Penny Carnathan

Penny’s a Nurture And Hold (NAH): Nah, I won’t pull that out yet, it’s still got a green shoot. She likes dragonflies, lady bugs and new stuff only after weeding, pruning and fertilizing.

Kim Franke-Folstad

Kim’s a Want It Now (WIN): Everything pretty, everything now. She will resort to full-spectrum insecticides in desperate situations, and believes it’s her duty and right to buy new plants every weekend.

Both advocate Plant Choice (SOMEthing besides crotons. Please!), lots of color and low maintenance. We don’t agree on everything, but we’re smart enough to learn from each other - and from you.

 @TheDirtTBO
 The Dirt
 Post your garden photos
 Bay area nuseries
 Gardening calendar
 Planting guide

Most Recent Entries

• Universities board begins daunting task of creating new university
• USF marketing students finalists in gas promo contest
• USF website pulls together research, services for veterans
• USF Poly budget director Bresler says he’ll fight efforts to fire him
• Incoming Speaker Weatherford speaks at USF conference on college access
• USF St. Pete forms alumni society
• Goodbye Michael Kovac; nanotechnologist, roller coaster lover
• USF Poly administrator resigns; report recommended dismissal
• Anyone For Road Snapper? [Chef Ben Sargent Visits In Key West On “Hook, Line & Dinner.”]
• Universities eye cuts; USF remains quiet
• Banana Bourbon Caramel Cheesecake, Boiled Crawfish, Mussels & Clams [This Week’s Weekend Eats]
• Last USF Poly class graduates; Dockery lays in to “leaders” behind split
• Get your skin checked for free at USF
• Finally the scissors are out for the revamped USF Sun Dome
• Sen. Fasano: Goodman must go in wake of audit showing mismanagement and bullying

More

• The Stew
• The Dirt
• Hot Pursuits
• HOMEwork
• Inside USF
• L Archive
  • Green Lite
  • Bring It!

Monthly Archives

• May 2012
• April 2012
• March 2012
• February 2012
• January 2012
• December 2011

Yard makeover gives the rest of us some winning ideas

Posted Jun 24, 2010 by Loren Omoto

Updated Jun 25, 2010 at 02:20 PM

I love it when nice people win prizes. When the recipient is thoroughly thrilled, that’s better yet.

Donald Chatman is a Wesley Chapel IT contractor who hasn’t had a lot of work lately because of the economy. Six years ago, he moved here from California, buying a house whose front and back yards had been neglected. He worked at it and worked at it and finally got the grass looking pretty good.

“Then I committed the cardinal sin, for IT types: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I wanted to make it better,” he says, “so I changed the products I was using.”

Big mistake. Weeds and bugs moved in, the grass took a hike. And Donald was out of money and energy for starting all over.

Here’s his front yard before the makeover. (Lesson No. 1: If you keep your weeds tidy, they really don’t look bad!)

In May, Donald submitted photos of his yard to a contest called Save that Yard sponsored by RISE, a not-for-profit trade association that promotes the benefits of properly using fertilizers and pesticides.

Entrants had to live in Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas or Hernando County, and visitors to RISE’s Debug the Myths website could vote for the winner.

Donald won a makeover worth $5,000-plus from Cornerstone Solutions Group, a 25-year-old landscape company based in Dade City. The company is headed by Peter Klinkenberg, who took note of Donald’s needs and wants before ripping out everything but his oak trees.

Here’s the plan Cornerstone came up with. It includes all low-maintenance, hardy plants, including feijoa, Fakahatchee grass, lantana, liriope, crepe myrtles and African iris.

(I did complain to Peter that I think African iris are not so low-maintenance. Mine hasn’t bloomed in four years. He said the fact that it has remained alive so long while so obviously very unhappy is a testament to its admirable toughness. He didn’t say “Not to your gardening abilities,” but I know he was thinking it. He says I need to fertilize it more than once a year.)

Here’s Donald’s front yard after the three-day makeover.

Cornerstone used Floratam St. Augustine in the front (better for shade). The bunches of grass are native Fakahatchee, which Peter says looks a bit like fountain grass and is super tough. It can take part shade or full sun, and wet or dry conditions. Cut it back in the spring and it quickly rebounds.

In the back, Donald had nothing but weeds.

He especially liked this transformation — from “barren desert to oasis.” The photo doesn’t really do it justice. Cornerstone put in three 16-foot queen palms, two 15-foot Tuscarora (fuchsia) crape myrtles, and beds of African iris and Fakahatchee grass. Because the yard is sunny, the new St. Augustine is Bitterblue.

If you want to get the industry’s perspective on using fertilizers and pesticides, visit the RISE site.