Yes, Glen, 100% beach sand. Very fine and very soft. That's one of the reasons I grow daylilies in boxes. The other reason is our palm trees. When I had daylilies on the ground, Queen palm roots would come to the surface and strangle the daylily plants in order to have all that wonderful fertilizer for them selves.
On the other hand, things like colocasias, elephant ears, live oak trees, bromeliads, and most other tropicals grow very happily in the sand. The colocasias have to be fertilized because they are heavy feeders, but the broms don't care since they only use their roots to keep themselves upright. They don't use their roots to absorb food. I grow tropicals because they don't take very much care, so they leave me more time to fuss with the daylilies.
About hurricanes. Daytona Beach hasn't had a direct hit in well over 120 years. In 2004 we had 3 hurricanes visit, but they had made landfall on Sanibel Island (other side of state) and came up I-4, through Orlando, and exited the state here. We're not dumb! There's the Gulf Stream (a river in the ocean) that is warmer than the ocean's water. The hurricanes will follow that warm water, whizzing up the coast ignoring FL and the Gulf Stream takes those storms and dumps them right into Cape Hatteras. Once the storms start following the "river" they don't have the ability to break free along the FL coast. Apparently the Gulf Stream takes a sharp right turn (and goes out to sea) at Cape Hatteras, and the hurricanes just keep moving north, hitting that land that juts out into the ocean.
On one side, the GS protects us and on the other side, it really dumps on the Cape. We feel fairly safe here, although anything can happen. We just leave when the big storms are in the area.
but yes it is Tavares which to me is still way down south and they have the great weather. The hybridizers down there are pretty close to each other.
