20 Medicinal Plants You Can Grow in Florida (With the Studies)

Twenty problems people deal with in their body. Twenty medicinal plants growing in my Florida yard, one for each. Every single claim on this page names the study it came from, and two popular plants got cut because the proof was not there.

There is a whole industry online built on telling you a plant fixes a disease. Most of it names no source. Some of it names a source that says something different than the caption. I got tired of it, so I went through my own yard here in West Central Florida and asked one question about every plant in it. Is there real human research behind this, and can I name it out loud?

Twenty plants cleared that bar. Two did not, and I will tell you which ones and why.

One thing first, and I mean it. Nothing below is medical advice. I am a gardener and a former trainer, not your doctor. Do not start, stop, or change any medication because of a blog post.

The standard: no source, no spot on the list

Here is the rule I used, and I would rather you hold me to it than take my word for anything.

A plant only made this list if researchers ran the study in people, published it somewhere I can name, and I can tell you what they measured. Where the research is thin, I say it is thin. Where a study failed, I tell you it failed. Where the plant they tested is a close cousin of the one in my yard and not the exact same plant, I say that too.

That is not me being modest. That is the whole difference between information and marketing.

20 medicinal plants you can grow in Florida, by the problem they were studied for

Zones listed are where the plant grows, not where it is hardy through every winter. I garden in zone 10a. A good many of these run all the way up into zone 7 and a couple go to zone 3.

1. High blood pressure: sorrel, also called roselle

Grows in: Perennial in zones 10 and 11. Summer annual anywhere else, which means almost anybody reading this can grow it.

Researchers pooled thirteen controlled studies covering about 1,200 people and found hibiscus dropped the top blood pressure number by roughly 6.7 points and the bottom number by about 4.4, compared to placebo. That was published in the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology. A larger 2025 review in Complementary Therapies in Medicine covering 26 trials and nearly 1,800 people found the effect was dose dependent and strongest in people over 50.

The honest half: it beat a placebo. It did not beat blood pressure medication. Anybody telling you it replaces your pills is selling something. I have more than 80 of these plants and I still would not tell you that.

I went deep on this one already. Read hibiscus tea and blood pressure, and what the studies really say.

2. Nerve pain and arthritis pain: chiltepin pepper

Grows in: Perennial in zones 9 to 11. Grows fine in a pot up north.

This is the one on the list where the medicine is already approved. Capsaicin is the heat in a chiltepin. The FDA approved a capsaicin patch called Qutenza in 2009 for nerve pain after shingles, then approved it again in 2020 for nerve pain in the feet from diabetes. That is not a blog saying that. That is the label.

For everyday joint pain, a 2024 review found capsaicin cream may take the edge off arthritis pain for up to three months. Small studies, short studies, so nobody should oversell it.

Safety: wash your hands. Do not touch your eyes. Do not put it on broken skin.

3. Colds and flu: elderberry

Grows in: American elderberry runs zone 3 all the way to 10. One of the few on this list that almost everybody in the country can grow.

A 2019 review in Complementary Therapies in Medicine found elderberry shortened how long people stayed sick with a cold or flu, and worked better on flu. A separate study in the journal Nutrients followed 312 people flying out of Australia. The placebo group racked up 117 sick days. The elderberry group had 57.

The honest half: most of that work used black elderberry from Europe. What grows wild here in Florida is the American one. Close cousin, same family, generations of the same use. But nobody tested my tree, and I am not going to pretend they did.

Safety, do not skip this: never eat elderberries raw. Not the berries, the leaves, the stems or the seeds. You cook them. Always.

4. Stress and low energy: ashwagandha

Grows in: Perennial in zones 8 to 11. Annual anywhere else, and it is fast.

A 60 day placebo controlled study published in the journal Medicine found ashwagandha lowered morning cortisol and brought anxiety scores down. Cortisol is your stress hormone, and when it stays high, testosterone tends to sit low.

The honest half: on testosterone itself the answers are mixed. In that study it rose in the men but not enough to beat the placebo group. A 2023 twelve week study did find a real rise. So the fair summary is that stress hormone comes down consistently and testosterone sometimes does.

Safety: there are reports of liver damage tied to ashwagandha supplements. Skip it if you are pregnant or have thyroid trouble, and ask your doctor.

5. Trouble sleeping: jujube

Grows in: Zones 6 to 10. Handles real cold, which surprises people.

Jujube has been the sleep plant in Chinese medicine for about two thousand years, and researchers went looking. A placebo controlled study out of New Zealand gave people with diagnosed insomnia two grams of jujube seed an hour before bed. Another study tested jujube capsules on sleep in women past menopause. A 2026 study found a fermented jujube blend cut how long it took people to fall asleep.

