Visiting the Nursery

We’re unique. We stock over a hundred varieties of native and Florida-friendly plants. We have edibles, fruit trees and eco-products. But we’re not just about selling. Visiting the nursery is a learning experience. Benefit from our thirty years of experience. A knowledgeable person is always on site. In our demonstration gardens you’ll see the plants for each type of garden and what goes with what. You’ll visualize growth in your yard three, five and ten years from now.

Demonstration Sites: (Click on a thumbnail image to view a larger image.)

	Containerized Gardens A wide range of summer and cool season crops to grow outside or on your lanai. Easy to grow Everglades tomatoes, parsley, lemongrass, basil, tarragon and other herbs, yardlong beans, hot bird peppers, blueberries, papayas. Eggplant, okra, kale, spinach, Seminole pumpkins all naturally grown by us.
	Raised Compost Garden Beds Compost areas planted with cover crops such as yams, Cuban sweet potatoes and tropical pumpkins.
	Composting with Worms and Rabbits Florida White Rabbits and their "gold" pellets make great new additions to the farm. We use their droppings to create worm compost.
	Native Fruit Vineyard and Orchard A muscadine grape vineyard. An orchard with small native fruit trees and shrubs including native blueberries, elderberries, chickasaw and flatwoods plums, and dewberry brambles.
	Solar Dehydration A custom-made solar dehydrator. We dry a variety of our edibles using the power of the sun. Come be inspired to build your own.
	Water Recycling How to capture rainwater using rain barrels and soaker hoses.
	Butterfly Garden A garden illustrating every stage of butterfly development. A diverse mixture of reseeding annuals and perennial wildflowers, flowering trees, shrubs, vines, and grasses including specific native plants for caterpillars.
	Local and Native Bird Garden A diversity of nesting, shelter and food plants, which provide fruit and seed throughout the year and attract pollinators to feed young nestlings. Plants like Florida and cassia privet, Walter’s viburnum, pines, saw palmetto, hollies, red cedars, native palms, Simpson’s stopper and wild coffee.
	Hummingbird Garden Native plants vital to migrating and resident hummingbirds. Coral honeysuckle, trumpet vines, coral bean, firebush and necklace pod shrubs provide nectar and are showy in the landscape.
	Landscape Buffers From the road: a mature, dense, evergreen, 10-foot wide barrier of red cedar, sugarberry, oak trees; mid story shrubs such as Walter’s viburnum, southern bayberry, Simpson’s stopper and Florida privet; saw palmetto, coontie, and Fakahatchee grass shade-loving groundcovers. From the neighbors: a naturally diverse, bird-friendly, multi-layered, 20-foot border of sweetgum, cypress, pine, magnolia trees; southern bayberry, Walter’s viburnum, shining sumac shrubs; and native clump grasses, jasmine, ferns and other shade-loving ground covers.
	Pasture Management Lean over the fence and visit with Ritz, Mac and Jack, our Florida cracker cows, and Walter and Simpson, our ancient mules. See how we rotate pastures, provide fresh water and shade trees, open-air stalls, paddock shade. Our chickens are out and about but we provide them with a predator-proof chicken coop and a mobile chicken tractor, which provides fresh scratch for them and fertilizer for us.
	An Outdoor Room Grove Geared to the seasons. A picnic area nestled beneath a “ceiling” of deciduous trees (Laurel oak, red maple, sycamore and winged elm) with a few pines and red cedar at the edges. Warming sunlight in winter and cooling shade in summer. Natural lattice entryways.
	Bees The Nursery is a haven for bees (natives and honeybees) who insure pollination of our flowering plants. They live in two different types of hives devised by two beekeepers and in the native bee tubes.
	Swale and Holding Pond Filter out excess nutrients from irrigation and stormwater before they leave the Nursery on their way to the Myakka River. Our swale includes: wetland grasses, shrubs and trees including pond cypress, Dahoon holly, southern bayberry, emergent and submergent wetland plants such as pickerel weed, arrowhead, blue flag iris, climbing asters, alligator flag, and water lilies. Kept natural, frogs love these ponds.
	Visiting our Neighborhood Make a day of it! Visit Crowley’s Gardens and Nurseries. If you don’t find the plants you need here, you can find them there. Explore local parks and preserves to learn about nature firsthand. We’re a mile to wonderfully diverse Old Miakka Preserve. Myakka River State Park, one of Florida’s oldest and largest state parks is just 3 miles from us. (Note that the north gate is open only on the weekends.) On the way, stop into Crowley Nature Center with its wetland boardwalk, observatory and pioneer museum. Historic sites along Myakka Road such as the old Methodist Church and cemetery, and the only remaining schoolhouse in Sarasota County are worth seeing.