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How to Recognize Hazardous Defects in Trees
Publication by the USDA Forest Service.

Native Trees for South Florida
A.W. Meerow, H.M. Donselman, and T.K. Broschat present the arguments which have been used for and against more extensive use of native trees in South Florida landscaping.

Native Trees for North Florida
Extension paper by Alan W. Meerow and Jeffrey G. Norcini provides a plants list and characteristics of desirable North Florida native trees.

Wind and Trees: Surveys of Tree Damage in the Florida Panhandle after Hurricanes Erin and Opal
By Mary L. Duryea. A survey of tree damage following these hurricanes showed Live Oak to be most wind resistant and Cabbage Palm to be second most resistant. Paper includes a Table of most resistant trees.

Avocado 'Don Gillogly'
Persea americana 'Don Gillogly'

Grow delicious avocados in your own living room with this vigorous, evergreen Mexican native!
Annually produces two crops of soft, black-skinned avocados with a rich flavor!

Enjoy luscious tropical fruit year-round in your living room from this vigorous, evergreen dwarf! Fast-growing and pest-free, this Mexican native produces two crops a year of soft, black-skinned avocados with a flavor so rich you need nothing else for a scrumptious guacamole!

Self-pollination follows the winter blooms, and the fruit ripens year-round (though the first crop may take up to 14 months). In mild climates it's also an excellent patio specimen, but bring it indoors beside a sunny window before frost. Capable of reaching 10 feet tall, but simple to keep pinched back to desired height and width, the Gillogly Avocado is both attractive and productive. Comes with easy culture instructions.

 Petite Black Fig
Few fruits are more meltingly soft, rich, and sweet than a ripe fig straight from the bush, and no fig is as easy to grow as this delightful dwarf. Small enough for an urban balcony, small patio, or accent planting right in the front yard, this hard-working tree offers not one but two full crops of yummy fruit every year! And even if it never set a fig, you'd fall in love with its elegant horizontal branching and large, hand-shaped foliage.

This naturally dwarf variety grows only 6 to 8 feet tall and 3 to 4 feet wide--perfect for a large container. It's self-fertile, so you just need one, but this tree is such a charmer that we recommend you succumb to temptation and try a pair! They make a great impression flanking an entryway or marching up the steps to the porch!

The first year you'll probably get one good crop, and from then on, it will set fruit first in July, then around late September. The large, black-skinned fruits are plump and lightly creased, with delicious, juicy dark red flesh. Even if you're not a fig-lover, this tree is worth its weight in gold for the birds it brings to your garden!

Lovely from early spring through fall, its slender trunk and nicely layered, widely-spaced branches stand out beautifully against the large, dark green, maple-like lobed foliage. The perfect edible ornamental, this dwarf is a showstopper in any setting! If you live north of zone 7, bring it indoors when freezing weather sets in; elsewhere, it will safely winter outside. Zones 7-10.