**2. Materials and Methods**

*2.1. Study Site*

The research was carried out at the University of Florida's Gulf Coast Research and Education Center (UF-GCREC) in Hillsborough County, Florida (27◦45 39.2 N 82◦13 47.4 W), which is part of the Tampa metropolitan area. The research center was constructed in 2005 on abandoned citrus farmland. Its main building was surrounded by a variety of ornamental vegetation cover that is typical of urban residential and commercial land uses in the Tampa, Florida area, including turfgrass, landscape trees, and flowering shrubs in mulched beds. The annual average precipitation of the site was 1325 mm, and the annual temperature ranged from 11–32 ◦C. The soils at the research center were mostly sandy spodosols of the Zolfo series (sandy, siliceous, hyperthermic oxyaquic Alorthods) [24].
