Citrus County, FL Invasive Plant Rules: Prohibited Species (2026)

Section 5630 of Chapter Five, Landscaping, Buffering and Tree Preservation, adopted by Ordinance 2025-A04 on March 11, 2025, prohibits two overlapping categories of plants from required buffer zones in unincorporated Citrus County. ' Second, it names specific trees and shrubs regardless of FDEP status, including air potato, Australian pine, banyan tree, Brazilian pepper, catclaw mimosa, carrotwood, Chinese tallow, climbing fern, Cuban laurel, earleaf acacia, eucalyptus, melaleuca, silk oak and weeping fig, plus shrubs beach naupaka, downy rose myrtle and Surinam cherry. The prohibition applies to plantings installed to satisfy the LDC's buffer requirements for new residential and nonresidential development and subdivisions reviewed by the Land Development Division under the same chapter's development-standards sections; it is a planting standard checked at landscape and site plan review, not a mandate to remove existing invasive vegetation elsewhere on a lot.

The same chapter's mitigation section, Sec. 5750, separately disqualifies several of these species, including Australian pine, Brazilian pepper, camphor tree, chinaberry, Chinese tallow, melaleuca and silk tree, from counting as valid replacement trees when a protected tree is removed. This is unincorporated county law only. Crystal River and Inverness each maintain their own municipal codes, and any parcel inside either city line is governed by that city's landscaping ordinance, not Citrus County's LDC.