The honest half, and it matters: most of that work used the seed of the sour jujube, which is a different variety than the sweet fruit hanging on my tree. Related plant. Not the same plant.

6. High cholesterol: avocado

Grows in: Zones 9b to 11 depending on the type. Mexican types take more cold.

A 2025 review in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition found avocado dropped total cholesterol about 7 points and bad cholesterol about 6. An earlier review found the effect was strongest in people who already had high numbers, where bad cholesterol came down about 9. In people with normal numbers, not much happened, which makes sense. Less to fix.

Penn State ran a study, published in the Journal of Nutrition, giving people one avocado a day and finding less damaged cholesterol in the blood. That is the small nasty kind that tears up arteries.

One avocado a day is the dose in most of these studies. Not a pill. A fruit off a tree.

7. Blood sugar spikes after meals: mulberry leaf

Grows in: Zones 7 to 11 for the everbearing and Thai types I grow.

This one surprises people because it is not the berry. It is the leaf. Mulberry leaves contain a compound that blocks the same gut enzyme a whole class of diabetes drugs goes after, which slows how fast carbohydrates turn into blood sugar.

One study gave mulberry leaf extract to people with high blood sugar right before a bowl of white rice and the spike came down. The same team ran a twelve week study in 76 people whose fasting numbers sat between 110 and 140, published in the Journal of Diabetes Investigation, and found better control over the long haul. A 2025 study with 84 adults backed it up again.

Safety: this pushes the same direction as diabetes medicine. Both at once can take your blood sugar too low. Ask your doctor first.

8. Constipation: fig

Grows in: Zones 7 to 11. Zone 6 with some protection.

Everybody's grandmother knew figs did this. Researchers went and tested it. A study in the Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition took 80 people dealing with constipation, put half on fig paste and half on a placebo for eight weeks, and the fig group moved things through faster, had better stool, and reported less belly discomfort. A second study ran fig paste in people dealing with constipation from MS and got the same direction.

Researchers think it is the whole package in the fruit. Fiber for bulk, plus plant compounds that appear to push the colon to pull in more water.

9. Diarrhea: green banana, cooked

Grows in: Zones 8 to 11 for hardy types. You need 9 to 11 to fruit right.

I have over fifty banana plants back here, all of them regrown off the rhizome after that January freeze wiped me out. But green banana does something the ripe one does not.

Cooked green banana has been tested against diarrhea in children, and this is some of the most serious research on the whole list. One study in Gastroenterology gave 62 children either green banana, pectin, or plain rice, and the green banana group came out faster with less fluid loss. Then a team in Bangladesh ran it across nearly 3,000 children in rural villages and found that adding cooked green banana at home helped.

Thousands of children in real studies, and the treatment is a banana you cook before it turns yellow.

10. Kidney stones: lemon

Grows in: Zones 9 to 11 in the ground. Pot it anywhere else. Lemons do fine in pots.

Most stones are calcium oxalate. Citrate in your urine is what keeps those crystals from clumping up, and some people just do not make enough. Doctors treat that with prescription potassium citrate, which works but is pricey and rough on a lot of stomachs.

Lemon juice raises citrate. One study in the journal Urology found lemonade took people from an average of 142 up to 346, and seven out of twelve who ran low went back into normal range. Another study put lemon juice head to head against the prescription. A review in Urolithiasis confirmed lemon raises citrate without raising the oxalate that orange and grapefruit juice both raise.

That last part matters. Lemon, not grapefruit. Grapefruit juice actually came out tied to more stones.

11. Run down and low on vitamin C: Barbados cherry, also called acerola

Grows in: Zones 9b to 11. Fruits several times a year down here.

This is the highest vitamin C fruit you can grow in a yard and it is not close. USDA FoodData Central puts Barbados cherry around 1,678 milligrams of vitamin C per 100 grams. An orange sits around 53. That is roughly thirty times an orange, off a bush. Picked green it tests even higher.

The honest half: vitamin C does not stop you from catching a cold. That is settled. What it does is shave a little time off a cold you already have, about eight percent in adults. The cold is not why I grow it. Most people walking around are low on this stuff and I have a bush handing it to me by the handful.

12. Food tasting like metal during chemo: miracle berry

Grows in: Zones 10 to 11. Does fine as a pot plant anywhere else.

This one is not about disease. It is about somebody in your family being able to eat.

Chemo wrecks your sense of taste. Everything tastes like metal or like nothing, so people stop eating and lose weight they cannot afford to lose. It hits somewhere between twenty and eighty six percent of people on chemo.

Miracle berry carries a protein that grabs onto the sweet receptors on your tongue and rewires them for about thirty minutes. Sour turns sweet. A study in the Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing tested it in chemo patients who had lost their sense of taste and found food tasted better. Memorial Sloan Kettering lists it on their site for this exact thing, and Europe approved dried miracle berry as a food in 2021.

