Winter Garden Projects - Front Walk Revamp

Cool winter days are great for gardening projects in Central Florida. In addition to a major re-plant of our Flight Encounter exhibit, we also spent time during the month of January giving the front walk and adjacent gardens a face-lift. This area has been somewhat neglected the last few years due to lack of funds, but we were finally able to give these gardens the attention they deserve. Take a look at what we accomplished.

BEFORE. Some of these areas were overgrown, while others had little vegetation left. Since this is the main entrance to the Flight Encounter exhibit, we knew something had to be done.

In past years, we've tried to plant annuals here to attract butterflies and present an attractive entrance to the exhibit. Maintaining annuals becomes very expensive, though, and since the irrigation in this area is not always reliable, we knew it was time to re-think how we approached the landscaping here. We decided to focus on just a few types of perennials, either Florida natives or "Florida Friendly" plants that would need little care to look their best in the months and years ahead.

AFTER. In the end, we choose two native species, sand cordgrass and coontie; and two Florida Friendly species, agapanthus and yellow African iris. The mix of textures and shades of green complement each other well. In the two front corners, we left space for a small selection of butterfly-attracting annuals that can be replaced seasonally, and planted them with white sweet alyssum and ageratum. All of the other plants are perennials that will require only minimal pruning going forward - a real time saver for us.

Over the course of 4 days, we laid out and then installed nearly 450 perennials in 1 and 3 gallon pots. (That's a LOT of holes.) We also mulched all the areas with pine bark, using only our fleet of wheelbarrows and some shovels (and quite a lot of ibuprofen!) to spread 20 cubic yards of mulch. The difference was astonishing.

A look at the mulch pile progress, over the course of 2 days:

And now, some before and after comparisons.

This landscaping extended around the sides of this area too. It's hard to capture all the work that was done, but this "aerial" shot taken from the second floor of a building nearby gives you an idea of the amount of work we tackled.

We're incredibly thrilled with the results of this project. While this is not the most exciting landscaping we've ever done, it looks clean and makes the front area feel inviting. We hope you'll stop by and check it out soon!