TheFort Myers CityScoop

Landscaping News
Fort Myers, FL

Fort Myers, FL – Eric Frankovitch Fort Myers Landscape Maintenance, Part 3

SYNOPSIS: Eric shares his passion for food forestry, and working with plants in an ecological manner. Not to mention some fascinating insights and experiences from his time at the Edison Ford Winter Estates

Fort Myers Landscape Maintenance Eric F. Part 3

BY: Your Name, Your Business

Yeah, like shortly after I started working there, some older man came up to me. He is like, son, your hair looks like the root’s coming down from that tree. And I was like, you know, if I ever get the opportunity to hang upside down in the Banyan tree, I’m def and actually got the opportunity to climb up there and hang upside down.

Oh my God. That’s funny. Welcome to the Landscape Cafe, brought to you with support from Fort Meyers’s Garden Service. Maintaining and protecting business and residential landscapes. Visit Fort Myers Garden Service.com or call 239 990 7494. What is your right? So they need guidance. They need, there’s, it’s a totally different ballgame.

I don’t even understand it, but, You’re right. It’s so different and given our, uh, our climate and our paradise like, uh, conditions, most of the year, time of the year, we are blessed and able to grow many different. TRO types of tropical fruit as well as vegetables. In our growing season, which unlike many other times of the year or other parts of the country, ranged from about November.

To March. Okay, cool. That’s awesome. That’s pretty good. Where, um, and that’s something also Fort Myers Garden Service, that’s, we’re gonna be branching. That’s one of the niche services that we’re gonna be offering, um, here in the future. Design, installation, consulting services for, uh, the public culture. And that whole, it’s, it is incredible.

It’s not a service that necessarily many. Any are offering on a professional level. And, uh, it’s gonna be very exciting that that’s gonna be up in our, uh, up in our future that we’re working towards. Slowly but surely. One of those time, one of those things that, uh, project that takes time to develop. But once it’s developed, it grows really strong and, and, uh, I’m excited for that.

Eric’s gonna lead that part up and, um, he’s gonna be able. Focus on that and deliver quality. Um, and that’s gonna be exciting. It’s gonna be really cool for Southwest Florida, I know he follows, uh, quite a few different people, uh, but I think, are they central Florida? Most of the people that you follow, um, on social media that, that are doing this big time?

Oh yeah. They’re, there’s people all over the country Okay. Nowadays that are doing things like that, getting rid of their lawn. Planting food not a crime. That’s cool. It’s awesome. It’s, it’s so unique and, and I totally can connect with you. Um, when you say you, it is a different connection with the food that you get to grow and eat yourself.

I mean, that’s, it’s totally, totally different. And, and even when you get kids involved too, and, and they can start to understand. Um, and you can teach ’em these, these important things. You know, we need food, you know, we can grow this ourselves. You know, it just takes effort. I mean, there’s so many life lessons in landscaping, gardening, um, growing food.

I mean, just planting seeds. I mean, there are so many analogies of, and or life lessons or just good conversations that we can have, um, with kids that are growing up and, and. Families that we’re raising, or even just friends, you know, friends, wives, anybody. The conversations that can be held in the landscape field, um, whether it’s doing it for work or doing it for fun, uh, or, or even volunteering.

Um, and that’s actually, that’s kind of the heart of this conversation, this, this podcast right here, is to have conversations and get to talk about things. Normally maybe we wouldn’t have time for, but carving it out. So, um, that’s awesome. I’m super excited about this podcast and getting the opportunity to do this.

Um, Eric, you wanna share a little bit about, um, the Edison Florida Estates, you worked there for quite some time and, um, It’s kind of neat every time I mention that to, you know, one of our new prospect customers, um, they always get excited about that and I think that’s really neat. You wanna share a little bit about your time there, how long you spent there, what were some of your greatest accomplishments, what was it like?

Yeah, so, um, for anybody that doesn’t know, The Edison Ford Winter Estates is pretty much the premier botanical resource in Fort Myers, not South Florida, southwest Florida. And it was where Thomas Edison, Henry Ford had their winter estates. Well it is now a museum and approximately 20 acres of historically maintained, uh, estates where we had a variety of.

Um, trees and plants that Edison had done research on as well as different types of tropical fruit that the families were growing at the time when they lived at the estates. Um, I worked there for five years and I was the horticulture specialist. Um, in that time I had many, many wonderful opportunities and, um, learned the majority of what I know about plants.

I would. Uh, one of my greatest accomplishments or the greatest accomplishment I had while working there was to design, build, and install a 275 square foot raised bed display to represent the Edison Ford Winter Estates. And it was installed in front of the US Botanic Garden in Washington DC for the American Public Gardens Association Conference up in 2019.

