Another Death in the Family

Gum Bumelia (Sideroxylon lanuginosa)
The rains have arrived over the past few weeks. With each day, a new wave of storms materializes off the coast and sweeps across my landscape. Our landscapes are not defined by what is normal, but by what isn't. Abiotic factors such as rain and freezing events are predictable even if uncommon. They reset the biological tapestry of an area - winnowing out those species and individuals that had appeared to be part of the normal landscape, but were secretly not.  It is easy to hide out with your neighbors, pretending to fit in with the neighborhood, when, in fact, you're a fraud...... This is just as true for our human-manufactured landscapes as it is for natural ones.
With the advent of the summer rainy season, I've been waiting a bit nervously to see how my developing landscape would fare. These abnormally heavy rains have made the situation even more nerve wracking.  I've been working with Florida native plants now for more than 30 years and I've learned a lot from the mistakes I have made. Because I've made quite a few, I've felt qualified to write books and blogs on the subject, but every new site poses new challenges and a learning curve regardless of how much experience one has accumulated.
My new landscape is a new experiment for me. After decades of experimenting with a wide variety of native species, I've decided to build my deciduous woodland around species that are deciduous and largely native to north Florida - not here in the central Florida location that I now find myself in.  Sometimes, my native-plant friends critique me in a mostly friendly way for my plant choices. The truth is, however, that a landscape has to bring one as much or more joy than it provides ecological services. If we can't look out over our plantings and smile, we've failed ourselves and the connection to nature that is so important to foster. My new planting design is the culmination of finding out what species bring me the most joy while having ecological value. Therefore, it is heavy with spring-blooming understory trees and shrubs. I miss the spring of my youth and the flowering woody plants, still bare of leaf, reconnect me to those days. That the flowers attract pollinators and then produce fruit for birds is important to me, but almost secondary for my need to find joy with these plants.
Regardless of how much we've failed and learned from it, no matter how many "experts" you refer to and books you consult, plants will die - especially in times of extreme weather. I seemingly have had my first casualty since I began my planting odyssey here. My gum bumelia (Sideroxylon lanuginosa) started looking a bit peaked a few days ago and today it is obviously dead. If there is some life hidden deep within its bark, I would be surprised. I have searched for several years for this plant. When I found one, (a beautiful specimen) I was elated. I've grown this species in several locations before and not found it to be very fussy. It is actually one of the species native to my region. From my viewpoint, it was planted in the right location. From the plant's viewpoint (and the only one that matters), it was all wrong. Plants die. This death might have been the result of a great many things that I had no control over. Should I find another one of these someday, the new one might prosper in this location. Because plants die, we just need to be prepared for it. No hand wringing, no giving up. I am mostly saddened because it may take me years to be able to replace it. Until then, I will keep my fingers crossed that this will be the only mortality this summer.

Comments

  1. PamJuly 29, 2019 at 2:28 PM

    I remember when we moved to North Pinellas 19 years ago, I planted an American Beautyberry in my back yard. Then, the next summer I found that during heavy summer rains there is overflow from Brooker Creek Preserve that is right behind my property into our back yard. After a week of very heavy rains, the back was flooded and the poor beautyberry died in three days. The next one I planted in the high and dry front yard where it still is thriving.

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