Organizers say this tour is first of its kind in Pasco County
When the Spitlers moved into their home in Land O’ Lakes, its landscape was devoid of native plants and wildlife.
That was before Jonnie Spitler joined the Nature Coast Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society and began changing things up.
(B.C. Manion/Staff Photos)
Now, her yard is among seven sites included in what she calls Pasco County’s first Native Garden Tour.
The tour, organized by the Nature Coast Chapter, gives visitors a chance to see native plants in a variety of landscapes and to see how they support wildlife.
Spitler, president of the chapter, hopes the tour will increase her organization’s membership and will result in more native plants being added to the local landscape.
That’s important, Spitler said, because as more development occurs in Pasco County, steps must be taken to support bees, butterflies, birds and other creatures that rely on native plants.
The Land O’ Lakes woman is wild about her garden.
“When you have a native plant garden — and you walk through your garden — every single day is different. Something else is blooming. Something shows up in a place that you didn’t expect it to show up.
“There are native bees, there are some beautiful iridescent green bees that I’ve seen that I never saw before, that have shown up in the yard,” Spitler said.
A walk around her property offers gardening enthusiasts plenty of ideas.
Along the edge of her front yard, she’s planted flea bane, a plant some people view as a weed, while others see as a wildflower.
There’s rosin weed, sporting a bright yellow bloom.
She’s enthusiastic about rosin weed: “It’s a wonderful plant. It grows almost all year long, and it is native and it flowers almost all year.”
Other plants around her front, side and back yards include coontie, coreopsis, firebush, coral honeysuckle and passion vine, to name just a few. There’s a winged elm tree and a fringe tree, too.
Her coral honeysuckle is her pride and joy.
“It brings in the hummingbirds. It can be grown any way — on a pole, on a trellis, allowed to grow as ground cover.
“I think everyone should have a coral honeysuckle somewhere in their yard, on a little pole.”
She’s creative.
Instead of using mulch at the base of a tree, she’s planted wild petunia, a plant she describes as “a lovely, low-growing ground cover.”
Her Simpson’s Stopper, she said, produces beautiful white, aromatic flowers.
“As soon as the white flowers bloom, the bees will be all over it. Then, it has red berries, and birds will land and eat all of the berries,” she said.
She also has a wild lime — a host plant for the giant swallowtail butterfly.
And, bees buzz happily around her sunshine mimosa.
The tour stops offer gardening enthusiasts a chance to see native plants in a variety of settings. One stop, in Odessa, features a wild habitat at a concrete company.
Another showcases a native plant garden in a gated subdivision.
Another is a hideaway location, off the south branch of the Anclote River, which includes a stand of cypress in a variety of woodsy landscapes.
A fourth site features a former orange grove that’s been replaced by 200 native trees.
The fifth site features a wildlife corridor, created in the midst of a subdivision.
Spitler’s garden is the sixth site on the tour.
At the last one is a wildflower nursery, where people can purchase some of the plants they’ve seen during the tour.
Native Garden Tour, presented by the Nature Coast Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society
April 24, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
$10 per person; $20 per carload
Seven stops:
- Site 1: Preferred Materials Inc., 11913 State Road 54, Odessa, 33556
- Site 2: 1521 Westerham Loop, Trinity, 34655 (Get map from another location. Do not use GPS, it will take you to a residents’-only gate)
- Site 3: 17157 Gunlock Road, Lutz, 33558
- Site 4: 2133 Henley Road, Lutz, 33558
- Site 5: 21006 Lake Thomas Road, Land O’ Lakes 34638
- Site 6: 2435 Oasis Drive, Land O’ Lakes, 34639
- Site 7: 21930 Carson Drive, Land O’ Lakes, 34639
Tickets can be purchased at any stop, but organizers would prefer them to be purchased at Site 1 on the tour. For more information, call Steve Joyce at (813) 767-3131.
Published April 13, 2016
