Values

  • Building a community of FLECLers who share in the love of connecting with natural Florida in their neighborhood!
  • Understanding that there is no absolute right or wrong in natural systems as they are dynamic.
  • Focusing on encouraging everyone who sees value in this process while avoiding rigidity & perfectionism.
  • Working with nature to develop a sustainable native plant communities consistent with natural soil and other environmental conditions.
  • Developing a natural aesthetic as one would see in native plant communities.
  • Respecting the dynamics of natural systems (e.g. Realizing that appropriate annual plants will find their own place in your landscape and allowing flexibility for that to happen)
  • Minimizing/eliminating chemical usage (pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, etc.).
  • Minimizing carbon impact by doing as much as possible by hand, including growing and propagation of plants on-site and sharing with other FLECLer neighbors.
  • Utilizing practices to mimic natural conditions and mitigating for natural processes that are absent in human dominated environments (e.g. Compensating for fire suppression or altered hydrology).
  • Creating sustainable systems that gradually reduce the number of introductions of new plant materials and physical plant maintenance that is necessary.
  • Utilizing pruning and other maintenance practices to develop plant community structure that maximizes native wildlife function.
  • Accepting that the process of nurturing native plant communities, like native plant communities themselves, is dynamic. Native plant communities are living systems and while they may have similarities due to environmental conditions under which they live, every system is unique and therefore the process of nurturing them requires flexibility and adaptation.
  • Enjoying the process! All human learning comes from trial and error. We learn from others and our own experiences. While challenging at times, nurturing living systems can be very rewarding as long as we focus on the process, allow for flexibility of outcomes and accept that nurturing native plant communities will always be an ongoing, variable and exciting process!