I f the breeze hits a yoshino cherry tree in your yard the right way, it can look like pink snow falling from the sky.
Some plant lovers view the cherry as one of the most beautiful flowering ornamental trees.
But accord ing to Clyde Jones, a master gardener who volunteers at the 3.5-acre Discovery Garden at University of Florida IFAS Extension in Tavares, it’s not a goo d tree to grow Central Florida.
“Don’t bring them down here,” said Jones, who is familiar with the trees from the National Cherry B lossom Festival in Washington D.C., which commemorates the 1912 gift of 3,000 cherry trees from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo to the city.
He fav ors the flatwoods plum or Chickasaw plum.
Trying to dig up ideas for some good plants to grow here, you might want to learn Central’s Florida’s landscape first, he said.
Jones on Saturday led an hour-long class, “Plant This, Not That,” and taught about which plants are recommended for Central Florida and which should be avoided.
Jones said one of the biggest misconception about Central Florida — at least to newcomer plant growers — is Florida’s tropical climate.
“We get hard freezes here too,” Jones said.
Want to add grace and beauty by planting Japanese maple? It’s too hot and humid for most of them, he said. However, the Japanese maple glowing embers can work fine here, the state of Georgia’s Gold Medal winner for 2005.
“It does need afternoon shade,” he said.
Croton is an extensive flowering plant genus in the spurge family — and look nice, but can be an expensive plant to maintain.
Jones prefers daylilies.
“There’s a million different colors,” Jones said.
The queen palm is most suited for acidic, well-drained soils and grows best in the full sun.
“It can suffer cold damage,” Jones said.
He prefers the sabal palmetto, also known as cabbage palm — a very dense, 10- to 15-foot-diameter, round crown of deeply cut, curved, palmate leaves.
Like the Sylvester palm tree, popular for landscaping, lining avenues and as accent trees on golf courses.
“They are OK, but have pretty heavy spikes,” Jones said. “Don’t plant them near your pool.”
Bearded iris is among the most elegant — and easy to grow — flowers of spring. But it must stay 30 days in temperatures below 40 to survive, Jones said.
Jones likes the Louisiana iris, which has a wider color range that most iris.
“It’s a beautiful thing and its very cold tolerant,” he said.
Jones has seen plenty of Holland tulips at Holland’s Keukenhof, advertised as the world’s most beautiful spring garden.
But for Central Florida, he likes amaryllis, a small genus of flowering bulbs.
“They just grow well here,” he said.
The class was part of a “Saturday in the Garden” speaker series held on the first Saturday of each month at UF/IFAS Extension.
Karen Casalese, of Tavares, wanted to get advice on her crape myrtle.
“It was very informative class,” she said.
For information on the “Saturday in the Garden” series, call 352-343-4101 or g o to http://lake.ifas.ufl.edu.
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