Frequently Asked Questions

Plants in the 9B hardiness zone are adapted to the high and low temperatures (including freezes) that central Florida usually experiences. If you have plants that belong in zones 10 or higher, these are vulnerable to Seminole county’s coldest temperatures and freezes.

Should a freeze occur and you want to protect your plants, you can try to insulate your plant with the heat from the ground. You want a tarp or blanket to encapsulate but not touch the plant, and have your covering touch the ground, this will seal in the plant. Simply draping old cloth across your plants will not hold in the heat. Twinkle lights or other lamps can also provide heat. If you have container plants, bring them inside or bunch them together beneath a tree.

The Green Industries Best Management Practices (GI-BMP) certification shows that an individual has completed a six hour training covering landscape management, appropriate water, fertilizer and pest control application, and pollution control. We recommend that all landscapers complete this training; it is required training if someone wants to commercially apply fertilizer.

You can learn whether your landscaper is GI-BMP certified by asking to see their certificate or you can consult the state list of certifications.

Bears have a large home range and are opportunistic feeders. It’s very possible for a black bear to pass through your neighborhood and if your yard provides some sort of food, the bear will likely take advantage of it. Remember feeding bears is against the law. If convicted, a person could be sentenced to up to 60 days in jail or a receive $500.00 fine. Feeding bears increases the potential for human injury and private property damage. Still, we may unintentionally feed bears with our garbage, pet food, pets, wildlife feeders, or gardens. You must secure your trash (bear proof trashcan or firmly attached bungee cord) or store it in a sturdy building. Do not leave out pet food, or unattended pets (a screen porch is not secure enough). Clean barbeque grills. Hang bird feeders out of reach or bring them inside if you know a bear is in the area.

If you encounter a bear, remain calm and do not run. You want to give the bear space and a route to make its escape. Make your presence known by making noise, then backing away slowly. Move to a secure location (house, car, building) and wait for the bear to leave. You can call the police or contact the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission . Read more about homeowners and black bears.

This depends on the plant because some plants are more drought tolerant than others. In general, a well-established ornamental plant will not need supplemental watering (your trees or shrubs are fine with just the rain). If you see your plant wilting or closing in on itself, this is a sign it needs water. All newly planted plants need regular watering to become established. Read more about watering considerations.   

Now let’s talk about turf since this is one of the most common plants in the United States! Turf tends to need more regular watering than plants or shrubs. In Seminole County we can water twice a week April through October and once a week November through March (grass grows less during cooler months so it needs less water). However, even if it’s your day to water, look to see whether your turfs leaf blades are closing together, if it seems more of bluish-green color, or if the grass doesn’t perk back up after you walk over it. Without these symptoms, your turf doesn’t need watering. Given the amount of rainfall Florida receives, weeks can go by without having to turn on the irrigation.

When you do turn on the irrigation system, you want to run it for however long for it to apply ½ - ¾ inches of water. If you water more than that the water just keeps moving through the soil past your root zone –you don’t want to water only dirt, right?

So how long do you run the system?

               You can calibrate it,   (More about calibration) which will be the most specific to your system.

               You can download an irrigation app developed by UF/IFAS to calculate it.

               Or you can sign up for our seasonal e-mail recommendations.

You have several tools available and we are here for you to ask further questions. Watering the correct amount is VERY IMPORTANT to the health of your plants and saving Florida millions of gallons of water!

The best plantings in your yard depend on your environmental conditions and what you want for that area. A plant has certain growth characteristics: does the spot you have in mind provide the right elements? Take a survey of your yard. What amount of sunlight do you have? Next, what is your soil like? Is it sand, loam, or clay? How does it drain? What’s the pH? What nutrients are available? Seminole County is in cold hardiness zone 9B so select plants within that range. Do you have moist areas in your yard or places that collect water? How are you prepared to water your plants? How large do you want the plant to get? What shape or color would you like the plant to be?

As you can see, there’s a lot to consider! First, you need to learn more about your yard conditions . When you know your yard conditions, you can select the appropriate plants using this website, www.floridayards.org , the FYN Plant Selection site, or review the FFL Guide to Plant Selection and Landscaping Design. You may also be interested in attending one of our landscape design classes.

