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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nWith funnel-shaped flowers of white, pink, or light purple, pusley, nicknamed \u201cFlorida snow,” can be a burden or beauty depending on perspective. It\u2019s drought-tolerant and attracts butterflies, but turf purists may rebuke the invading ground cover as a weed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSome people see it and think it looks so pretty along the road they want to know where to get it,\u201d said Joel Crippen, horticulturist for Mounts Botanical Garden in suburban West Palm Beach. \u201cWe have a little here and there, but don\u2019t really worry too much about it because when it\u2019s not blooming, it stays green.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pusley thrives in drier soil and November was more parched than normal. According to the South Florida Water Management District, much of Palm Beach County was down nearly three inches of rain for the month and is running a 7-inch deficit since June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because pusley \u2014 formally known as Richardia scabra \u2014 grows very low to the ground, it often escapes mower blades that are usually recommended to be set at 3 to 4 inches so as not to scalp grass. Once the ground cover is established, each flower produces three sticky nutlets. With each plant cluster containing 20 flowers, it has a lot of seeds to spread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ed Skvarch, St. Lucie County Extension director and horticulturist, said in a 2016 interview that his office gets calls about the pusley plant, wanting to know what it is and, often, how to get rid of it.<\/p>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/71470808007-img-1687.webp?resize=1024%2C512&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\u201cI explain that we call it Florida snow and that they should embrace it and use it in their winter wonderland Christmas decorations outside,\u201d said Skvarch, who has since retired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Skvarch took his own advice. He said he once had a large patch of white-flowering pusley in his front yard. He put skis down on it and sat a snowman on top. \u201cIt looked like he was skiing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For people who strive for a pristine green lawn of pure St. Augustine or Bahia turf, removing pusley can be a challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A 2011 paper written by a horticulture agent for the University of Florida said hand weeding may be fruitless because the plant\u2019s small seeds will spill to the ground unnoticed, growing new plants. There are three varieties of pusley, which is related to tropical plants such as gardenia, ixora, penta firebush and wild coffee, according to the paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat people are calling pusley, may actually be large-flower pusley or Brazilian pusley,\u201d said Laurie Albrecht, Palm Beach County environmental horticulture extension agent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Horticulturists steer away from recommending herbicide to fight the pusley, suggesting changes in lawn care maintenance that will improve turf health to help overcome the weed. Those changes can include watering more and setting the lawn mower higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But if 50 percent or more of a lawn is overcome, Albrecht said the cure is total turf replacement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf it\u2019s over 50 percent, there is no recommendation except to start over and re-sod,\u201d she said. \u201cThe problem is, all the flowers turn to seed and they spread and pretty soon there are a lot more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Winter storms may be dumping snow in the frigid northern Plains, but South Florida has its own dusting of white with the fall proliferation of the pusley plant. The delicate flower… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"9","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNFwvMTFcL2ltYWdlcy02LndlYnA_Zml0PTMxOCUyQzE1OSZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6IiYjODIxNjtGbG9yaWRhIHNub3cmIzgyMTc7OiBEZXBlbmRpbmcgb24geW91ciB2aWV3cG9pbnQsIHB1c2xleSBpcyBiYW5lIG9yIGJlYXV0eSIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiaGlnaHdheSIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.XvUcz9CoNusKmmALBXDFtiJ8iq5EVfwa5PFakVCKm9oMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":52072,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/images-6.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[10382,10383],"class_list":["post-52071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-florida-snow-depending-on-your-viewpoint","tag-pusley-is-bane-or-beauty"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52074,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52071\/revisions\/52074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}