Blueprints and River Rock

Landscaping Plan For a New House

94 degrees and 95% humidity makes it feel like 105 degrees outside and it is only the first week of summer in southwest Florida.  Watching the maintenance and landscaping crews work makes you wonder how they can work so hard in the heat, dripping wet they go from one job to the next beautifying yard after yard.

Cute Renovation

This house looks very different with the huge old bougainvillea standard removed the schefflera rearranged and the addition of panama roses.  The stone and weed barrier will help this elderly couple reduce maintenance.  Hazeltine designs and installs jobs of all sizes.

Before Mostly Junipers

I have designed and sold a few projects in Bobcat Trail in North Port this year these newer homes have the builders package landscape plan which generally consists of the same tired, cheap  plants; shore juniper, cabbage palms, Washingtonian palms, flax lily, iris and grasses. 

Tear Out

The skid loader makes short work of removing the old juniper and the weeping bottlebrush. The bottlebrush was good looking but planted to close to the house.  Maintenance for Bobcat Trail is done by a major national company and they trim all the bloom from the bottlebrush even though the clients have asked them not to, I replaced it with a palm at the proper spacing.

Sun Impatiens, Oh Yeah

Flowers spilling out of a pot surrounding the lamp post with a great new jasmine vine really changed the look of this house.  The homeowners are really happy with the new look.

No Real Landscaping Before

Cleared Property Line

I did not have the opportunity to meet with the owner of this property but that did not stop us from helping out with the landscaping.  This rental is owned by a woman in Miami and she wanted a spruce help that would help facilitate renting.  HNI to the rescue.  This quick fix up included chopping back the bush on the neighbors empty lot, adding some curb appeal to the road side and making the backyard more family friendly. 

Adding Curb Appeal

Many of the jobs I design have multiple components and frequently owners are absent so it is up to HNI to deliver the project on time and on budget, it is a good feeling to work for a company that is capable of delivering what it promises.  I ran Millgrove Landscaping with that philosophy and am pleased to continue with those values.

Bagged Stone

Topdressing beds with landscaping stone whether bagged or from a gravel pit is an effective method to help reduce weeds.  Landscaping fabric or weed barrier is installed under the fabric and weeds are kept at bay.  Gravel pits are in short supply down here in flat Florida so all stone is imported from other states.  I traveled to a few of our stone suppliers last week and got an education on how the stone gets to our southern most state.  Very interesting.

At Conrad Yelvington stone of various is brought into their yard by railcar.  A spur allows the cars to pull over a large pit with a heavy steel grate.  The car doors are opened and the stone drops into the pit.  The pit has a conveyor that runs under the road and then to the above ground belt which dumps it into the trucks.

The Conveyor

This will give you  an idea of why stone costs so much in FL, back in IN we could just go to the gravel pit and buy stone for around $ 12.00 a ton, down here all that shipping translates into stone that costs $ 120.00 a ton.  But it was a pretty cool to watch the stone being delivered.

Been awhile since I was required to wear a safety vest and hard hat but I did not mind.  I would prefer to have my own hardhat and not wear someone else's but that's okay.

The Grate Over the Pit