This is the second in a series of two nature notes resulting from my trip to Manasota Key, FL, July 19-31, 2026. After a rather long period of drought, the rains returned at least to the extent of a “normal” year. This resulted in lush growth of yard grass/weeds as shown in a panoramic view of my backyard looking east towards Lemon Bay. You will note that the arrangement of plants in the yard emphasizes tall trees and shrubs along the edges with bushes providing habitat for various forms of wildlife. A wide variety of plants (about 150 species) has been planted with about 50% native and 50% non-invasive non-natives that provide flowers and leaf food for wildlife across the seasons. A major problem for growth of yard plants has been hurricanes such as Milton (October 2024) which sent a 10 foot tidal surge across the island. Thus many plants died from exposure to sea water and have been replaced with species more tolerant of high salinity. This is especially evident in the lower elevation of the front yard where most plants died except for a few such as sea grape, sea hibiscus and white stopper. I also replanted with buttonwood, necklace pod and yellow elder (one of the very few saline tolerant plants with large showy flowers that attract pollinators). Some volunteers whose seeds came in with the flooding tide such as native bay bean and non-native but non-invasive Madagascar periwinkle have vigorously colonized the open ground.
A few older trees in the backyard that survived the salty floods are native Caribbean gumbo limbo and non-native white mulberry. I planted the very tall and straight gumbo limbo about 20 years ago as a tiny sapling and it grew tall without any lower branches. I attribute this to the surrounding cabbage palms that shaded it and stimulated rapid growth and a limbless trunk. The adjacent gumbo limbo just beyond with less shade branched low to the ground and forked repeatedly. The white mulberry was meant to be a black mulberry whose fruit is highly favored by birds but the nursery sold me the wrong tree. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise since the growth form of the white mulberry is tree like with a single trunk whereas the black tends to have multiple trunks and blow over in storms. Birds are also extremely fond of the white fruits in spring migration. I planted a royal poinciana which died due perhaps to sea water tides; along the main road there is a magnificent royal poinciana which has grown there for many years at a slightly higher elevation. A dwarf poinciana in my backyard has done well and produces wonderful reddish orange flowers for pollinators. A plant I would like to obtain is the seashore mallow (Kosteletzkya) which was photographed in Ainger Creek Trails South. It does not produce nectar as most hibiscus but the pollen attracts many bumblebees.
None of the native milkweeds needed to attract monarchs are salt tolerant but the giant African milkweed is more tolerant than many plants. It is moderately saline tolerant and feeds many monarch caterpillars. It is completely non-invasive since the flowers produce no seeds in my experience. As mentioned above the yellow elder (Tecoma) is quite salt tolerant and produces huge yellow tubular flowers twice a year which are very attractive to bees. My fire bushes died when inundated for a long time by salt water but survived in the higher portions of my lots. They have a spectacular flower very attractive to hummingbirds and butterflies with long tongues such as gulf fritillaries. Native morning glories are relatively low in salt tolerance but the flowers are spectacular and very attractive to bees in particular.
It is hard for me to imagine how my local box turtles survived several hours of inundation with sea water. They do not make burrows but rest in thickets of vegetation. They do float in water and perhaps this is how they remained alive during the several hours long period of the storm surge. The non-native ctenosaurs or spiny tailed iguanas climb trees and thus could easily have escaped the sea water deluge. This is a female and I have found that they are generally not a problem for my yard plants; they eat mainly “weeds” except for a few trees such as the orchid tree. The non-native brown or Cuban anoles also survived by climbing and remain as a very pervasive and abundant small lizard that is eaten by many naive species. This male is exercising his dominance by showing his dewlap with a bright color. He will have to be careful since there are several black racers in the yard that eat anoles. I have two species of rabbits in my yard, swamp and cottontail. This cottontail survived the floods likely by swimming and retreating to higher ground when available. It has more to fear from bobcats than from floods I think.
On the beach there are always various birds adapted for marine/coastal life. Ruddy turnstones as their name implies often flip over beach debris looking for small invertebrates to eat. The willets probe in the wet sand trying to catch mole crabs and other invertebrates. Gulls (in this case an immature laughing gull) are rather omnivorous and open to trying almost any food, natural or supplied by humans. The beautiful sandhill cranes live in wet meadows and shallow wetlands and also in neighborhoods as shown here.
For those of you that retreat northwards in summer I would encourage you to try a visit to Florida in the hot/wet season. It is not as difficult as you might think and the variety and activity of animals and plants is quite impressive. Indeed I have found the northern “heat dome” producing temperatures in the 100 degree plus day after day much harder to cope with than the Florida mid-90’s with generally cooler afternoons when there may be thunderstorms.