It depends on the weed, how many you have, and how much you can tolerate.

Let’s start with how much you can tolerant. If all you want is a green yard, much of what we call weeds are plants native to Florida, provide habitat for wildlife and stay low to the ground when mowed. A weedy yard, in a sense, is a more ecologically diverse yard. But perhaps that’s not what you’re going for so let’s talk about control.

Identify the weed because this determines how you control it. If you need help identifying the weed, visit our office with a sample or good picture and a Master Gardener or one of our agents will do our best to identify it for you. In general, there are grass-like weeds and broadleaf weeds, which have different management methods.

Control methods include hand pulling, in rare cases an insect can feed on the plant (Ex. Air potato), and herbicides. Hand pulling is fast, cheap, has little environmental impact and it’s good exercise! We all know though that weeding can be very tiring or beyond your physical capacity. Hand pulling can also be ineffective if a certain weed (like torpedo grass) is very difficult to uproot or if you have such a large area of weeds it would be impractical to pull them all.

If you choose to use herbicides, you need to match the herbicide to your problem. There are pre-emergent herbicides and post-emergent herbicides. A pre-emergent herbicide treats weeds that have not yet germinated from their seed. You use a pre-emergent herbicide to prevent weeds from sprouting. You should apply it by February 15. If you already have grown weeds, a pre-emergent won’t do anything to kill them, so you'll need a post-emergent. A post-emergent herbicide will be selective or non-selective. A selective herbicide will kill only a certain type of weed. A non-selective herbicide will kill whatever plants it comes in contact with. Herbicides will also be systemic or contact treatments. A systemic gets absorbed into the plant and kills it. A contact herbicide kills what the herbicide touches. Again choosing a herbicide depends on the weed and when a selection has been made, the LABEL IS THE LAW. Read the product carefully and follow the directions exactly.

There’s another step after you remove your weeds, which is what to do with the empty space you created. If you have turf grass and maybe 30% of your yard is weeds, be prepared to fill in the weeded areas with sod or plugs, otherwise the weeds will grow back in that space. For landscape beds, mulching or a newspaper layer first then mulch can suppress returning weeds.

Whatever your pest may be, it’s in your yard because your yard provides food, water, shelter, or a pathway to better habitat. If your yard no longer provides food, water, or shelter, your pest would have no reason to stay. Some sources of food (i.e. trash, bird seed, pets, pet food, or a grill) can be secured. If your foliage or vegetable is what’s desired, barriers and scare tactics have some success or you may want to select different plants that are less desirable.

You have to understand your pest’s habitat needs in order to know how best to modify your landscape or practices. UF has a good series of “Managing Nuisance Wildlife in Your Yard” publications.  What you may learn is that what you perceive as a pest isn’t all that damaging or threatening or you may learn that it is time to call in a professional.

First off, you absolutely must know what the pest is before you treat it. You don’t want to waste your money on pesticide and add it to the environment if it won’t be effective! There are a huge diversity of insects out there and only a small percentage are considered pests. You can go about identifying the pest based on the damage it’s done on what plant. A great resource we use is the free Landscape Pest App by the UF Entomology department. This app also includes treatment recommendations.

If you’re able to capture the pest on camera (close-up) or as a specimen, you can bring it into the Extension Office where our Master Gardeners will try to identify it for you.

Treatment recommendations depend on the pest. If possible, we want to choose the least toxic method that has the shortest persistence in the environment. Hand removal (aka squashing), spot pruning, reducing water or fertilizer, soapy water, horticultural oils, and pesticides (as a last resort) are all possible treatments. It is easiest to act when the problem is small, that means scouting in your yard for possible pest problems more than once a week.

To begin with, good for you! Habitat loss is the top threat to wildlife populations and doing what you can on your property is a chance to support Florida’s great biodiversity. Providing habitat in your yard means providing food, water, and shelter. If any of these elements are out of reach, your yard is not habitable.

You can attract wildlife based on what you plant, how you arrange those plantings, and with other structural features such as water sources or man-made shelters. Think about the space you have and what you can grow in terms of light, soil, temperature, and a plant’s mature size. Think about the wildlife you would most like to have and what sort of food they eat. Plants produce foliage, fruit, mast (acorns, nuts), and nectar. Bird species will have different preferences and butterflies have a very specific host plant that the caterpillars will feed on. In general, the more diverse your plants the more options wildlife have to utilize. So mix it up!

