This Florida Food Forest Is PACKED with Tropical Diversity!

Florida
Tampa
Food Forest Tours
Tropical Fruit
Zone 10A
Gonza Gardens
Tour the backyard of Gonza Gardens in Tampa, Florida, where KC grows an extraordinary collection of tropical fruit, perennial vegetables, pollinator plants, and rare ornamentals in USDA Zone 10A.
Author

The Green Yard

Published

July 10, 2026

This Florida Food Forest Is PACKED with Tropical Diversity!

Florida Tampa Food Forest Tours Tropical Fruit Zone 10A Gonza Gardens

Tour the backyard of Gonza Gardens in Tampa, Florida, where KC grows an extraordinary collection of tropical fruit, perennial vegetables, pollinator plants, and rare ornamentals in USDA Zone 10A.

Host KC at Gonza Gardens
Published July 10, 2026

In Part 2 of our visit to Gonza Gardens, KC takes us through the backyard, side yard, raised beds, nursery propagation area, and an astonishing collection of tropical and subtropical plants growing in Tampa, Florida. This is a densely planted home food forest where fruit trees, perennial vegetables, rare ornamentals, wildlife habitat, and plant propagation all share the same space.

Garden Gonza Gardens
Host KC
Location Tampa, Florida
Climate USDA Zone 10A
Garden Age Approximately 4 Years
Tour Area Backyard and Side Yard

A Backyard Filled With Tropical Diversity

KC and her family originally began developing the backyard as a garden filled with rare ornamentals collected from around Florida. As their interest in food forestry grew, edible plants were layered into the existing landscape, creating a garden where beauty, food production, and wildlife habitat all overlap.

The result is not a conventional orchard with widely spaced trees. Mangoes, sapodillas, mulberries, avocados, white sapotes, jackfruit relatives, perennial vegetables, flowering plants, vines, ponds, and nursery stock are fitted into nearly every available part of the property.

Many of the trees are pruned to remain reachable, while grafting is used to grow several proven varieties on a single tree. Upper-canopy plants provide shade and protection for more sensitive species underneath them, helping KC grow plants that would otherwise struggle in Tampa’s occasional cold weather.

What You’ll Learn

How KC layers fruit trees, shrubs, vines, ornamentals, and perennial vegetables into a small residential property
Why grafted trees can provide more reliable fruit than unknown seedlings
How pruning keeps mulberries and avocados productive and easy to harvest
How water features support birds, frogs, lizards, pollinators, and other garden wildlife
Why Florida gardeners often need tropical alternatives to lettuce, apples, peaches, pears, and other temperate crops
How canopy cover and warmth from the house protect sensitive plants such as coffee and cacao

Five Highlights From the Tour

This Tropical Fruit Replaces Apples in Tampa

KC explains why jujube is a productive tropical alternative to apples in a climate with very few chill hours.

Florida’s Most Underrated Fruit Tree?

White sapote is cold tolerant, productive outside the main summer fruit season, and still unfamiliar to many growers.

One of the Coolest Flowers in a Food Forest

Dutchman’s pipe produces unusual flowers and serves as a host plant for the Polydamas swallowtail butterfly.

Grow a Pineapple Patch From Store-Bought Tops

Store-bought pineapple tops can be rooted and replanted, eventually becoming an expanding patch of homegrown pineapples.

This One Tree Grows Three Different Mulberries

KC shows how Shangri-La, Chiang Mai 60, and Skinner mulberries can all grow together on one grafted tree.

Growing With Florida’s Climate Instead of Fighting It

One of the strongest lessons from Gonza Gardens is the importance of choosing plants that actually want to grow in the local climate. KC explains that many of the apples, peaches, plums, pears, lettuces, peppers, and large tomatoes they initially tried were poorly suited to Tampa’s heat and limited winter chill.

Instead of repeatedly struggling with those crops, the garden now relies more heavily on subtropical and tropical alternatives. Jujube fills a role similar to a small apple, while moringa, katuk, longevity spinach, Okinawa spinach, and edible hibiscus provide perennial leafy greens that are better adapted to Florida’s heat.

White sapote is especially valuable because it tolerates cooler weather and can provide fruit outside the main mango-heavy summer season. This helps spread harvests across more of the year rather than having everything ripen during the same few months.

Pruning, Grafting, and High-Density Planting

KC keeps several trees intentionally small. Mulberries are repeatedly pruned because fruit growing beyond reach becomes bird food, while everbearing varieties such as Chiang Mai 60 can flower and produce again following pruning.

Grafting also allows the garden to hold more varieties without requiring a separate mature tree for every cultivar. One mulberry carries three varieties, while sugar apple, white sapote, and other trees are being top-worked or grafted to improve fruit quality, pollination, and overall reliability.

