TAMPA, Fla. — Landscaping on the iconic Bayshore Boulevard is getting its biggest replanting operation since 2018, city officials said.
Bayshore's landscaping typically gets small changeouts whenever a plant is starting to die. This new project, however, comes after severe storms during the weekend of Dec. 16-17.
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Storm surge brought flood waters from Hillsborough Bay for an extended period. Once the waters receded, the greater Tampa Bay region entered a drought — the lack of rainfall prevented the salt from the soil from flushing and flowing out of the root zone.
This caused extensive plant damage.
"Right, now we're putting a shrub in, a small ground cover shrub that is more salt tolerant," said Ken Akins with the city of Tampa. "We're putting in a mixture of parenteral plant material and annual plant material, as well. It's stuff that we know is kind of tried and true that works out here for us."
The replanting project is set to last for two weeks. The plants should mature in about a month.