{"id":5279,"date":"2021-04-15T12:41:28","date_gmt":"2021-04-15T16:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.earthworksjax.com\/?p=5279"},"modified":"2025-05-30T13:20:26","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T13:20:26","slug":"landscaping-with-florida-native-plants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.earthworksjax.com\/gardencenter\/landscaping-with-florida-native-plants\/","title":{"rendered":"Landscaping with Florida Native Plants"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Landscaping with Florida native plants is economical and benefits our Northeast, Florida ecosystems requiring less water, fertilizers, and pesticides to sustain than non-native plants. \u201cThey are acclimated to everything that Northeast Florida can hand them the cold, the heat, the extreme drought that we can have from time to time, but also the deluge of rain we get a couple of months of thunderstorms back to back to back,\u201d said Matt Barlow, Earth Works garden center manager. \u201cAnd they are also pest and disease resistant because they evolved right here.\u201d Native plants are also important to the ecosystem as a source of food, shelter, and habitat for native wildlife including amphibians, birds, insects, mammals, reptiles and non-native migratory species.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Native plants host beneficial insects, pollinators, and decomposers that form a healthy natural ecosystem. For example, there are 24 oak tree varieties native to Florida, which support over 500 species of moths and butterflies. According to the National Wildlife Federation nearly 100% of songbirds depend on these insects as a key food source. Remove the native plants and the insect and dependent animal species populations crash. \u201cMore than 100 species of vertebrate animals are known to consume acorns in the US, including mammals such as white-tailed deer, gray squirrels, fox squirrels, flying squirrels, mice, voles, rabbits, raccoons, opossums, gray foxes, red foxes, and wild hogs,\u201d according to the University of Florida<\/a>. \u201cBirds that feed on acorns include wild turkey, bobwhite quail, wood ducks, mallards, woodpeckers, crows, and jays.\u201d<\/p>\r\n