Besides plants providing all sorts of food, they also provide shelter. Again the more diversity you have in plant height and plant shape, the more niches you are creating for different wildlife to fill. Snags, which are dead trees, are great habitat. A brush pile of fallen branches and twigs are also great. A lawn provides no shelter and not much food so see if you can introduce different plants in that area.

Remember that insects are a critical link in the food chain so limit or abstain from using pesticides. Keep cats indoors because they are another huge threat to wildlife.

We give Backyard Habitat classes where you can learn more or read this informative UF/IFAS publication.

This depends on your plant and your soil. For example, a palm tree typically requires more manganese than your turf grass.

What nutrients do your plants require and what does the soil have to offer? Start off with a soil test. A soil pH test can be performed in our office and costs $2.00. Nutrients, such as iron, become more or less available at different pH’s. Knowing your pH can guide your plant choice or tell you what nutrients are limited.

A soil nutrient test is performed at the Soil Testing Laboratory at the University of Florida in Gainesville. This costs $7.00 and will tell you levels of phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and magnesium. It will also give fertilizer recommendations. The Seminole County Extension office has free kits to use to mail your sample.

The soil test does not tell you the amount of Nitrogen (N) in the soil, because it varies too much in the soil over time for the test to give you a true indication. A tissue test could tell you this and gives a better indication of what nutrients the plants are picking up.

If you are looking for a general turf fertilizer, we recommend products that have slow-release nitrogen, no phosphorus, and potassium close to amount of Nitrogen. Nitrogen is an essential element in a plant’s metabolism; it makes grass grow and stay green. Nitrogen is available in many forms –both organically and synthetically-produced. A slow-release nitrogen product has the element bound up in such a way that the nitrogen becomes available in the soil over an extended period of time rather that a quick release or rapid flush. Look at the fertilizer bag or label closely to see what percentage of the total Nitrogen is in slow-release form. If you have a slow-release nitrogen product, you will apply no more than a pound of nitrogen per 1000 square feet of lawn.

How big is your lawn? What percent nitrogen do you have? Consult the table below to measure out the total amount of fertilizer you need to apply.

Table 1.

Recommended application rates for turfgrass fertilizers to Florida lawns.

Table 2.

UF/IFAS recommendations for annual nitrogen application rates in pounds of nitrogen per 1,000 square feet of lawn.

Unless your soil test says different, it’s fair to assume there’s enough phosphorus already in the soil and it’s needless to add any more. Choose a product without phosphorus (or the lowest amount you can find).

Potassium increases the resiliency of the root system. All the action takes place underground. You want your turf to have enough potassium in times of stress (cold, drought). Choose a product that has a 1:1 ratio or 2:1 ratio of nitrogen to potassium. During your fall application try for the 1:1 ratio.

The Florida-Friendly Landscaping Program and Urban Horticulture offer a variety of classes that pertain to your yard or garden. Some topics include: Landscape Design, Vegetable Gardening, Lawn Care, Pest and Weed Control, Backyard Habitats, Butterfly Gardening, Bees and Pollinators, Compost and Mulching, Rain Barrel workshops, and Living with the Lake. You can find a list of upcoming Florida-Friendly Landscaping classes or on the Seminole County Calendar .These classes are meant for the general public. Please take note of the location and cost; most classes are free or else include a materials fee.

If your neighborhood, garden club, or other community group is interested in having a class, contact Taryn Sudol at fyn@seminolecountyfl.gov (407-665-5575).

If you are a landscape professional, we (as well as the surrounding counties) offer the Green Industries Best Management Practices (GI-BMP) training. Check the upcoming schedule for more information.  You can also check out the UF/IFAS website for continuing education courses (CEUs).

What don’t you like about your pond? Is it flooded or dry? Is it overrun with weeds? Is it green with algae? Is it loaded with litter? Does it have snakes?

