No Mowing, Mo’ Fishing With “Bay-Friendly” Make-Over

By Nanette O’Hara

The seed was planted on one of those frigid January days, as my husband and I surveyed the damage done to our landscape by day after day of sub-freezing temperatures. Brown, drooping, sad plants everywhere.

There will never be a better time to do this, we reasoned. We are going to have to invest in a bunch of new plants anyway. Let’s do it over — completely — and do it right this time.

And so Rick and I embarked on our “Bay-Friendly Yard Makeover,” a still-evolving horticultural adventure intended to give us more time to enjoy our weekends this summer while reducing our personal impact on Tampa Bay.

Our goal: No Mowing, Mo’ Fishing.

The first big decision was also the easiest: we would get rid of what little grass we had left. We had gradually been reducing the amount of grass in our yard in the South Seminole Heights neighborhood of Tampa anyway, and we no longer wanted the work associated with maintaining what was left — fertilizing, mowing, watering, applying weed killers.

Learning that grass is the most heavily irrigated crop in the United States played a major role in our decision. Florida’s water managers report that 1 billion gallons of water is used every day in our state just to water St. Augustine grass. The Tampa Bay region is subject to year-round conservation restrictions because there is just not enough water to go around, and yet almost half of our precious drinking water in dry months goes to lawn and landscape irrigation.

Learning that lawn and landscape fertilizers are a significant source of nitrogen, the primary pollutant in the bay I work so hard to protect — and where Rick and I fish every chance we get — sealed the deal for us. We live just eight houses from the Hillsborough River, which flows directly to Tampa Bay. Our new landscape would be grass-free. A xeriscape, but not a ZEROscape.

The O'Haras' re-designed backyard features a variety of low-maintenance trees, shrubs and groundcovers surrounding meandering paths and a shady sitting area where they can enjoy their new suburban refuge.

That commitment led to our second big decision, and our smartest. We hired a professional landscape design company, Plant-Wise Landscapes. Our designer is very familiar with the principles of Florida-Friendly Landscaping™ developed by the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. Ironically, the Florida Yards & Neighborhoods Program was first created by the state’s National Estuary Programs, including my own employer, the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, nearly 20 years ago. I had tried to follow the FY&N recommendations, but I clearly didn’t adhere to the most essential one: right plant, right place.

So, we ended up with a mish-mash of sun-loving plants like Indian hawthorne and passionvine planted in the shade, and shade-loving plants like ginger planted in the sun. Years ago, before I knew better, I planted Boston fern and Mexican petunia, unaware of their highly invasive tendencies. I repeatedly neglected to note the mature height of plants, so a golden dewdrop planted too close to our shed as a baby leaned at a nearly 45-degree angle as it grew. And the small Walter’s viburnum seedlings I planted along the edge of our driveway grew so big and bushy that we couldn’t even get in and out of our cars easily. Our yard was one big, well-intended “oops.”

We needed help and we knew it. So we opted to spend money up front for a real landscape design, and then to save money by implementing the plan ourselves.

Our designer visited our house several times. She talked with us about our goals, our lifestyle, how we use our yard and what kinds of plants we prefer. She identified long-standing issues of accessibility and drainage flow. Acting on our commitment to a total “Bay-Friendly” landscape, she made recommendations that will allow us to retain virtually all of our own stormwater on site, a key to reducing pollution from runoff.

As a result, we leveled our yard, installed gutters and downspouts, and directed most of our roof runoff into three rain barrels which should supply most of our irrigation needs. We enhanced our permeable driveway, adding decorative bricks in between the concrete paver strips, and are creating an auxiliary parking area with oyster shell. Our designer convinced us to install an additional gate in our new wood privacy fence, so we could actually access our back yard from either side of our house. That has been a real benefit, allowing us to move our kayaks from behind the shed in the back yard to our side yard, cutting the distance we have to haul them to our truck by at least half.

We learned that landscape designers do not like straight lines, not one bit. So poor Rick had to dismantle all the lovely square and rectangular planter beds he built for me with landscape timbers last year. Just as in nature itself, there will be lots of curves in our new landscape — meandering walkways, a halfmoon shaped butterfly garden, a circular seating area in our shady backyard.

Instead of grass, our new yard has a profusion of flowering shrubs and color-coordinated groundcovers. We are using a mixture of native and non-native plants, with the key considerations being hardiness, drought-tolerance and, of course, placement of the right plant in the right place. Many of the plants produce berries or nectar to attract birds and butterflies. Our plan also has a cluster of three small trees to serve as a refuge for our backyard birds, who like to scout the safety of our feeders and bird baths from a nearby perch before approaching them. Even in our very urban neighborhood, just a hiccup from downtown Tampa, we have been amazed at the wildlife we have seen over the years: glass lizards, ring-necked snakes and black racers; raccoons, opossums, and even pint-sized flying squirrels; and an impressive variety of resident and migratory songbirds.

Among the natives or native cultivars we are using: coontie, oakleaf hydrangea, East Palatka holly, firebush, Florida anise, dwarf Walter’s viburnum and weeping yaupon holly. Groundcovers include dwarf jasmine, holly fern and giant evergreen liriope. Bordering our shady front porch will be fragrant variegated ginger.

But before all these wonderful plants can grace our yard, we had to remove virtually all the existing plants. That has been no small feat, involving several weekends of pulling, whacking, axing and digging out the old to make way for the new — not to mention four trips to the yard waste dump.

Currently, we are in the process of killing the remaining grass (and weeds). We covered the lawn with tarps that will stay in place for two weeks. When the tarps come off, we’ll quickly mark out our walkways and sitting area, put down weed mat, and begin installing our new plants. Finally, we’ll begin spreading the small mountain of pine bark mulch that was delivered to our yard last month. We’ll need a layer about four inches thick to deter weeds until our new plants have a chance to grow and fill out.

We hope to be done by mid-May, just in time to enjoy a summer of fishing, cycling and relaxing on our deck, instead of mowing, weed-whacking and edging.

Follow Nanette O’Hara’s ongoing landscape makeover on her “Bay-Friendly Landscaping” Blog at http://bayfriendly.blogspot.com. To see how their landscape makeover turned out look for photos of the O'Haras' new landscape in the July issue of Bay Soundings.