PELICAN COVE LANDSCAPING-PRESERVING THE ORIGINAL LANDSCAPING

HOW THE PC LANDSCAPING IS BEING DESTROYED
by

THE INCORRECT INTRODUCTION  CROTONS and THAI Plants

In 1979 and for 26 years afterward, the Pelican Cove landscape was clearly the equal of the gardens of the great English estates, the magnificent estates of the Hudson Valley, Fairchild Gardens in Miami, Bok Towers Garden in Central Florida and our own Selby Gardens.

Like those great gardens, our landscaping was planted along the same rules that have governed the creation of serious landscaped gardens for hundreds of years.

These same basic rules apply whether the garden is Temperate ( Hudson Vally) or Tropical/Semi tropical ( Bok Towers, Fairchild, Selby)

The rules are known to all trained landscape designers:

1) Beauty is achieved by the creating a collage of differing shades and shapes of green foliage. This rule is critical because green is the color that we subconsciously react to in the most positive way. We feel renewed, reborn, refreshed simply by looking at green foliage. It is in our genes.

2) Additional color is introduced by the natural flowers belonging to that green foliage, e.g., roses, hibiscus, oleander, penta, alamanda, Mexican petunia, orchid trees, jacaranda tree, and magnolia tree to name just a few. The beautiful colors and shapes of these flowers reflects centuries of natural and human selection.

Green, naturally flowering bouganvillia and azeleas
with their delicate , refreshing colors.

There was no good reason for these classic rules to have been ignored by planting the colored crotons and the tall muddy purple thai plants that have overwhelmed our original landscape.

They contain no healing green and their dark colors are inferior to those of naturally flowering shrubs.


the  crotons and thai plants that have overwhelmed our original landscape.

I am sure it seemed a good idea: why not supply color by using colored shrubs. Many of these colored shrubs require less maintenance and water, which also makes them financially attractive.

Unfortunately the color combinations of their leaves are not the simple, bright colors of naturally flowering shrubs

But more importantly, when planted in large numbers, these luridly colored shrubs block our ability to see the green. They are like too much makeup on a well dressed woman. We no longer see the dress, only the make up.

In some sections of PC, the ratio of these plants to the green foliage is already 30% or more. At this point, the ability of these dark colored shrubs to visually block out the surrounding green is more than evident.
This is why these colored shrubs are not used in any distinguished botanical garden except as specimen plants.

They are represented as specimens in botanical gardens because it is the duty of botanical gardens to reflect all flora.

Thus at our own Selby, you will see small specimen plantings of things like orchids and bromeliads and crotons and thai plants, but you won’t see the crotons and thai plants in huge numbers saturating and obscuring the green landscape as at Pelican Cove.

No trained landscape architect would ever do that, because in classic gardens such as Pelican Cove and Selby, color is introduced into the green landscape through naturally flowering shrubs and trees.

Here are some examples of the lurid, colored shrubs that have been massively introduced throughout the Cove. They don't fit in, will grow to ten feet in height ,and seem like plants from an alien planet.These shrubs contain no green leaves, and no flowers.

Examples of the lurid, colored shrubs that have been introduced throughout the Cove. These shrubs contain no green leaves, and no flowers.

Compare their lurid colors to the delicate flowers on the green leaved shrubs (below) that were a part of the original classic landscaping.

The photos below show the soft beautiful flowers of azaela shrubs and Impatiens.

Examples of beautiful colors of the naturally flowering green shrubs used by the original designers.