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

Okaloosa County's landscape water-conservation ordinance applies to every parcel the county has designated a water resource caution area (LDC § 3.04.02), where irrigation draws on the Floridan aquifer system. Within that zone, LDC § 3.04.042 flatly bans installing eleven plants because of their 'legal status and adverse impact upon landscape areas': water hyacinth, water lettuce, hydrilla, popcorn tree (Chinese tallow), green hygro, cogon grass, water spinach, catclaw mimosa, turkey berry and tropical soda apple. None of the eleven may be placed or used in a landscape plan anywhere the ordinance applies.

A second roster the code calls 'controlled species' sits one step below an outright ban. Pulled from the Florida Division of Forestry's list of plants 'invasive and disruptive to the native plant communities in Florida,' it includes camphor tree, Chinaberry, kudzu, Japanese climbing fern, Japanese honeysuckle, lantana, hedge privet, Surinam cherry and roughly twenty more species. The code allows these onto a site only in areas that will be mowed and maintained frequently, on the theory that regular mowing keeps them from escaping into surrounding habitat.

The growth management department reviews landscape plans required under this chapter before signing off on development approval, so a plan naming any of the eleven banned species, or placing a controlled species outside a routinely mowed area, does not clear that review. Because the chapter ties its plant lists to potable-water conservation and preservation of native plant communities, reviewers check plant selections against both tables as a matter of course.