Viewing post #1566422 by sunkissed

THISISATRUCK said:Hey guys,

I posted this in the "Ask a question" thread and they suggested I come here with it.

My wife and I bought a house a little over a year ago and we are finally looking at doing some landscaping. We have a bed in front of the house that we want to fill in. My wife likes things to look full and I was going over some ideas of what to put there. We live in central FL (Polk County) and the front faces mostly west. It gets about 6-8 hours of direct sunlight and the soil is mostly sand as is much of Florida. It seems to be well draining as I have never seen it wet for very long. We are looking for relatively low maintenance plants but the most important part of that is fertilizer requirements and low water requirements. I was considering Confederate Jasmine for use as full ground cover. I love the smell and I know they can be trained to stay off of our columns. What I am having a tough time finding is a nice bush/shrub that can be used as feature plants. I was only going to plant 2-3 of them and they can't grow any wider than about 3 feet. I would like to also keep them around 4 feet or so. The shorter the better.

My wife really likes red flowers too. I was thinking some type of hibiscus or pentas? What do you guys think?

Welcome, This is a great website you can put in soil, sun and water and zone and it gives a list of great Florida friendly plants.

http://www.floridayards.org/fy...



Hibiscus are nice, mine get tall and leggy and need to be trimmed back often, I lose flowers in doing so, they don't like too cold of winters. I have lots of pentas, some in the ground and some in pots, as stated they tire out after a few years, also appreciate twice a week watering, butterflies do love them. My Pentas do get some shade, none are in full sun all day, although I've seen them in full sun in landscaping doing very well. My Confederate Jasmine has completely covered a section of fence, I've never thought of it to be a ground cover, although the website I give above shows it as a ground cover.

Some of my sun loving flowering plants that are pretty drought tolerant are: Hamelia patens (Firebush) this one can freeze but comes back quickly, a hummer/butterfly magnet, they do very well with trimming, there is a dwarf that stays smaller in size.. Galphimia glauca (Thryallis) pretty yellow flowers pretty much all year, mine is pretty cold hardy, responds well to pruning. Although I don't grow this, Plumeria comes to mind.
Good luck.