ReCedar Key

Thank you to I Love Cedar Key for a great write up and getting the word out

Roots of Resilience: How ReCedar Key Is Replanting the Future Cedar Key, Florida, is a place where land and water blur. For centuries, these low-lying islands on Florida’s stormy Big Bend have relied on a delicate barrier of salt marshes, shoreline plants, and native trees to hold back the sea. But with recent severe storm surges and sea-level rise, the natu...

This is what it looked like while headed out to plant. We were sort of excited to get rained on and the temps were cooler because of the approaching storm.

We never got rained on 🤨

But it was a beautiful backdrop to be out on the boat

Hopefully some of the rain will land on the islands and help water all the plants going in

Imagine seeing this and thinking “we should develop this!”

Keep Florida Wild

Replanting Cedar Trees was how it all started. We went into this knowing we probably wouldn’t be able to write research papers for years down the road till we were able to see what survived and what didn’t.

One thing we learned quickly is that grasses, the native species ‘Panicum amarum‘ that help block dune erosion thrive! We worked with the Turfgrass folks at UF and rather than plant plugs, which is sort of the standard that has been done for years, we started putting a few plugs in flats, allowing them to grow out in the span of a few weeks in the greenhouses and build a robust root foundation.

Now we have lush grass flats that go in the ground ready to put down some serious roots!

We’ve grown plugs by the thousands, and each boat load can hold 37 grass flats. It takes about an hour to plant out a boat load of grass. We’ve yet to lose any of the grasses to the drought conditions we’ve been experiencing this past year. They seem to hold up in this environment very well.

We think the grasses are going to be great additions to the trees that are struggling to grow without the needed rains.

Wish us luck and keep Cedar Key and this area of the Gulf Coast in your prayers! As of this past week we reached the 19,000 plants planted in and around the Cedar Keys

You never know who you’ll run into while working on the beach! We were talking to a woman on the beach, turns out she owns a nursery in Georgia. When we asked what types of plants she sold and coleus was mentioned, a spark was made and turned into a great conversation

These Dune Sunflowers planted along the shorelines are doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing.

To walk amongst them you hear the buzz from all the bees doing their pollination rituals. The plants constantly move from all the butterflies and insects searching for the nectar….and the roots are helping to hold in the soil

Plant more pollinators

Over a year ago we planted hundreds of Cedars at the base of the dune on Seahorse Key. We’re so happy to see them thriving and helping to hold the base of the dune in place.

We checked on them this week and they’re lush, spreading out and bright green!

Thank you to everyone that helped make this possible!

We’ve mostly planted on the outer islands of the Cedar Keys as we think those are the most At-Risk and in the most need of coastal restoration.

But we have planted quite a bit of trees and plants on our main key, Way Key.

Last year we planted some experimental grass flats, that we grow in the nursery in the Cedar Key City Park. Beside the grass flats we planted ‘plugs’, which is the norm when planting grasses. The difference between the plugs and the flats is night and day. In one of the photos you see Dave Clark (), our plant expert, holding up the flat of grasses. Notice how thick the root system is before it even gets planted.

So after we considered last years experiment to be highly successful, we went ahead and planted 80 more flats of Panic Grass around the Cedar Key City Park. This will help hold the sand in the beach area and hopefully keep it from blowing up into the picnic area.

On top of all the usefulness it adds to holding in the shoreline, it just looks pretty and is zero maintenance!

Thank you to everyone that has helped and donated their time and monetary support to make this possible and at zero cost to any of the Cedar Key Residents.

Despite not having had substantial rain in months, the Dune Sunflowers we’ve planted on the islands are doing quite well.

The cedar trees have bronzed and are in serious shock, but they’re not dead. Hopefully we can get some rain in the coming months and they’ll re-green and come back to life.

Grasses and ground cover seem to be very tolerant of the drought conditions.

We think we’ll stick to putting grasses and ground cover in for the rest of the year.

Say some prayers for some rain