Finally! Laws and rules and advanced building codes classes will be on the agenda at the 4th Annual Native Plant Show this spring, thanks to a collaboration with DistanceLearnPro, a provider of both live and online education for industry professionals. Landscape architects can now get all the types of continuing education credits they need at the Native Plant Show. FANN is especially pleased that Joe Samnik, who everyone tells us is the best in the business, will be teaching these classes.

Grow retail-ready native plants and make money doing it. On-the-farm workshop for growers to learn and share methods of producing native plants for greater mass market appeal and profitabiity.

Green Seasons Nursery owner Roger Triplett and his crew discuss and demonstrate what goes into producing good-looking, profitable plants, including the quality of starter plants, moving plants up through gallon container sizes, soils, fertilizers, watering, biocontrols and chemical control of pests and fungus, trimming techniques and all the many considerations that go into producing profitable plants from start to finish.

The not-for-profit conservation group Speak Up Wekiva is proposing the Florida Black Bear Habitat Restoration Act to be introduced to the Florida legislature in 2016. The legislation seeks a permanent ban on permits to harvest Saw Palmetto berries on all state lands, including state forests, parks and conservation easements, identified as Black Bear habitat by a panel of scientists appointed by the President of the Senate. It also seeks a permanent ban on sale of timbering rights to acorn-producing oak trees in all state forests and state parks identified as bear habitat by the expert panel.

Sponsors and exhibitors can sign up online to be part of the show happening Thursday-Friday, March 31-April 1, 2016 at the Osceola Heritage Park in Kisssimmee.

A tardy, but hearty hello and thank you is owed these new growers, garden centers, landscape and environmental professionals.

Holiday break time might be a great time for you to start plotting to win the 2016 Real Florida Landscapes Design Competition. Deadline for submittals is February 20, 2016. Ask ace landscape architect Sabine Marcks of Landscape Design Associates about her experience finding new work thanks to her award-winning design submittals. This is a fun little competition that does not require any actual installation – just your creativity in how to use a small space with all native plants. Winners get to show off their design chops at the 4th Annual Native Plant Show and in our annual Native Plant & Service Directory. For details on the competition and to submit, click on Learn More below.

Designing agricultural landscapes that protect biodiversity has become a high priority for some landscape architects, scientists, and farmers. And designing the right collaborations can be just as important as designing for conservation itself. "There are some advances that can only occur through collaboration, which is why conservation requires design," said Dr. James Gibbs, a conservation biologist and professor at SUNY’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry at the ASLA 2015 Annual Meeting and Expo in Chicago. Gibbs shared his experience with master farmer Zachary Wolf and Thomas Woltz, FASLA, Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, who worked together on Oakencroft Farm in Virginia and Overlook Farm in Pennsylvania.

Many folks, not to mention homeowners associations, cling to that model of the American yard as one of clipped foundation shrubs, groomed lawns and trees with mulch circles. Naked soil must be blanketed spring and fall with shredded mulch. Fallen leaves are treated as trash.

The real gardening world left this fusty model years ago, embracing soft groupings of perennials, grasses and specimen trees and shrubs in a celebration of plants and a closer communion with nature.

In this day and age of electronics, why not help your children or grandchildren develop an appreciation for plants? FANN member Native Nurseries of Tallahassee owner Donna Legare blogs for her local newspaper!
(Photo by Florida Native Plants Nursery, Sarasota)

The vehicle in which marketing messages are delivered to the consumer has reached a speed worthy of the Indy 500. To keep up with that pace, it’s imperative the green industry present a clear and continuous voice that reaches the end consumer. To be successful, the wholesale grower must maintain a dual responsibility of producer and marketer. FANN is watching the new National Initiative for Consumer Horticulture. So far they have not responded to our offer to be a part of whatever they do, but we will not let them slip by easily.

Novel ecosystems may be controversial but are getting lots of attention in the design community. As our landscapes become increasingly fragmented and degraded, landscape architects and designers are grappling with how to deal with invasive and non-native plants that form "novel ecosystems." Given each one of these systems is different, there are complicated issues that require a thoughtful and strategic approach. Ecologist Stephen Murphy from the University of Waterloo joined Travis Beck, ASLA, director of horticulture at the Mt. Cuba Center, and Larry Weaner, Affiliate ASLA, Larry Weaner Landscape Associates, to discuss strategies for designers at the ASLA 2015 Annual Meeting in Chicago.

Landscape architects Thomas Rainer and Claudia west have produced a beautiful new book promoting "designed" plant communities inspired by nature but which do not aspire to directly imitate native plant communities. In fact, their "plant communities" don’t really appear to be what we native plant peole think of as plant communities. More form, less function.

An international floriculture industry seminar has concludes there is a broad-based need for sustainability and transparency. Achieving durability and maximum transparency is the responsibility of the entire chain, was the main conclusion of the seminar "Shaping the Future of Floriculture," which took place on Monday, November 9 on the S.S. Rotterdam in The Netherlands. The seminar, organized by Union Fleurs, VGB and MPS, was well attended by participants from all parts of the floriculture supply chain.

There’s a good bit of speculation that 2015 may be a mast year for many oaks. "Mast" is the fruit of forest trees, like acorns or nuts, but unlike traditional agricultural crops which have a (somewhat) predictable yield each year, forest trees have highly variable fruiting. Some years, oaks only produce a handful of acorns, but in mast years, the trees produce a ridiculous abundance of nuts. Over vast regions of the country, almost all of the oaks of a single species (and sometimes more than one species) prepare to produce the crop of a decade.

In Old Town, Alexandria, my walk from the metro has become as treacherous as the "black ice" of winter. The red oaks of King Street shower the sidewalks with small, perfectly round acorns like thousands of ball bearings. Ankles and knees: beware! When the wind blows, acorns pop on the hoods of parked cars like dried corn in a skillet.