So excited when I find flower gardeners on YouTube who grow in Zone 9b or perhaps 10 but specifically in Florida. Seems that many of the Tampa area garden channels either focus on permaculture, vegetables, or native flowers (you know, right plant, right place). Well, I love flowers and color and I struggle with many veggies. Sure I have grown (and still do) kale tomatoes, cukes, strawberries, mesclun, and even okra, asparagus, and watermelon. But my passion right now is flowers and shrubs in the landscape. Here are a few influencers I’m loving at the moment.
Brijette, San Diego Seed Company
San Diego Seed Company’s Brijette was the first gardener I found in my zone nearly three years ago. While San Diego has the same low temperature as Pasco where I live, they have wet winters and dry summers, the complete opposite of Tampa! Brijette has great advice for growing flowers, including care, varieties, and timing. She even sells tried and true seeds and corms, etc. I purchased my first dahlias from her (Cafe au lait) and continue to purchase seeds and bulbs from her. Check out her channel here.
Joanna, Florida Cottage Garden
I have gotten so much good advice from this channel. I love her cottage garden style and I’m sure images of her delphiniums, larkspurs, and roses caught my eye and drew me in. She inspired me to try a bunch of new flowers including pink cashmere superbena, ranunculas, seniority rosalita cleome, and a variety of roses, especially David Austins. Follow her on youtube here.
John’s Plant Adventure
This channel is pretty new to me, but I just love John’s passion for flowers and his expertise. He lives in Arizona, and plants a lot in pots (something that I have just started incorporating after a long hiatus… they dry out so fast here and I don’t have a watering system for pots). I do like that I can control the soil better and so I am giving it another shot. John spent time here in my zone in Orlando during internships at the “parks.”
John is a luxury floral gardener who consults and installs in Phoenix and has a shop on his website. I just purchased ranunculus, pre-chilled tulips and hyacinths from him. He has me obsessed with purple cabbage, but I can’t find any online! He was sold out of anemone, so I ordered some from elsewhere. He is very big on amaranth and celosia; one plant I have not had much success with. I’ll let you know how all of the cool season purchases I made goes once I receive the orders and plant them. Find out more about John on his site here.
Kali, Blue House Florals
Another very recent find… I actually picked up my plug order from her front porch in Tampa near Armature Works today! Kali is a cut flower urban farmer/florist who grows to order for subscriptions and weddings. She also consults, hosts tours and design workshops. I have about 60 plugs (baby seedlings) of lisianthus, larkspur, snapdragons, and ami. She may have thrown in some saponaria, I’m not sure. She texted to say she was short some white dill and asked if it was ok to sub out for something else. The plugs were not labeled so I suppose I will be surprised unless I text her to find out for sure.
I ordered irrigation drip tape based on one of her videos and will try my hand at cosmos again and amaranth because of her! I also ordered her flower planting guide which was basically just a list of flowers to plant in the fall and then another list of those to plant in the spring. I think I’ll order John’s too. His has suggested layouts / garden design plans as well. Find out more about Kali and Blue House Florals here.
Honorable Mention: Joshua, Top Tier Greenery
I am also going to include someone I just started watching. He is from Tampa and a landscaper with an excellent youtube channel albeit quite new though he is obviously an experienced designer. While he may not provide plant names and growing advice per se, it is amazing to see how many plants he energetically uses in his very gorgeous designs. This is definitely a channel to keep an eye on for when I need inspriation on entire garden design and mass plantings that fill a big space!
