I don’t know what a Florida landscape should look like. This idea has been bothering me. I can't shake it. Is “should” even a useful way of thinking about a region’s landscape aesthetics? Says who? What’s the challenge? The challenge is that Florida (especially South Florida) has been sold as a tropical paradise. People come here expecting lush foliage, big flowers, bright colors - all year round. Like any place that’s marketed mostly to tourists, it’s posited as an escape. A place where the rules are different, where you can discard reality and live out a fantasy. "Whatever you want, sir." Landscape doesn’t work that way. Southwest Florida isn’t a dream. Intervening with landscape is intervening with reality. And reality always offers resistance. Aesthetic decisions have physical consequences. Here are a few images that show our region’s evolved plant communities. Maybe they offer a starting point for how we can design landscape better.
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Thank you Caleb for your observations.
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Caleb
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