State-by-State Gardening Market Share Analysis for November 2025

One Tampa gardener’s quest to grow and educate Story and Photos by Kenny Coogan kennycoogan.com “It’s funny, I spend some time out here doing things that I need to do,” Virginia Overstreet says in her Georgia accent, “then I’ll come out here with no to-do list and before I know it, I’ll spend three hours and it will have been all productive.” Overstreet, who reached Master Gardner Emeritus status a few years ago, has lived at her Seminole Heights Tampa home since 1998. After 20 years in the Navy, she retired in 2000 and started gardening seriously. Although by gardening, I mean she was planting things and killing them. So she began taking classes at the local extension office. Her neighbor recommended taking the master gardener course since she was already taking a lot of the classes, and in 2001 she graduated from the program.  Overstreet is the vice president of the local chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society, as evidenced by her choice in plants. “All these buckets are my swamp plants,” she tells me during a winter tour of her garden. “This is swamp milkweed. I’m really trying to move into the native milkweeds for the monarchs.” “That’s the thing about wildlife and for birds. You have to accept that some of the plants are going to look sloppy or untidy. It may be sloppy to you, but it is fabulous for the birds.” In addition to native milkweed, she grows native wood oats, golden canna, and pickerelweed. The buckets have small holes in them for slow drainage, which she tops off when it doesn’t rain. Since her landscape is primarily natives, they are the only plants that she gives supplemental irrigation.  “I miss this one when it is not in bloom,” Overstreet points to a coralbean shrub as she continues the tour.  [caption id=attachment_4074 align=aligncenter width=900] Starry rosinweed[/caption] Her landscape boasts colorful pockets of blue curl, Bahama senna, dotted horsemint, starry rosinweed, and sprawling native blue porterweed. She says that the blue