back and side of the house, mother grew an assortment of plants. There were small palms, begonias, sweet potatoes, crotons, pineapples, bromeliads, firecracker plant (Russelia equisetiformis), sansevieria, mother of thousands (Kalanchoe daigremontiana), coleus, white and lavender periwinkle (Madagascar vinca) bougainvillea, Euphorbia milii, bananas, tomatoes, papaya, chrysanthemums, and just about anything else that grew easily in South Florida. Mother’s favorite was the Swiss cheese plant (Monstera deliciosa) which climbed the wall under the kitchen window. While the garden wouldn’t win any garden design competitions, it was definitely a great place to learn a lot about many different plants.
Along the back wall of the house, my mother planted some poinsettias leftover from Christmas. They quickly grew to be taller than the house. Mother would line me and my 2 brothers up in our scout outfits and take the annual Christmas Card photo in front of the blooming plants.
To screen the carport from the neighbors, a row of small flowered pink hibiscus was planted. Dad liked to tease my mom by calling them hot biscuits. In front of the house, as a foundation planting under the windows, was a dense row of some sort of bushy vine that had very fragrant white flowers and dark green leaves. Besides being plants that I was unfamiliar with, this was the first professional landscape I’d ever known. I would spend hours looking at the different plants and how they would grew and changed and occasionally bloomed; trying to understand why this are looked so neat and tidy and organized compared to the rest of our landscape. The front garden was the first garden I’d ever seen composed mostly of foliage plants that used colored foliage and textures to create a landscape. The design of this garden would influence my design style many decades later. The curve of the front bed, the massing of plants, a variety of leaf shapes and textures, taller accent plants and using plants with a similar tone are garden design elements that I frequently use today when creating a garden.
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| Standing in front of a trumpet vine that covered out house Me on the right, my brother Billy on the right and Bobby in the back |
The backyard was a large grass rectangle. The neighbor on one side installed a chain link fence. The neighbors behind us and on the other side planted hibiscus hedges. There was a screened-in patio off the living room. Mother laid a path of square concrete pavers from the carport around the side of the house to the back screen door. The walkway soon would be overgrown and almost impassable. The master bedroom stuck out from the back of the house. Along the bedroom wall mother planted trumpet vines, Bignonia campsis, which quickly covered the wall and grew up onto the roof. At the corner of the house she planted leftover Christmas poinsettias. These too quickly grew taller than the house and bloomed each fall and winter, looking nothing like the short greenhouse-grown plants. Across the back of the lot there were several 18-inch squares cut into the lawn. In these mother planted fruiting plants: strawberry, raspberry, orange and grapefruit. To my young designer eye, it seemed strange that the squares didn’t all have trees the same size and type of plant.
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| Me and a Poinsettia |
I didn’t much care for the plants with thorns or serrated edges. The bougainvillea quickly outgrew its space, making it impossible to get out the screen door without getting stabbed. The pineapples and bromeliads grew too big to be able to safely navigate around them to the hose faucet. The banana would bloom, which we found fascinating, but then produce undersized bananas. By observation and trial and error, I learned to propagate many of these plants from cuttings or seeds. Things rooted quickly in the wet sand. My favorite was putting coleus cuttings in a cup of water and checking daily for new roots…and mosquito larvae. I also loved looking at the leaves of Kalanchoe daigremontiana lined with little baby plantlets and seeing how the ones that landed on the ground sent out new roots.
Inside the screened patio, mother would grow “air plants” that she found on the golf course and other places. She attached them to wire coat hangers or electrical wire and hung them from the framing of the screened ceiling. I really didn’t like the way these looked, especially the way they were mounted and didn’t understand why anyone would grow these odd things. Decades later, I would realize that these were tillandsias. From looking at pictures online I suspect they were either Tillandsia fasciculata or Catopsis floribunda, both are now endangered by collecting, habitat loss and the Mexican bromeliad weevil. Who knew that I would collect tillandsias myself one day? (I only grow nursery raised plants).
Inside the screened patio, mother would grow “air plants” that she found on the golf course and other places. She attached them to wire coat hangers or electrical wire and hung them from the framing of the screened ceiling. I really didn’t like the way these looked, especially the way they were mounted and didn’t understand why anyone would grow these odd things. Decades later, I would realize that these were tillandsias. From looking at pictures online I suspect they were either Tillandsia fasciculata or Catopsis floribunda, both are now endangered by collecting, habitat loss and the Mexican bromeliad weevil. Who knew that I would collect tillandsias myself one day? (I only grow nursery raised plants).
In the middle of the lawn, mother planted a coconut palm from seed. She didn’t know how to plant it but figured that like most seeds it should be planted in a hole 3 times its size. So she dug a 3 foot deep hole and planted it. Later, she would learn that you plant them on the surface of the soil. We forgot about it, but several years later when we returned home from vacation we found a 2 foot tall coconut tree growing in the middle of the lawn.
This was an enjoyable read. Your mother's method was mine when I first started gardening.
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