Fun fact! Every three months Walt Disney World’s 40 square miles undergoes an incredible transformation overnight. The beautiful flower beds at Disney are literally completely changed out four times a year, using over 3.5 million annual flowers, herbs, and vegetables to create the most magical experience we all have come to expect from this premier Orlando destination. According to a top executive at the company, Disney recognizes how important plants are, and they consider the gardens they showcase to be the “guardians of the first impression.” 

We know you feel that same about your own home’s beautiful curb appeal. At Peer Landscaping of Fort Myers, FL, we love to create customized resort -style landscape designs for homeowners living here in SWFL, aka “Paradise”. We discovered pretty early on that it requires more than a one-time landscape design and installation to create that ongoing high-end resort look. That level of luxury requires major attention to detail and also regular landscape maintenance. That’s why we created a whole new division of Peer Landscaping called Fort Myers Garden Service. We wanted to ensure our landscape designs were being properly maintained by providing the necessary pruning, mulching, as well as keeping an eye out for any fungus, disease, or insect issues in your landscape. It’s an investment and we treat it as such.

One of the most valuable services we offer with Fort Myers Garden Service is our quarterly flower bed changeouts. Four times a year our floral horticulturist, Brittany, will discuss with you filling your garden with new flowering annuals, designed just for the season. This kind of detail is critical because nothing makes your landscape look more run down than flowers that are wilting or plants dying because they not in season. Also, although they are called “annuals,” the truth is that in Southern Florida, most annuals only live through one season, not for a full year.

At Peer Landscaping of Fort Myers, FL, we feel your annuals should act as an accent to your landscape design, not the focal feature. We help you pick annuals that will harmonize with the setting and the color of your house and landscape. We offer five to six varieties each season, and you can choose which you want. Combinations of flowers, both color and plant form are excellent for achieving that “cottage garden” look, but attractive flower beds can also be created by using just one or two types. Pricing is determined by how many physical plants you want, not by how many varieties you choose from what we offer. Color are best used to direct the eye through the garden. For example, a colorful flower bed along a walkway to your house visually pulls a guest to your front door.

If you are living in SW Florida for the first time, you may have thought we don’t have seasons, and it’s the same weather year round. But that is false, as we do indeed have planting seasons in our area. Our weather is much hotter in the summer than it is in the winter time. Summer weather is not only hotter, but also wet with rainfall in the afternoons daily. There is actually a springtime transition to that hotter, wetter weather as well, when some days are cooler and dry, and others are rainy. Fall weather, in a similar way, starts to get drier and cooler, and the big difference between summer and winter in SW Florida is how dry we get in our winters. The humidity levels drop, as does the rainfall. In fact, a lot of snowbirds are amazed to discover that during the winter months, many cities in Lee and Collier County have watering regulations for using your irrigation system. Many plants die off during the dry months and come back later in the spring when our normal rains start to fall again.

If you are new to SW Florida, you may not know exactly how mercurial our seasons can be. For example, some years we have a nice cool spring, and others the weather can be wintry one day and summery the next. The season has officially shifted when the weather becomes ongoingly cooler and drier for the winter, and consistently hot, humid, and rainy for our summer.

When exactly is each SW Florida season? Here’s some direction on that:

Winter: Mid December through March 

Spring: March through late May 

Summer: Early June through early October 

Autumn: Mid-September through early December 

At Peer Landscaping we take our job as professional horticulturists seriously and with great passion. With our seasonal annual install, we’ve done all the necessary research to learn which flowering annuals bloom the best in each season. Because of this, we’ve developed a specific collection of five to six types of flowering plants for each season, and you can choose which annuals you want in your landscape. These are the flowers that do best for that season, so you don’t have to think about it, we’ve done that for you. You may see that there are some plants we use in our seasonal plantings are actually perennials. That’s because we’ve chosen plants according to what they display like during each season, and we’ve chosen these groupings according to what looks best when together too. We’ve picked our planting dates according to what the plants of that season will need. So, for example, winter annuals need cooler drier weather, so if we plant them too early in the fall, when the weather is still extremely hot, they may not survice.

Wondering where our seasonal plantings will go in your landscape? Here are a few ideas:

1. Garden beds on either side of your front door
2. Border plants alongside your driveway and walkways
3. Planters beside your front door or throughout the landscape
4. Under trees for bright pops of color, a perfect place for those plants that want partial to full shade
5. Border plants for around your pool or pool cage
6. Window boxes, or hanging baskets

Here’s some information about our seasonal flower collections.

Annual Flower Collection for Winter, Beginning December 21st 

• Mona Lavender, Size 1 foot to 2 feet, prefers partial sun, needs moist soil, color lavender
• Coleus, size 1 foot to 15 inches, prefers full sun to partial sun, needs well-draining soil, colors, lime, red, purple, multicolored
• Sun Impatient, size 2 feet to 2 feet, prefers full sun to partial shade, needs moist soil, colors red, orange, pink, white
• Delphinium, size 14 inches to 16 inches, prefers full sun, needs moderate water, color blue
• Amaryllis, size 1 foot to 2 feet, prefers partial sun, needs moist well-draining soil, colors red, orange, pink and white

Annual Flower Collection for Spring, Beginning March 20th 

• Geranium, size 11 inches to 15 inches, prefers sun to partial shade, needs moist soil, colors pink, red, coral, purple, lavender, white, butterfly orchid
• Penta, size 18 inches to 24 inches, prefers full sun, needs heavy watering, colors deep pink, red, white
• Vinca, size 10 inches to 1 foot, prefers full to partial sun, drought tolerant plant which needs minimal water, colors red, white, pink, strawberry, Cora orchid
• Marigold, size 10 inches to 1 foot, prefers full sun, needs moderate watering, colors orange, red, yellow
• Lantana, size 16 inches to 2 feet, prefers full sun, needs moderate watering, colors cherry sunrise, red, pink, lavender, white and new gold

Annual Flower Collection for Summer, Beginning June 21st

• Blue Daze, size 9 inches to 18 inches, prefers full sun, needs moderate watering, colors blue
• Gaillardia (Blanket Flower), size 12 inches to 18 inches, prefers full sun, needs moist soil, colors orange, pink, yellow
• Dwarf Hibiscus, size 2 feet to 4 feet, prefers full sun, needs moderate watering, colors yellow, pink, orange, red
• Dwarf Allamanda, size 3 feet to 5 feet, prefers full sun, needs moderate watering, colors yellow
• Angelonia, size 15 inches to 20 inches, prefers full to partial fun, needs moderate watering, colors purple, white, raspberry

Annual Flower Collection for Fall, Beginning September 22nd 

• Dusty Miller, size 6 inches to 1 foot, prefers full sun, drought tolerant plant which needs minimal water, colors silver
• Celocia (Cocks Comb), size 1 foot to 18 inches, prefers full sun, drought tolerant plant which needs minimal water, colors red, pink
• Begonia, size 18 inches to 36 inches, prefers partial sun, needs moist soil, colors red, white, pink
• Salvia, size 10 inches to 14 inches, prefers partial sun, drought tolerant plant which needs minimal water, colors red, vista mix, purple
• Chrysanthemums, size 6 inches to 1 foot, prefers full sun, needs heavy watering, colors Marsha pink, Wilma white, hankie yellow, bonnie red
• Vinca, size 10 inches to 1 foot, prefers full sun to partial sun, drought tolerant plant which needs minimal water, Colors red, white, pink, strawberry, Cora orchid

Share This