Landscaping in Carrollwood: Renovating Established Yards

Overgrown shrubs in an established Carrollwood yard: cut back hard or replace

UF/IFAS says shrubs with poor pruning over the years can become tall and leggy, and a hedge cut wider above than below thins out at its base. Its guidance offers a hard cut-back to within a few inches of the soil in early spring, which it calls renovation, with regrowth taking a few years, or replacement. Medscapes handles the replacement.

Florida-Friendly Landscaping advises choosing plants recommended for your USDA hardiness zone. Wikipedia lists ZIP codes 33618 and 33624 for Carrollwood, and the 2023 USDA map puts 33618 in zone 9b and 33624 in zone 10a, so check your own ZIP code before you choose replacements. The replacement work is part of landscape construction: old shrubs out, new planting in, mulch or rock to finish.

A failing shrub is a different question from an overgrown one. Medscapes does not apply fertilizer or pesticides; for those, use an FDACS-licensed provider.

A tree at 12 inches across changes the bed plan

Florida-Friendly Landscaping ranks healthy trees above most understory plants and groundcovers. In unincorporated Hillsborough a yard tree 12 inches across or wider needs a county permit to come out (see the tree section below), so a bed is usually planned around such a tree, not in place of it.

Sources: UF/IFAS Gardening Solutions: pruning shrubs and hedges; UF/IFAS Florida-Friendly Landscaping: Right Plant, Right Place; USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map, lookup by ZIP code; Wikipedia: Carrollwood, Florida (ZIP codes 33618 and 33624).

Hillsborough County tree permits and your renovation

In unincorporated Hillsborough, the county's tree guide sets the permit line by trunk width, measured about 4.5 feet up. As of October 2026, a yard tree at a single-family home needs a permit to come out at 12 inches across or wider. A required street tree in a subdivision needs one at any size, and one that comes out must be replaced from the county's approved street tree list.

As of October 2026, the county issues tree permits for trees that are unhealthy or causing damage that cannot be resolved another way. A healthy tree at or above the permit line does not meet that standard, so plan the bed or patio around it. A dead tree with zero living tissue outside a wetland or its setback, and a tree on the county's exempt list, do not need the permit.

On a single-family residential lot, Florida Statute 163.045 lets an owner remove a tree without a county permit when an ISA-certified arborist or Florida-licensed landscape architect documents that it poses an unacceptable risk; the county asks for a copy of that documentation.

Medscapes offers tree consultations.

Clearing an area with machinery

If you want to clear an area of trees, the county's apply page names the land alteration without construction permit as the application. The code-violation page lists removing small trees and understory vegetation with mechanical equipment, without a permit, as a grubbing violation. The county pages do not say whether a residential shrub bed counts, so ask county Natural Resources before clearing with equipment.

Sources: Hillsborough County tree resources; Hillsborough County residential tree guide (PDF); Hillsborough County: apply for a tree permit; Hillsborough County: trees that need no permit; Hillsborough County: report a natural resources code violation; Florida Statute 163.045: documented tree risk on residential property.