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

Section 45.04.05 of the Land Development Code sets the landscaping requirements for the Timber to Tides Design Overlay (T2TDO), the SR 200/A1A corridor through Yulee and East Nassau. Subsection B.1 makes section 37.05 of the countywide Land Development Code the floor: any T2TDO project has to meet or exceed those general planting standards unless section 45.04.05 says otherwise. Subsection B.3 then layers on a native-species mandate found nowhere else in the county's code: at least 80 percent of all trees and 60 percent of shrub and groundcover plantings on a site must be native species, and monoculture planting, relying on a single species, is prohibited outright to keep diversity in the plant palette.

The article frames this as part of a broader ecological-resilience goal, tied to canopy-coverage requirements (60 percent shade over sidewalks and parking areas), a minimum 30-foot spacing for canopy trees, and mandatory native or climate-appropriate groundcover so that no bare soil is left exposed. The medium-density buffer standard in LDC section 37.06 is waived inside the T2TDO except where multifamily development on T-3.5 land sits next to T-2.5 land west of I-95. Because these are T2TDO-specific standards, a landscaping plan submitted for a property outside the mapped overlay boundary is reviewed only under the general section 37.05 rules, without the 80/60 percent native-species threshold.