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Aquatic Plants:
A growing industry
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Representative of
small aquatic nurseries in Florida's Southwest geographical area is
Myakka City grower, Sherry Rhodes, owner of Watercolors Aquatic Plant
Nursery. Her company's principle activities include being a
collector and wholesaler as well as working with wetland
mitigation/restoration, landscape maintenance and landscape
installation.
"In my own nursery
I try to grow organically, creating life, never destroying it.
My priority is to have all of my plants live."
In 1981 Sherry
Rhodes started putting down permanent roots in the Myakka City area.
Her location is a natural wetlands environment containing
many of the plant species used in her work.
Common plants include Pickerelweed, Pontederia cordata,
and Arrowhead, Sagittaria
spp., which Rhodes says Indians have found to be an
edible, starchy vegetable.
"I have some
American native blood and believe in staying close to the land.
I try to avoid anything harmful to the environment.
My plants are giving oxygen back into the lakes and the air."
Having lived
through the Vietnam era and seeing its destructive effect on many of
her friends, Rhodes feels an intense desire to enhance the quality of
life.
Rhodes has worked
in a number of plant nurseries and gained insight from each experience.
Her major emphasis has been plant propagation, starting
plants from seeds or from cuttings. While she has taken a
10,000 plant nursery and turned it into a 100,000 plant nursery, she
advises against getting too big too fast.
In her initial
nursery, My Backyard, concentration was on interior foliage and woody
ornamentals, but when she began to work for a native plant nursery in
1982, natives became her first love, especially the aquatics.
Rhodes also loves
wildflowers - ones that attract butterflies. "I grow a lot of
different plants. I'm also growing plants for people who
don't have wetland environments. I like being in the water.
I've always loved water lilies. For me, it's the
way to go."
Rhodes has many
artistic talents. After graduating with an Associate of Arts
Degree from Pasco Hernando Community College, she studied architectural
design and drafting at Sarasota Vo-Tech. She also attended
Commercial Art and Design School at Hillsborough Vocational-Technical
Center in Tampa.
Rhodes has found a
way to combine her artistic talents and her love for aquatic plants by
creating water color scapes on a unique canvas - Florida's lakes and
streams. This realization became the impetus for changing the
name of her business from My Backyard to Watercolors Aquatic Plant
Nursery.
She has created artistic aquatic plant
environments in many lakes including Disneyworld and Wycliff in the Ft.
Worth area.
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