When driving through the City of Lakeland, the view is hard to miss. Colorful plants fill medians, trees line roadways and parks, and carefully maintained green areas with Florida-Friendly LandscapingTM (FFL) plants help give the city its distinctive character.
But what residents and visitors see is only part of the story.
Behind those landscapes is a less visible network of people, plants, training and expertise at the only city-run nursery of its kind in Florida in the City of Lakeland. For more than a decade, the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) Extension Polk County agents and faculty have worked alongside the city as a partner at the William E. Morlock Nursery, the City’s municipal nursery that grows many of the plants used in Lakeland’s parks, medians and public spaces located off of U.S. Highway 98 South.
The partnership may happen largely out of the public’s view, but its impact reaches far beyond the nursery gates providing taxpayer savings, hurricane resilience, environmental stewardship, sustainability and more.
“It’s a really good partnership,” said Anne Yasalonis, residential horticulture Extension agent and Florida Master Gardener Volunteer Program (MGV) coordinator for UF/IFAS Extension Polk County. “For the City of Lakeland, the relationship provides access to research-based expertise and trained professionals guiding City employees to make decisions about landscape maintenance, irrigation, fertilizer and pesticide use as we are the only entity providing the required Green Industries Best Management Practices (GI-BMP) training.”
Over the years, the partnership has evolved to include shared resources such as soil and water, volunteer labor, plant production, outreach and educational programming.
For UF/IFAS Extension Polk County, the partnership provides a place to train the more than 100 Master Gardener volunteers on propagation techniques, to cultivate more than 10,000 Florida-friendly and native plants a year. Every April and October, approximately 800 to 1,000 people come to the nursery for each of the Extension plant sales, resulting in sales of roughly 10,000 plants.
Mark your calendars for Oct. 17 for the upcoming Fall Plant Sale.
But the value of the sales goes beyond the plants.
UF/IFAS Extension uses plant sales as an opportunity to connect residents with research-based gardening information. At educational tables, residents can ask questions and learn how to select, plant and care for plants in ways that conserve water and support healthier landscapes.
“Our goal with our plant sale is not only to fund programming in the community,” said Yasalonis. “But to also showcase plants that we recommend in our educational programming to people so they can practice FFLTM principles in their personal landscapes.”
As a result, the nursery serves as a bridge between UF/IFAS research and the community, transforming horticultural knowledge developed through UF/IFAS into plants, advice and practical information residents can use at home.
The Extension partnership also benefits the city and Polk County beyond the nursery.
Behind the gates, they are also cultivating new opportunities through the county with projects such as a partnership with the Polk County School Board to grow plants for schools, expand students’ horticulture knowledge, strengthen their job readiness skills and provide training in nursery production techniques based on UF/IFAS research.
UF/IFAS Extension also provides GI-BMP training to landscape professionals and City employees. The training covers fertilizer and pesticide application, irrigation, water conservation and FFL™.
Yasalonis said Lakeland requires all new parks and recreation employees to attend the training and become a certified GI-BMP professional, helping establish a workforce with a common understanding of science-based landscape practices that provide sustainable and resilient landscapes.
Although the training generally takes place at the UF/IFAS Extension office rather than at the nursery, the knowledge is put to work at the nursery and throughout the city.
Employees who maintain public landscapes are making decisions every day about how much water to apply, when to fertilize, how to maintain plants and how to address landscape problems.
“Those decisions can affect City costs as well as Florida’s water resources,” said Yasalonis.
Statewide data from the FFLTM program shows that 94% to 99% of GI-BMP training participants report regularly using recommended practices for irrigation, maintenance, fertilization and pesticide application.
“For Lakeland, that trained workforce can help support more efficient use of water and fertilizer, reduce unnecessary applications, protect water resources and maintain healthier public landscapes,” she said.
It also gives City employees access to research-based expertise when they encounter horticultural challenges.
The relationship between UF/IFAS Extension and the City of Lakeland nursery is also creating opportunities beyond current programs.
Yasalonis sees the nursery as a place where future partnerships could take root because the nursery provides more than growing space.
“It provides infrastructure where UF/IFAS Extension expertise, City resources, volunteers, educators and community partners can work together,” said Yasalonis.
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By Lourdes Mederos, rodriguezl@ufl.edu
ABOUT UF/IFAS
The mission of the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) is to develop knowledge relevant to agricultural, human and natural resources and to make that knowledge available to sustain and enhance the quality of human life. With more than a dozen research facilities, 67 county Extension offices, and award-winning students and faculty in the UF College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, UF/IFAS brings science-based solutions to the state’s agricultural and natural resources industries, and all Florida residents.
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