Grace Rabano, Clermont Garden Club
The Clermont Garden Club’s Yard of the Month for October 2025 is the yard of Anita and Andy Smith at 15900 Sausalito Circle in the Greater Hills neighborhood of Clermont. Andy‘s love for gardening began as a young boy in Brooklyn NY, where he helped his mother with their small backyard garden. The love grew…and the young boy even travelled via city bus to work an 8′ x 10′ plot at the NY Botanical Garden.
The Smiths moved to their Clermont home in 1991, and they maintained the St Augustine grass-covered lawn for decades. On a trip outside of Lake County, the Smiths saw alternate ways to maintain the yard…without grass! Around 2020, they undertook the extensive project of removing grass and starting xeriscaped gardens. Today, the front lawn has no grass and is instead laced with mulch, flagstones, and pebble rocks. There is an abundance of beautiful plants including plumeria (Frangipani), The Purple Heart plant (tradescantia pallida), Snake Plants, variegated shell ginger and vibrant red leaf Ti plants. Among the garden ornaments and bird bath, is a wheelbarrow filled with wishbone flowers (Torenia), various container pots with hydrangea, foxtail fern (asparagus densiflorus), wax plant (Hoya wayetii) or succulents. Impressively, the curb strip (that pesky area between the sidewalk and the road!) is adorned with very large colorful crotons (bursting with red, orange & yellow foliage), variegated spider plants, and gorgeous Madagascar Dragon Trees (genus Dracaena). A large staghorn fern (previously hung on an oak tree) waits to be hung again to grace the front garden. The Smith’s yard is deserving to be the Clermont Garden Club’s Yard of The Month!
If you would like to nominate your or your neighbor’s garden to be the Yard of The Month, send an email to clermontgardenclubinc@gmail.com. Clermont Garden Club is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Clermont Garden Club members meet monthly at the clubhouse located at 849 West Avenue, Clermont. We warmly welcome guests to attend our meetings on the 3rd Wednesday of each month (Sept to May) at 9:30 am. Light refreshments are served