It was on display for about six months. It provided a historical aspect, a botanical aspect, and a part of American history Many people didn’t realize existed. When they hear Edison and Ford, they think electricity in cars. Right? Right. They don’t realize how much more they were both involved in and. The main thing being, uh, searching for domestic source of rubber.

Cause back in 1920s, they were doing just that here in Fort Myers. Um, in preparation or times of war, they would need to be able to produce rubber and that’s what they were searching. Sounds awesome. So were they trying, were they searching that through the plants or, or for growing plants or they were just doing that in general?

You were saying separately. Uh, well there is a natural, like latex is naturally derived for, from PHUs trees. So they were searching for, they grow, they were growing PHUs trees and that’s why there’s the large banyan tree on the property at the estates. That’s awesome. But Edison discovered he could produce it or extract more latex from Golden Rod, which is a typical weed in the Midwest.

Than he could from large PHUs trees that only grow in a small portion of the country. Wow. That’s pretty cool. That’s awesome. So it was, I mean, just as much as in his laboratory, outside in the dirt where he’s putting in different plants and researching things, um, that whole, all those grounds, there was historic research and, and stuff that he was actually really driving his projects with.

That’s pretty cool. That’s pretty awesome. I actually didn’t know that part. Um, I just thought it was a beautiful botanical garden. I, I. Love to learn, learn that he was actually out there doing that stuff. Um, so it sounds like he was pretty involved in the landscape as well, huh? Um, not quite at that point.

Cause he was up in age, but he had a lot of workers that were in the landscape. Gotcha. That’s really cool. That’s awesome. Well, very cool man. I think we got some good stuff. Talked a little bit about the Edison Homes Garden Service to give people that, oh wow, these people, these guys are gonna come out and they’re actually talking about, and they say they, they’re not just saying that they know what they’re talking about.

Like they clearly know what, right, right. They’re communicating about almost every time I go out there, like with these new clients, they’re like, yeah, I’ve worked with so many people. And none of ’em even just know what they’re, I feel like I know more about the plants, and I’m like, no, I understand. Yeah.

So not saying that that’s not the case here, but I’m not gonna tell you I know something that I don’t . Right, right. Exactly. Exactly. Well, what’s that picture of I, it’s too small. I can’t see it, but it looks like the banyan trees at the Edison. Oh yeah, it’s when I was hanging upside down in the Banyan tree.

That’s funny. I was thinking that was you. That’s hilarious. Yeah, it’s, you got all the way up there. That’s crazy. They had a kids’ day and there’s a company that came from Clearwater and they, um, They set up all the rigging so that the kids could climb in the tree and uh, what, so of course I did it because, yeah, like shortly after I started working there, some older man came up to me and was like, son, your hair looks like the root’s coming down from that tree.

And I was like, You know, if I ever get the opportunity to hang upside down in the banyon tree, I’m actually got the opportunity to climb up there and hang upside down. Oh my God. That’s funny. I think that wraps, wraps everything up that I wanted to touch on and cover with you today. Ma’am, thank you for being a part of the show.

Thank you for talking and being a part of the conversation. More so, less, um, I appreciate it and, and, uh, thank you for your time. Absolutely. I was a pleasure to be a part of it and looking forward to many things in our future. Sweet. Awesome. Thanks man.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this series. Don’t forget to subscribe because before you know it, we’ll be back with another great conversation. You can find us anywhere you listen to podcasts. The best place to rate or follow the show is@thelandscapecafe.com. The Landscape Cafe is a production of Peer Landscaping and the Niche Podcast Network.

Learn more about Bailey, Katie, and the team by visiting Peerlandscaping.com.

“Best Landscaper in Fort Myers, FL”

Top Rated Local Landscaping Contractors/Services/Company

Lee County: Fort Myers, , , , , FL

Recent

“Best Landscaper in Fort Myers, FL”

Top Rated Local Landscaping Contractors/Services/Company

Lee County: Fort Myers, , , , , FL

CityScoop is the top ranked local business news network in the United States. Established in 2008, CityScoop has been providing local communities with high quality news about local businesses and their most recent projects.

About Cityscoop
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LOCAL EXPERT

AUTHOR & CONTRIBUTOR
Profile Avatar Click to view Author Bio

Your Name

Your Business

Leave a message

Please wait...

Location

No address found...

Recent

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Author bio information not available!

QR CODE

Fort Myers, FL – Eric Frankovitch Fort Myers Landscape Maintenance, Part 3