Stevia - Stevia rebaudiana

Originally native to South America, this small, 2 foot tall sunflower relative is immensely sweet tasting due to glycoside chemicals that are 2-300 times sweeter tasting than table sugar. Due to this, Stevia production into a non-caloric sweetener has been industrialized and is available in a highly processed form worldwide. If you wish to avoid highly processed sweeteners, growing a few plants and drying the leaves to add to tea blends is a great way to get your sweet fix without using regular sugar (the Guarani people of Brazil use Stevia leaves to sweeten their Yerba Mate). 

Well suited to growth in Florida, as one of the largest stevia farms in the US is found in Sumter Co, stevia is a small bushy plant that thrives in typical garden conditions, mostly full sun and rich well amended soil that doesn't stay sopping wet. It will flower and the leaves will get smaller in the winter but can be trimmed off to continue leaf production (seeds have abysmally low germination rates and we propagate stevia from cuttings). A hard freeze can knock back plants to the roots but will usually resprout when spring weather arrives.