Every year I move closer to the position that the only legitimate form of landscape design is remediation; I'm not there yet, but....I do like to incorporate as many natives as I can in designs without negatively affecting the aesthetic. Hey, I have principles, just weak ones! Since I don't have the familiarity with the Central Florida natives that I do with the mid-Atlantic plants, I am adding them to the Florida garden as fast as I can. Tuesday we visited The Natives in Davenport, about 30 miles south of us. They do a variety of things; design, restoration, production, seed collection, wholesale and retail, and I know I missed a few.Bill Bissett ASLA, and Nancy Bisset, a restoration ecologist, botanist, horticulturist are the principals.
The growing facilities cover, I think 7 acres and Bill generously gave us a tour. We focused on scrub natives and it was exciting to see, in blocks of hundreds and thousands, these plants I have been researching for the last two years. Happily, the demand for their production seems to be high as we saw block after block of plants taped off as presold! Still, it didn't take me long to fill the trunk of Karen's car. And every plant with local provenance. A part of the property is under a conservation easement and is classic scrub complete and replete with the endemic flora and fauna including a thriving population of gopher tortoises. A very cool place.
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