Written by Monica Dao

From Palm Beach to Jupiter Island, South Florida offers stunning backdrops filled with luxury boutiques, white-sand beaches, and vibrant outdoor living. But the true beauty of these destinations lies in their lush, elegant, and exotic landscape design. While architecture and interior design often take center stage, landscaping is equally essential—it’s the finishing touch that elevates a home’s curb appeal and luxury lifestyle.

Ignoring a property’s landscape is like wearing a tuxedo without shoes or serving champagne in a red solo cup—great intention, poor presentation. A thoughtfully designed outdoor space is more than just décor; it’s a seamless extension of the home’s architecture.

Fernando Wong, one of the most celebrated landscape designers today, reveals that the secret to increasing home value (and enjoyment) is investing in lush landscaping. Time and time again, Wong and his team have seen this happen. Recently, their team finished a house in the Palm Beach area that sold after a gut renovation. The client made $20 million in two years. Following another Fernando Wong makeover, another Florida residence became a part of a garden tour. A couple saw the garden and fell in love with the house. The owners sold the home for $45 million more than they paid for it. Wong shares, “These examples are not restricted to the ultra-luxury market. Real estate surveys show that landscape has become one of the most important features of a new home at almost every price point.”

What goes into a landscape design is just as vital as the materials of the structure itself, and few understand this better than Robert Bell of Bell Design, Inc. In a Wellington project, Bell embraced a client’s vision to craft a garden rooted almost entirely in Florida’s native plants. The result is a strikingly sustainable, low-maintenance design that blends ecological integrity with textured beauty, minimizing the need for chemical use near the home and supports local wildlife by creating a thriving habitat for native birds and insects.

One of the property’s standout features is the putting green, which doubles as a large butterfly garden. Enveloped by native sabal palms and shimmering silver palmetto, which are natural hosts for the palmetto skipper and monk butterflies, the putting green becomes a lush, layered sanctuary. Native ferns and grasses complete the tableau, blurring the line between cultivated garden and wild Florida landscape.