Highlands County, FL Landscaping Rules: Native Plants (2026)

Article 11 of the Highlands County Land Development Regulations (chapter 12) sets the county's landscaping standards for new development in unincorporated Highlands County. 103 states that landscaping must include the conservation of native plants and trees, along with tree selection to shade vehicular areas and sidewalks and the use of landscape materials for required buffer yards. The section then carves out most homeowners from the formal landscape-plan process: single-family homes, duplexes and manufactured homes on individual lots, along with agricultural buildings that require no paved parking, are exempt from the article's landscape plan, tree-count and buffer-yard requirements.

3 keeps every property, exempt or not, from planting exotic and nuisance species drawn from the most recent Invasive Plant List of the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council. 2 encourages preserving existing native trees and shrubs already on site, letting a builder count healthy preserved specimens toward the project's canopy and buffer requirements, and even allows a reduction in required parking spaces to protect root zones of specimen trees the county and applicant agree are worth saving. New residential subdivisions must plant two large or medium trees per lot, or one per attached unit, and existing trees may be counted toward that requirement as long as they are not invasive species.