Tampa Food Forest Tour: Gonza Gardens Tropical Backyard

Explore Gonza Gardens, a high-density Tampa food forest filled with tropical fruit trees, perennial vegetables, pollinator plants, and rare ornamentals in USDA Zone 10A.

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Tampa food forest, Gonza Gardens, Florida food forest, Tampa tropical fruit garden, tropical fruit trees, backyard food forest, edible landscaping, tropical gardening, USDA Zone 10A, Florida tropical fruit

Food Forest Tours / Florida / Gonza Gardens

This Florida Food Forest Is PACKED with Tropical Diversity!

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

Tour Gonza Gardens, a high-density Tampa food forest where KC grows tropical fruit trees, 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 densely planted residential food forest combines fruit production, perennial vegetables, rare ornamentals, wildlife habitat, and plant propagation within the same landscape.

Garden Gonza Gardens

Host KC

Location Tampa, Florida

Climate USDA Zone 10A

Garden Age Approximately 4 Years

Property Type Residential Food Forest

Plant Collection 70+ Plants and Varieties

Primary Focus Tropical Fruit Diversity

Inside a High-Density Tampa Food Forest

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 trees are pruned to remain reachable, while grafting allows several proven varieties to grow on a single tree. Upper-canopy plants also provide shade and protection for sensitive tropical species, helping KC grow plants that might otherwise struggle during Tampa’s occasional cold weather.

What You’ll Learn From This Tampa Food Forest

How KC layers fruit trees, shrubs, vines, ornamentals, and perennial vegetables into a residential property

Why grafted trees can provide more predictable fruit than unknown seedlings

How pruning keeps mulberries and avocados productive and easier to harvest

How ponds and fountains support birds, frogs, lizards, pollinators, and other 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 help protect sensitive plants such as coffee and cacao

Five Highlights From the Gonza Gardens Tour

This Tropical Fruit Replaces Apples in Tampa

KC explains why jujube can be a productive alternative to apples in a climate with very few winter 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 grow together on a single grafted tree.

Growing Tropical Fruit in Tampa, Florida

One of the strongest lessons from Gonza Gardens is the importance of choosing plants that 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 better adapted to Florida’s heat.

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

Food Forest Design: Pruning, Grafting, and Dense Planting

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

Grafting 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 faster canopy trees such as ice cream bean and Cecropia occupy the upper layer.

Creating Wildlife Habitat in a Food Forest

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 support frogs, lizards, neighborhood cats, and the larger backyard ecosystem.

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

Plants Growing at Gonza Gardens

The Gonza Gardens backyard and side-yard tour includes dozens of tropical fruits, named cultivars, perennial vegetables, herbs, support plants, pollinator plants, and rare ornamentals growing in Tampa’s USDA Zone 10A climate.

Mangoes 5 named varieties

Sapodillas 6 named varieties

Mulberries 4 named varieties

Avocados 4 named varieties

Tropical Fruit 30+ plants and varieties

Edible Greens & Herbs 16 plants

Pollinator Plants 15 plants

Growing Style Dense, diverse and multilayered

Featured Plants

Fruit Punch mango Coconut Cream mango Pineapple Pleasure mango Silas Woods sapodilla Choquette avocado Chiang Mai 60 mulberry Campbell white sapote Dragon fruit

Show Complete Plant List Hide Complete Plant List

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 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 better suited to Tampa’s climate.

Visit Gonza Gardens and 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 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 Tampa backyard food forest tour directly on The Green Yard YouTube channel.

Continue Exploring Gonza Gardens

A Front Yard TROPICAL Food Forest in Tampa!

Begin with Part 1 of the Gonza Gardens visit, where KC introduces the front-yard food forest, tropical fruit collection, cold protection strategies, and high-density edible landscape.

Watch Part 1 Explore All Tours