300 Ocean Mile is a 90 unit gulf front, 25
year old condominium on St. George Island, Fla. The HOA decided to launch a
major site renovation
several years ago because everything had either been severely damaged by
hurricanes or salt drift over a long period of time. Ocean/gulf front
landscape design is arguably the most difficult type of site improvement there
is, this side of raw desert landscaping. High salt laden winds will
damage even the most salt tolerant vegetation and sandy soils on these sites
have no nutrient value what so ever and adequate irrigation water
is at a premium either because of exorbitant city water costs or well
alternatives are frequently shallow, salty and problematical at best.
Site improvements for this job included:
- replacement of over 323,000 sf of boardwalk decking
- replacement in excess of 460,000 sf of damaged plant material
- major upgrade of the totally inadequate irrigation system
- design and installation of a new $76,000 exterior signage system
- installation of a phased landscape lighting system
- 7 new 16x20' pressure treated fenced
dumpster pads to help hide those ugly monsters
Below is the front door portion of the
landscape renovation along Gulf Breeze Blvd that used salt tolerant, xeriscape
vegetation that included
tree ligustrum (l.japonicum)--yaupon (ilex vomitoria-females)--weeping yaupon
(ilex vomitoria var."pendula")--dwarf yaupon (I.vomitoria stokes
dwarf)--crown grass (paspalum quadrifariuim) --sand oaks ( quercus geminata) and
many more types of rugged drought resistant, salt
tolerant species that are an absolute must for these type of sites.
Completed, several year old planting
along Gulf Breeze Dr. That's Tree Ligustrum in the foreground with asiatic
jasmine under story
(trachelospermum asiaticum). The new 34,725 sf irrigated lawn is St.Agustine "flortam".
Larger material in the background are existing
sand oaks and sabal palms
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One of the serious problems I solved for 300
Ocean Mile was the visual nightmare that existed before I designed and installed
seven, 16 x20' timber
dumpster houses. These metal eyesores would just sit out on the main highway in
front of the development oozing garbage from every crevice before
the collectors would empty them. But then they would just leave them in their
ugliness, in full view, on the main road for everyone to
endure until the next
pickup. So, I incorporated 7 new pads within the
front part of the new landscaped zone, made sure they
were accessible to the large collection
trucks and installed a lot of planting
around them--particularly flowering evergreen vines and
wax myrtle to swallow them up. Now those ugly ducklings
are but a distant
memory.
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Part of the new signage system for the
site. About 8 different types of information signage were in the package and
included a new main
entry sign with a much larger porpoise theme. Signs were hand painted ,sand
blasted teak. I designed the templates for all the new
signs using Adobe Illustrator 9.0
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kent mccoy landscape architect
www.kentmccoy.com
email: kentmccoy40@gmail.com