Because the property is densely planted, KC considers the future growth habit and vigor of each tree. Slow-growing star apples can be planted relatively close and trained in opposite directions, while fast-growing canopy trees such as ice cream bean and Cecropia are given roles in the upper layer.

Designing for Wildlife

The garden is designed to feed more than people. Firebush, porterweed, firespike, powderpuff, cassia, Dutchman’s pipe, dill, citrus, and other plants attract or support hummingbirds, butterflies, caterpillars, and pollinating insects.

KC also intentionally provides water through ponds and fountains. She has observed that birds may damage less fruit when clean drinking water is readily available. The same water features also support frogs, lizards, neighborhood cats, and the larger backyard ecosystem.

Rather than seeing insects and wildlife as separate from the garden, Gonza Gardens treats their interactions as part of a functioning food forest.

Plants Seen During the Tour

The following plants and named varieties were mentioned during the backyard and side-yard tour.

Mangoes

  • Fruit Punch mango
  • Coconut Cream mango
  • Pineapple Pleasure mango
  • Phoenix mango
  • Ice Cream mango

Mulberries

  • Shangri-La mulberry
  • Chiang Mai 60 mulberry
  • Skinner mulberry
  • World’s Best mulberry

Sapodillas

  • Silas Woods sapodilla
  • Mayok sapodilla
  • Morena sapodilla
  • Younghan’s sapodilla
  • Redlands sapodilla
  • Alano sapodilla

Avocados

  • Choquette avocado
  • Ronnie avocado
  • Simmonds avocado
  • Lula avocado

White Sapotes and Related Fruit

  • Campbell white sapote
  • Zill’s World Gold white sapote
  • Whitman green sapote
  • Mamey sapote

Annonas

  • Custard apple
  • Sugar apple
  • Gefner atemoya
  • Canistel
  • Fitzpatrick canistel

Additional Fruit Trees and Vines

  • Jaboticaba
  • Guava
  • China jackfruit
  • Golden Nugget jackfruit
  • Monkey jack
  • Cecropia, or gummy worm fruit
  • Lara purple star apple
  • Burgess star apple
  • Exposito star apple
  • Oliver loquat
  • Ice cream bean
  • Monstera deliciosa
  • Starfruit
  • Ackee
  • Cacao
  • Peanut butter fruit
  • Breadfruit
  • Sherbet berry, or falsa
  • Pitangatuba
  • Spanish lime, or mamoncillo
  • Barbados cherry
  • Triumph persimmon
  • Jujube
  • Dragon fruit
  • Haley’s Comet dragon fruit
  • Purple Haze dragon fruit
  • Passion fruit
  • Papaya
  • Pineapple
  • Sugarloaf pineapple

Edible Leaves, Herbs, and Support Plants

  • Moringa
  • Katuk
  • Longevity spinach
  • Okinawa spinach
  • Edible leaf hibiscus
  • South Sea salad tree
  • Lippia alba
  • False cardamom
  • Root beer plant
  • Shampoo ginger
  • Coffee
  • Thai pepper
  • Parsley
  • Dill
  • Tomato groundcover
  • Elderberry

Pollinator and Ornamental Plants

  • Firebush
  • Sapphire shower
  • Cestrum
  • Porterweed
  • Four o’clock
  • Powderpuff tree
  • Fireball mallow
  • Dutchman’s pipe
  • Chinese perfume plant
  • Queen’s wreath
  • Firespike
  • Starburst clerodendrum
  • Tahitian hat
  • Winter cassia
  • Bougainvillea

The Green Yard Takeaway

Gonza Gardens demonstrates that abundance is not simply a matter of owning more land. KC creates abundance through variety, intelligent pruning, grafting, climate-appropriate plants, multiple canopy layers, and a willingness to experiment.

The property produces food while also supporting hummingbirds, butterflies, frogs, lizards, and other wildlife. Even cold damage becomes part of the learning process, helping the garden evolve toward plants and protection strategies that are better suited to Tampa’s climate.

Food Forest Finds

KC and her family also operate Food Forest Finds, an edible plant nursery specializing in plants that have performed well in their own Tampa food forest. Many of the plants are propagated directly from material growing on the property.

Food Forest Finds Explore the nursery, plant inventory, events, consultations, and online shop. Gonza Gardens on Facebook Follow updates from the garden, nursery, and current plant collection. Gonza Gardens on Instagram See more plants, fruit harvests, flowers, propagation, and garden updates. Watch Part 2 on YouTube Open the complete backyard tour directly on The Green Yard YouTube channel.

Start With Part 1

A Front Yard Tropical Food Forest in Tampa

A Front Yard TROPICAL Food Forest in Tampa!

Begin the Gonza Gardens tour in the front yard, where KC introduces the high-density design, tropical fruit collection, cold protection strategies, and edible landscape that continue into the backyard.

Watch Part 1