Hydroseeding in Safety Harbor, FL

Hydroseeding in Safety Harbor usually means working around history. The city sits on the west shore of Tampa Bay at about 20 feet above sea level, and its natural mineral spring, Espiritu Santo Springs, was named by Hernando de Soto in 1539. The Tocobaga people built mounds here, most of which were destroyed in the early 1900s, and shells from them were used to pave city streets. Old shell and fill can still turn up under a lawn.

Shell in the soil

Shell fragments raise soil pH and drain fast. When we prep a yard and find shell or crushed material near the surface, we rake out what we can and may add topsoil so the new hydroseed lawn has something to root into. Lawns on that kind of ground often need a little more water early on.

Philippe Park and the shoreline

Philippe Park covers about 122 acres and holds the Tocobaga mound, a National Historic Landmark. Odet Philippe, who homesteaded the area and is credited with introducing grapefruit to Florida, ran a citrus plantation here. Lots near the park and the bay shoreline slope toward the water, so we keep silt fence on the low side during regrading.

A grove disease first found here

Citrus leprosis was first identified in Philippe Park in 1907, a disease that nearly wiped out Florida's citrus industry by 1925. Much of the surrounding land moved from groves to homes over the following decades, and many of those lawns are now old enough to need renovation.

Small, built-out city

Safety Harbor covers about 5 square miles and had about 17,000 residents in 2020, little changed since 2000. Most work is renovation and infill, where Pinellas County's requirements apply: perimeter controls before grading, inlet protection, and stabilization of soil exposed for seven days or more.

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