One of the first things we’d like to know is what type of pond it is: does it only fill up when it rains and sometimes goes dry? Does it always have water in it? Water levels are typically a result of runoff and runoff is a result of rainfall and surrounding development. A rainy season will increase water levels and nearby development may direct more stormwater runoff to your pond. Read more if you are having flooding issues. 

If it’s a dry season, there’s not much you can do to increase water levels. Some ponds are designed to dry up and that’s ok. If you have a pond that fills from groundwater, wait for rain because there are larger factors at hand that the neighborhood can’t influence.

The root cause of weeds and algae is that they have the nutrients available that they need to grow. Nutrients enter the system through stormwater runoff. The runoff contains nutrients from fertilizers, grass clippings, sediments and other debris. You must reduce nutrients and reduce runoff. For tips and more information, check out: Seminole Water Atlas and Reducing Stormwater Runoff.

Native aquatic plants will absorb nutrients and compete with algae and weeds. You can accomplish that by planting beneficial native plants and removing invasive plants. More on that here: How to Plant your Lakefront.

Your pond is the end point for nutrients in the same way that litter might collect there. The best way to deal with litter is to arrange regular clean ups and for people to stop littering. Managing lakes is really everyone’s responsibility.

As for snakes, if they’re in and around your pond, it means they have the food, water, and shelter they require. Most of Florida’s snakes are non-venomous and harmless. They play a role in the ecosystem so let them stay and do their job. If you are certain you have a venomous snake like a water moccasin and it’s a threat to you or residents, it’s safest to call an animal trapping/removal service.

We offer classes for you and your neighborhood about lakefront management.  Watch for upcoming classes or email fyn@seminolecountyfl.gov for more information.

Bring a photo (whole plant and close up of problem area) or plant/turf sample to our Plant Clinic. Read more on tips to what to bring to the plant clinic. The clinic is located at the UF/IFAS Extension office at 250 W. County Home Road, Sanford (Mon-Fri, 8:00 am – 5:00 pm). Call first to make sure a Master Gardener volunteer is available, 407-665-5550.

You can also email a picture of the plant or turf problem area to mastergardener@seminolecountyfl.gov.

We will also want to know:

• When did the problem start and how did it progress (fast, slow, after my dog went to the bathroom on it, etc.)?
• What’s your watering, fertilizer, herbicide or pesticide management like?
• Did anything recently change?

With this information at hand, we will do our best to tell you what went wrong and how to fix it!

If we’re stumped, we may refer you to the UF/IFAS Plant Diagnostic Center, the Soil Testing Laboratory, or the Entomology department and they can run further tests. Reviewing your sample or running the tests may have additional fees.

Plants are everywhere! We have several great plant nurseries in Seminole County, which will offer a large variety, and big box stores also have a strong selection to choose from.

We do not have a constant source of free plants for you. We sometimes have plant giveaways at our classes. Also different city festivals, especially around Earth Day, will have plant giveaways. Garden clubs, such as the Native Plant Society, will do plant swaps or sales. In general, the more gardening friends you have, the better the opportunity you have to get transplants, clippings, or seeds from them.

If you want free plants, keep your eyes and ears open and with patience you can find them. But if you are redesigning your yard and want a good mass planting, you’ll most likely need to purchase them. In general, the smaller the size of the plant, the less it will cost (a gallon pot vs a 3 gallon pot), and seeds are even less! It will just take the time to grow.

Algae will grow and multiply if it has all the light and nutrients that it needs, so when you ask why there’s so much algae, you’re really asking why are there so many nutrients? Nutrients can be entering your yard from a variety of factors: runoff fertilizers, grass clippings, leaf litter or pet waste. These nutrients enter with stormwater runoff so your whole neighborhood is responsible (you must fertilizer appropriately, keep grass clippings on the lawn and other debris out of the storm drain, and pick up pet waste). The pond itself would most likely benefit from more native aquatic plants. These absorb the nutrients instead of the algae.

But then there’s weather. Reducing nutrients and adding native plants is always a good thing (do it!) but sunlight and amount of rainfall (or amount of runoff) influences how the pond looks. Warm weather is good for algae. Lots of rain can increase the size of your pond so it seems like there’s less algae. Good circulation in your pond from wave action, fountains, or aerators will also slow algae growth.