[Press Release] Winter Park’s Mead Botanical Gardens Receives Landscape Award



Melbourne, FL – The Florida Native Plant Society (FNPS) has designated October as “Native Plant Month.” During October, local society chapters host talks and hikes to natural areas to promote native plant communities and the environmental benefits to wildlife. In that educational spirit, FNPS created a landscape award program open to homeowners, businesses, government agencies, HOA’s, and community groups. FNPS received 19 applications for the 2023 landscape award cycle. Applicants across Florida had the opportunity to showcase their landscaped project and to highlight their garden.
 


Among the 19 applicants, a local winner for the “Garden of Excellence” was selected. Mead Botanical Gardens in Winter Park was chosen for its native upland plant restoration work since 2013 in partnership with the local FNPS Chapter. The applicant described Mead Botanical Garden as a “natural oasis amid urban Winter Park and Orlando, almost a “last frontier” of natural land.” The presence of 100-year-old longleaf pines provided the inspiration for the local chapter to embark on restoration of the sandhill community by removing exotic plants and planting native grasses and wildflowers. In return, the site has expanded its gopher tortoise population and provided educational trails to visitors.

“Mead Botanical Garden is a wonderful example of what urban green space can become through partnerships,” said Lynda Davis, FNPS Executive Director, “they are a respite for visitors and residents alike and provide an oasis for wildlife.”

www.fnps.org



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wednesday's Wildflower:Spanish Needle

Image
Spanish Needle, Bidens Alba Submitted by Donna Bollenbach, Suncoast Chapter Biden's alba , all photos by Donna Bollenbach Nothing attracts more butterflies and bees than a simple white flower called Bidens alba . Also called Romerillo, Beggar’s Tick, Spanish Needle or Monkey’s Lice, this Florida native wildflower is the third most reliable source of nectar for pollinators in our state. There would be many starving bees and butterflies if not for the Bidens family of flowers. More so, Bidens alba and its sister plant, Bidens pilosa , are both edible and have medicinal value. Yet, many gardeners have a love/hate relationship the plant, and some even consider it a pesky weed. Why?
Read more

Australian Pine: One of Florida's Least Wanted

Image
 Austrailian Pine fruits Australian pines seem to be everywhere in the coastal regions in the bottom half of Florida. Their name is deceiving because, while they are native to Australia, they aren't pines or even conifers. They are flowering trees with separate male and female flowers, and what look like needles are really green twiglets with close-set circles of tiny leaves that drop at the first sign of a drought. In the photo to the right, the light-colored lines are where leaves where once attached. Most of the photosynthesis takes place in the twiglets. There are three species of Australian pine ( Casuarina spp ) that have been imported into Florida for various purposes. They were widely planted to soak up the "swamps" in Florida, stabilize canals, and hold beaches. Unfortunately for Florida's ecosystems, the "pines" accomplished all this and more--like seeding prolifically, growing five feet or more per year, producing dense shade, and emitting
Read more

Florida Native Azaleas

Image
Piedmont Azalea, Rhododendron canescens. Photo by Lilly Anderson-Messec By Lilly Anderson-Messec While growing up in North Florida, I began to recognize the arrival of spring by the boisterous show of white, pink, and fuchsia blooms of azalea shrubs. The house I grew up in had large, mature azalea hedges with a variety of different colors and forms. Every spring, my mom would bring in vases full of them and my dad loved to point out the showy shrubs as we drove through town. I suppose I assumed these plants were native, but most likely I never gave it a thought. I didn’t differentiate a native plant from a non-native one because I didn’t yet know the importance of native plants as the basis of our functioning ecosystems. I was so surprised when I learned the azaleas I was so familiar with (Rhododendron indicum) are actually transplants from Asia! They are favored by the horticultural industry for their fast, vigorous, and dense growth of evergreen leaves and large, showy blooms. Curio
Read more