Green Options

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As a trying-to-reform black-thumb gardener in Florida, I’ve learned to appreciate the benefits and advantages of native plants. They’re the smartest way to go for anyone who loves greenery but hates the constant battle against bugs, drought, heat and the region’s other environmental challenges.

Which is why I was impressed to learn about Stetson University’s Native Plant Initiative.

I confess I’d never even heard about Stetson University when I came across a DeLand newspaper article about the Garden Club of DeLand’s Home and Garden Tour, which features a tour of Stetson University’s new Vera Lea Rinker Native Plant Garden. The acre-plus garden features more than 80 different types of trees native to Florida, as well as hundreds of native shrubs, flowers, ferns, grasses and palms.

You know those stories you hear regularly from South Florida about giant escaped pythons wolfing down pet poodles? Well, a changing climate in the U.S. means you might have to keep Fifi safe from roaming invasive snakes even if you live as far north as Norman, Oklahoma.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) this week released new climate maps showing that Burmese pythons, an invasive species of snake now comfortably at home in the Everglades, could extend their range to as much as a third of the continental U.S. by 2100 as the climate warms.