HOME & GARDEN

How to create a traditional English garden in Southwest Florida

Shelby Reynolds
Naples

Carol Sabatino fondly remembers the formal English gardens of her childhood. 

Carol Sabatino walks through her English-style garden Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018, in Golden Gate Estates. Sabatino mixes tropical plants conducive to Southwest Florida with the style of an English garden.

The symmetrical rows of colorful flowers. The formal edges of each garden bed. The organized seating areas thoughtfully placed throughout.

So when she moved last year to a nearly 3-acre property near Logan Boulevard and Pine Ridge Road in Collier County, she decided to recreate the look using the tropical plants that thrive in Southwest Florida.

"It’s actually like a dream come true to have this much property and to be able to develop it," said Sabatino, a native of Cheshire, England.

And March 3, visitors can tour the garden for free during a bromeliad and tropical plant sale to support Genesis Ensemble, a nonprofit, eight- to 12-member voice chamber based in Naples, of which Sabatino is a member.

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If Sabatino were creating a true English garden, she'd use hollyhocks and bearded irises and daisies. 

Carol Sabatino poses for a portrait in her English-style garden Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018, in Golden Gate Estates.

But now her collection of plants includes things like Hawaiian frangipani, milkweed and penta to attract monarchs and swallowtails, and bromeliads of every size and color.

And, in fact, it's customary for gardens in England to house tropical plants under the sticky-hot glass of a conservatory, sheltering them from the windy cold of the region. So she's really not far off the mark.

"I think it’s more to do with the layout than anything else," Sabatino said.

So on a recent Tuesday afternoon, when the sun was high and hot on an unusually warm February day in Southwest Florida, Sabatino strolled through her "work-in-progress" garden, which she has organized into makeshift "rooms."

There's a tea garden on the east side of the property, with a small patio and a copper-colored bird bath in the shape of a tilted tea pot and tiny tea cup.

"Everything in here is pink and purple," she said, like the rosy geraniums and lush mona lavendar.

Farther down is a butterfly garden with monarch-attracting flowering plants. Another area in the yard attracts the bright yellow sulphurs, while another gathers speckled swallowtails.

Carol Sabatino's English style garden Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018, in Golden Gate Estates. The back of her yard is reserved for a garden with fruits and vegetables.

"There's one of my babies," Sabatino delighted as one fluttered past. "Usually you can come out here and there'll be a dozen in the yard."

She soon plans on dedicating a portion of her garden to hummingbird-attracting plants, too.

Keep going and you'll wander into a manicured rotunda with a bird bath in the center, an organized garden bed surrounding another patio with a fire pit, and a collection of fruit trees and soon-to-be vegetable gardens. Sabatino plans to grow bananas, oranges, coconuts, kumquats and more, donating any surplus produce to local food banks and charities.

Several bromeliad varieties are peppered throughout Sabatino's property.

"The bromeliads are just an amazing component to the garden here," she said. "They’re so forgiving here. They put up with the sun and things, and they’re always gorgeous. They’re absolutely gorgeous."

More than 2,000 bromeliads — the spiky plantshugely popular among Southwest Florida gardeners — will be available for purchase during the fundraising sale from 8 to 11 a.m. March 3 at Sabatino's garden, which she calls Boxwood Farms; a metal sign near the driveway even bears the name.

The plants are sourced from the gardens of other Genesis Ensemble members, like Jim Bixler, a horticulturist, and from Little Gator Farm in Bonita Springs. The versatile plants grow in a symmetrical rosette shape and are generally easy to care for, Bixler said. Some of them have flowering spikes in vibrant blues and blues; others have reddish stripes on the plume-like leaves.

A fundraiser in the form of a plant sale made sense to Sabatino and other Genesis Ensemble members, many of whom are avid gardeners.

"We both love music and we both loved plants, so it was just sort of a natural coming together and meeting of the minds," Bixler said.

"There's always music in the garden," Sabatino added.

Bromeliad and tropical plant sale