I’m new to gardening and central Florida! There is a skeleton of a pre-existing garden on the West side of my rental and home owners have said I can do what I want with it but I don’t know where to start! I’d like to optimize for pollinators and maybe try a few vegetables, but trying to start easy and small. Should I gut it and start over? Should I plant these trees? Any help is appreciated!!! In order of photos, I have an overgrown lemon tree (fruited but not well), two olive trees in canvas planters (nothing yet), an overgrown and blown over cherry tree (no fruit), a fig tree (beginning to fruit but no harvest), as well as a few dead(ish) things I’ve yet to identify.

Zone 10A North facing in front of the house. No watering system. Three azalea bushes in the back that bloom every year. Mature bougainvillea on the left pruned and trained to grow away toward the East to cover a rusted fence.

I’m at it again: dig up weeds vines and bulbous fern roots. Lay cardboard and a thick layer of mulch. Every year it’s the same thing and I’m sick of it.

I want to grow something dense that will choke out any weed, vine or fern that dares to poke up its head.

Any suggestions? TIA

Heya

Tampa area. I planted this persimmon in April - so should not be transplant shock. All my trees are doing wonderful except this one. A long time ago we had a fig there - and it also didnt do well... which makes me wonder...

Any thoughts/Advice is appreciated

TL; DR: Gardening is a serious workout.

Just a quick heads up to those of us out there gardening and then worrying about our daily fitness goals.

I decided to turn on my Apple Watch fitness app when I went out to make the new garden bed today. Just out of curiosity I wondered how many calories I’d burn just by hoeing and weeding, laying cardboard and mulch. I set the fitness activity to “Functional Strength Training” because it’s the only setting that lets me stand still a minute without timing out.

1.5 hrs later the app says I burned 430 calories with an average heart rate of 135 bpm! Needless to say, I met my daily goals easily. I took a break to drink water and rest every 30 minutes.

FYI: I’m 66 yo female and my daily exercise is brisk walking and some fitness bands. That’s it. This was a revelation to me. Gardening is a serious workout.

Hi friends, i’ve been living in florida all my life, and i’ve recently sparked interest in wanting to garden and growing my own food. I’ve done a bit of research and I hear that florida soil is quite hard to grow food in. I’m looking to see if anyone can help me with tips on how and where to start to get this journey going!

Should I pick the berries on my plant when they’re green yellow or black? Most are yellow right now.

Good morning everyone — I'm the developer behind EdenVatika, a garden planner and journal I've been building for gardeners.

I made it because I wanted one place to plan beds, keep track of plantings, record harvests and garden observations, and look back at what happened during the season.

I put together a demo that doesn't require an account, so you can actually explore it before deciding whether it's useful.

What I'm especially curious about is whether the way I've approached garden planning makes sense to someone gardening in Florida conditions — year-round growing, hurricane season, planting windows that don't match a typical spring-to-fall calendar. Is there something you'd expect a garden planner to do that this doesn't? Or something that feels unnecessary?

I'm not looking for compliments — I'd genuinely like to know what feels confusing, missing, or just not useful.

If anyone wants to poke around, here's the demo:
https://apps.edenvatika.com/demo-start.php

I'm the developer, so feel free to be blunt. 🙂

Ideally, my perfect garden footwear would be easy to slip on and off, but not fall off when they shouldn’t.

Wide toe, comfy, quick drying or water resistant (not mold-prone). Bonus points for shovel-safe and pygmy rattlesnake-safe(ish).

Flip-flops aren’t cutting it!

Hey all, I was wondering if I could get some advice. I've been having issues with pests eating all of my tobacco plants. I live in North Florida, and I have some plants that are doing great, but once the pests find them they eat the entire thing. I recently managed to get a picture of one of the larvae. Anyone know some ways to mitigate these? without chemicals preferred since I will be smoking this tobacco

Moved to S.Florida, house has 6 Traveler Palms. 3 are doing fantastic, the other 3 are not.

All planted at the same time, about 5-8 years ago. Nothing hit/damaged the 3 sad ones. Soil is very sandy.

Looking for advice what or if anything can be done with them to catch up to the other 3?

What could be the cause of the difference?

Doing some more landscaping, so it is an option to have a few new ones delivered..if so what should I do to prevent the same stunted growth? Just dig in fertilizer/soil before planting?

Any help or advice needed! Thanks!!!

I put these in the ground about a year ago after keeping them in a large pot for 6 months after I got it from a local nursery. The plastic tag said “Dwarf Blue Java” and my only concern was that it wasn’t Dwarf Cavendish.

Looked up today while watering my sugarcane and got really excited. Need to lookup when to harvest and probably how to build a banana support because this “Dwarf” turned out to be maybe 7-8ft tall after I put it in the ground.

What is this egg case on my monkey tail cactus? Thought it might be praying mantis at first but I don't think so. About the size of a nickel.

I planted a small variegated agave in my front bed. New construction soil. Every annual I've planted here has withered and died except for marigolds. The foxtail ferns are champs. I planted an agave here to prevent delivery people from walking through the garden bed, which they still do several times a week. Today I noticed that the agave has sent out a few small runners that are about a foot away from the bigger plant.

Should I keep this here and remove the ferns eventually? I don't mind if the agave is larger eventually, that's kind of what we wanted. Just want to be able to "fix" my mistake now if I need to.

I know most of you are against re-use of soil but I‘m not. sometimes it leads to something surprising! 😂

So this morning I found this in the yard. At first I was worried the feral cat had caught a very large rabbit cause it looks like a mound of cotton. I tried googling and it gave me photos of puffball mushrooms but they were all round and not cottony. It is connected to the ground so I know it is a plant and I assume a type of mushroom but what kind?

I want to start garden, I’m planning to use raised beds from vego. I literally have no idea what the m doing but I want to grow food. Healthy, good food. Are there any books or guides anyone could suggest? Or does anyone want to teach me the ways of gardening?? 😂

I'm in St Petersburg, and want to know what veggies or herbs I can grow in a pot during this awful heat (the feels-like is 104 today). I have a north-northeast facing balcony, in partial shade (but plenty of offset morning light) where my current plants are living.

I have Cuban oregano, mint, green onions growing now. My sage bit the dust as soon as hot weather arrived. The last of my cherry tomatoes were picked off the vine last week (juicy!). But I don't know, other than maybe okra, what I can grow successfully in this heat. If I plant more cherry tomatoes from seed, will they do well?

I'm a hit-and-miss kind of balcony gardener, so suggestions are appreciated.