Eugene and Gwladys Scott are stewards of a small piece of South Florida. Remaining natural areas "are such an important connection to something that is greater than ourselves," says Gwladys, whose Welsh name is pronounced Gladys. With so little natural area left - less than 2 percent of the pinelands outside Everglades National Park and even smaller parcels of hardwood hammock - more residents are turning to native plants to bring Florida back to their yards.

The Scotts live on 11/2 acres surrounded by the twitter of anoles and calls of birds, the feeling of a forest even though that forest is surrounded by suburbia. The native trees and shrubs are allowed to live and die, to disappear only to be replaced by different species as change inevitably occurs.

Now retired, Gwlady taught science before working for the Miami-Dade Department of Environmental Resources Management. Gene, who also worked for DERM, used to teach photography at the Museum of Science. They were married at Flamingo in Everglades National Park, and their wedding rings were modeled on a wildflower of the pinewoods, the white-topped sedge.

Eugene and Gwladys bought the land in 1965 and built their house in 1968 on the edge of it. They did much of the construction themselves: Gwladys put up walls, Gene put in plumbing. The beams were made from bulldozed pines. "We cut off the tops and the bottoms, and took them to a mill," says Gwladys. Hurricane Andrew did little to the house, save for some missing shingles, but the hammock wasn't so lucky. "It was wiped out, but it wasn't destroyed," Gwlady says. "I said 'let's wait; everything comes back.' "

Six months later, after an initial eruption of castor beans that lay dormant in the rocky soil, the hammock was green.

Today it has a closed canopy, meaning the tree tops meet overhead. A strangler fig that lost limbs but stood and protected the house has branched out and is approaching monumental stature once more.

Nearly 13 years after Andrew, smilax, an aggressive native in exposed conditions, and jasmine, an exotic, must be cut away by hand. The tops are left to wilt and blow away from the treetops, while the roots are treated with Garlon, an herbicide used by natural area managers.

AN ECOTONE

Technically, the land owned by the Scotts is an ecotone -- a transition area between two distinct habitats. In this case, the habitats are pineland, which is elevated, and seasonally wet prairie. As is often the case where two habitats meet, the diversity of plants is high: The couple have documented 80 native species, including ferns, grasses, an orchid, palms, shrubs, trees, vines and a cycad.

Coffee shrubs have volunteered by the driveway fence. "A lot of things, I think, are replenished from the nearby Deering Estate and Bill Sadowski park," Gwladys says. Cocoplum and fire bush have grown to tree height. White stoppers and spicewood, two understory small trees, are robust. The hammock also contains fiddlewood, lancewood, willow bustic and coontie, the native cycad.

Five years ago, Gwlady planted several slash pine seedlings near a group of saw palmetto. She used a mattock pick to open planting holes in the limestone, but didn't amend the rocky substrate with anything else. This small restoration effort is approaching a critical time: Other people interested in restoring pines have found the trees begin to decline after about five years when they are planted in disturbed land.

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