This is “travel” related only in the sense of understanding the environment of South Florida where, as I have mentioned before, plants can quickly grow out of control. We of course do not have seasons in the same way that mostly only evergreens and specific bushes and so forth thrive in winter. We do have seasonal blooming cycles for certain things, but our day-to-day profusion of blossoms and more variety of palms than you can keep track of, means constant attention must be paid to keep things under control. A couple of years ago, we had the woman who previously re-landscaped the back yard come out because several items we originally planted didn’t turn as we planned and we wanted to increase the butterfly/hummingbird attracting ones. I thought we might be able to keep up with everything this time, but once again, despite Hubby having to continuously remove palm fronds and cut back some of the blooming bushes, the back yard is tangled looking. We don’t need anything else planted per se; it’s more we have a few things in nice containers that seem to be root bound. One of them may simply be a matter of not watering enough. In another case, one I thought had given up seems to be recovered. There is also an out of control aloe vera in the front yard that Hubby and I disagree about. I think it looks like the “Little Shop of Horrors” situation and he likes it. I’m not even sure it can be safely removed if I get Hubby to agree we swap back to having it in a container instead of the soil. (I hadn’t realized that when you plant in the ground, they can get really big)

The woman we use has been in the landscape business for a long time and doesn’t hesitate to explain when she thinks we have made errors.