START FROM THE BACK
New Landscaping Concept Makes it Easy to Transform Your Landscape

By Suzanne Cooper

Sue Scott just wants the back ten feet of your yard — at least at first.

If you follow her simple landscape design, you’ll create an attractive natural area that provides an oasis for birds as well as privacy for your family. Persuade your neighbors to join the effort, and your backyard can become part of a corridor that helps transform suburbia back to a habitat where wildlife can thrive.

“Most people want to make their landscapes more natural, but they’re not sure where to start,” says Scott, an environmental consultant who created a concept called the “Back Ten Feet” and is developing a reality television show. “What we’ve done is create easy designs for the back ten feet of your yard with native plants that don’t need much maintenance. It’s the starting point for converting boring, unproductive turf into a drought-tolerant landscape that helps keep our water clean and our yards safe for children, pets, birds and butterflies.”

Once homeowners see how beautiful their backyard has become – and how much easier it is to maintain native plants than lawn and clipped hedges – the hope is that they will incorporate the same principles through their entire landscapes. “The back ten feet is a no-brainer, something anyone can do,” she said. “Once they see how beautiful native plants can be, they’ll probably go even further.”

Scott worked with native plant nurseries across the state, including Wilcox Nursery in Largo, Florida Native Plant Nursery in Sarasota, Treemart in Tampa and Restless Natives in Tarpon Springs, to develop planting guides for local communities. Each calls for eight to 13 plants specifically selected for that region, typically at a cost of about $150 for the average 80-foot-wide yard.

Plans for Tampa Bay backyards vary slightly because some spots in Pinellas County are practically tropical while locations in Pasco are more temperate, notes Bruce Turley, owner of Wilcox Nursery. Anchor plants used in nearly every design include beautyberry, Walter’s viburnum and wax myrtle because they’re cold- and drought-tolerant, and provide critical habitat for both birds and butterflies.

“What we’ve done is try to address the biggest single obstacle that stops people from planting natives – their concern about what the neighbors will think,” Turley said. “These plants are all very attractive year-round to both people and to wildlife.”

Along with the focus on sustainability and ecosystem diversity, many people are rethinking their landscapes as local governments face the dual challenges of limited water supplies and the pollution caused by too much fertilizer. “The rules have changed,” Turley notes. “It’s no longer acceptable to use unlimited amounts of water and fertilizer to maintain large expanses of turfgrass.”

Start Now for Spring Beauty

Although natives can be planted nearly any time of year, Fall is a good time to start a back ten-foot garden, Scott adds. Begin by killing the lawn and weeds along your property line. “You can kill grass without chemicals if you put down a thick layer of newspaper and then cover it with mulch,” she notes. “Wait four to six weeks for the lawn to die, then you can dig through the mulch to plant the natives.”

Tree trimmers and local utilities often offer free mulch but it’s not always available at a convenient time. Rather than buying mulch in bags, consider getting together with your neighbors and having a load delivered – it’s less expensive and you can minimize your waste by not purchasing plastic bags. The most important thing, however, is to avoid cypress mulch, she said. “They’re cutting down cypress trees and destroying important wetlands to get it.”

Scott suggests buying plants in three-gallon pots and then following the design exactly as shown. “It might look a little sparse the first year, but you will be amazed at how rapidly the plants will grow in.” she said.

And while planting too close together might look better initially, it’s more important to focus on the long term, Turley adds. The goal is to create a design that minimizes maintenance so you must give plants enough room to grow to their natural size.

“The worst thing that ever happened to gardens is power equipment,” he quips. “If you plant the back ten feet as designed, all you’ll need to do is an occasional light pruning with a pair of clippers. That allows the plants to grow to their natural size so they can flower and fruit — providing food for butterflies and birds.”

Learn more:

www.backtenfeet.com includes plant lists for counties across the state along with videos detailing how and why to plant natives.

The Suncoast chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society (http://suncoast.fnpschapters.org) hosts an annual plant sale as part of the University of South Florida’s fall plant festival at the botanical gardens, October 13 and 14 at 12210 USF Pine Drive, Tampa.

In Pinellas, the FNPS chapter (http://pinellas.fnpschapters.org) hosts its plant sale November 10 at Wilcox Nursery, 12501 Indian Rocks Road, Largo.

The Pasco FNPS chapter (http://naturecoast.fnpschapters.org) will hold its native plant sale Oct. 20 at the Land O'Lakes Community Center, 5401 Land O Lakes Blvd.

The Serenoa FNPS (http://serenoa.fnpschapters.org) in Sarasota/Manatee counties hosts its Fall plant sale on October 6 at Sweetbay Nursery, 10824 Erie Road in Parrish.

For people outside Florida or interested in a more complex design for their landscapes, Cornell Lab of Ornithology has created http://app.yardmap.org as a citizen science project that collects data on yards, parks and schools and then provide tools to help people make better decisions about how to manage landscapes sustainably.