About Leafy Flora

I started keeping notes on what actually survives in a Texas backyard years ago, mostly out of frustration. Every generic "how to grow fruit" article assumed rain on a schedule and soil that isn't clay. Once I started comparing notes with gardeners a few states over, in Florida, in humid heat with sandy soil and a frost line that barely exists some winters, it became obvious that "how to grow this" only means something once you say where. That's the whole premise of Leafy Flora: growing advice tied to an actual place, not a national average that doesn't apply anywhere in particular.

How our articles are made

Each region gets its own set of guides instead of one generic page stretched to cover the whole country. For Texas, that means one article per fruit variety (figs, peaches, pomegranates, blackberries, and so on), focused on what holds up against the heat, the clay, and the winters that swing without warning. For Florida, the scope is wider: what to plant zone by zone (9a, 9b, 10), citrus care from planting through freeze protection, vegetable planting calendars, and which ornamentals and trees actually belong in a Florida yard versus which ones just get sold there. I write to the region first and let the plant list follow, not the other way around.

About the author

Del Hartley got into this by fighting a patch of heat and heavy clay in Texas for fruit that would actually make it to harvest, and never really stopped. The Texas fruit guides come straight out of that: what's worked in real beds, tested against real weather. Florida is newer ground for this site, so those guides lean more on local extension research (UF/IFAS in particular) alongside correspondence with gardeners actually growing there, because "when to plant tomatoes" means something completely different on the Gulf Coast than it does further north. Both approaches show up across the site: firsthand where I have it, careful research where I don't, and no pretending the two are the same thing.

Editorial standards

Nothing here gets written as generic, one-size-fits-all advice. A planting date, variety pick, or care routine is tied to a specific region's climate and soil, and if something that works in Texas wouldn't hold up in Florida (or vice versa), the article says so instead of blurring the two together. Guides get revisited when a variety recommendation or planting window needs updating based on how things are actually performing.

Some of what's covered here, frost protection, soil amendments, exactly when to plant in a given year, comes down to judgment calls that depend on your yard's specific microclimate. Treat these guides as a solid, region-appropriate starting point, not a substitute for watching your own plants and adjusting from there.

What we cover

Leafy Flora is organized region by region rather than as one big undifferentiated plant encyclopedia:

• Texas Fruit: variety-by-variety guides (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, figs, grapes, peaches, plums, pears, apricots, pomegranates, mulberries, elderberries, persimmons) covering which varieties tolerate Texas conditions, when to plant them, and the ongoing care that keeps them producing.
• Florida gardening, split into a few focused areas: what to plant by zone and season, the best plants and trees for Florida yards specifically, citrus from planting through freeze protection, and vegetable gardening (planting calendars, layout, and what actually grows well in Florida's climate).

More regions are on the list as time allows. If your state isn't covered yet, it's not because the advice wouldn't apply to you, it's because I haven't written it region-specific yet, and I'd rather wait than publish something generic with your state's name slapped on it.