The honest half: small studies, and it did not stop the weight loss. But if somebody you love cannot taste their dinner, that little red berry is worth a shot.

13. Sore muscles after training: pomegranate

Grows in: Zones 7 to 11. Wonderful does best in 8 to 10.

I trained people for twelve years, so recovery is personal for me. A study in the journal Nutrients gave trained cyclists pomegranate extract and found they lasted noticeably longer at full effort after a hard ride, compared to the placebo group.

Now let me kill a myth while I am here. People say pomegranate juice fights prostate cancer. That came out of a 2006 UCLA study with a big number in it and it went everywhere. But when researchers ran the proper version in 2015, with a placebo group and 183 men, pomegranate did not beat the placebo. Both groups improved.

I am telling you that on purpose. If I only gave you the good study I would be doing exactly what every supplement company does. Grow pomegranate for recovery and for the fruit. Not for cancer.

14. Getting up three times a night to pee: leaf of life

Grows in: Zones 10 to 11 outside. House plant everywhere else, and it is nearly impossible to kill.

This plant has a folk reputation for about ten different things. Only one has a real study behind it and it is the one nobody talks about.

Overactive bladder. Researchers tested leaf of life against a placebo in women past menopause for eight weeks, counting how many times they went in a day. That was published in Phytomedicine. Before that they had shown in the lab that the leaf juice relaxes bladder muscle, and they lined it up against the standard drug. A follow up study in 49 women, average age 68, found nighttime trips dropped from a little over three down to about two, and their sleep scores came up right along with it.

The honest half: that first study only had 20 patients, so it is small. But it is a real placebo controlled study on a plant most people write off as superstition.

Safety: this one has compounds that act on the heart, same family as digitalis. If you are on any heart medicine, do not touch it without your doctor. And it spreads hard in Florida, so keep it contained.

15. Knee pain and stiffness: purple passion fruit

Grows in: Zones 9b to 11. The purple type takes a little more cold than the yellow.

The research here is about the part you throw away. The peel.

A team at the University of Arizona gave 33 people with knee arthritis a passion fruit peel extract every day for two months, with a placebo group to compare against. At sixty days the passion fruit group reported pain down about 19 percent, stiffness down 18, and getting around easier by about 20. The same group ran passion fruit peel in adults with asthma and found less wheeze and less coughing.

The honest half: 33 people is small and I will say that plain. But it had a placebo group, and it was the peel, not the pulp. So if you are growing passion fruit and composting the shells, you might be tossing the good part.

16. Bleeding gums: lemongrass

Grows in: Perennial in zones 9 to 11. Annual up north, and it grows fast enough to be worth it.

Gum disease is not a small thing. It is tied to heart disease, and most people ignore it until a tooth gets loose.

Researchers put a lemongrass oil rinse head to head against chlorhexidine, which is the prescription rinse your dentist hands you. Sixty people, rinsing twice a day for three weeks. The lemongrass group had the biggest drop in both gum swelling and plaque at two weeks and at three weeks. A second study in children found the same.

Chlorhexidine works. But long term it stains teeth brown, it burns, and it messes with your sense of taste. So a rinse that held its own, made from a grass clumped up by my east wall, is worth knowing about.

Safety: that is essential oil watered way down into a rinse. Do not swallow essential oil and do not put it in your mouth straight.

17. Dehydration and cramping in the heat: coconut

Grows in: Zones 10b to 11 only. Pickiest plant on the list.

Here is the honest version, because the internet has lost its mind over coconut water.

Researchers ran twelve trained men on a treadmill for an hour to dry them out, then gave them either bottled water, coconut water, coconut water from concentrate, or a sports drink, and measured how much fluid they held onto and how long they lasted on a second run. That was published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition.

Coconut water rehydrated them just as well as the sports drink. Same numbers. But here is the part people leave out. Plain bottled water did just as well too.

So coconut water is not magic. It is about as good as a sports drink, without the dye and the added sugar, and it comes in its own container off a tree. Plain water is still fine.

18. Running short on iron and vitamin A: moringa

Grows in: Zones 9 to 11. In zone 9 it dies back and comes right back.

Moringa has the biggest gap on this list between what people claim and what has actually been shown, so let me split it in half.

The nutrition side is solid. Moringa leaf powder runs about 21 milligrams of iron per 100 grams, plus a big load of the compounds your body turns into vitamin A, and dry leaf is roughly a quarter to a third protein. Researchers in Kenya gave nursing mothers twenty grams a day for three months and looked at the vitamin A in their milk. That is real food doing real work in real people.

The disease side is thinner. There are only about eight human studies on moringa and blood sugar, all built different, with mixed answers.

So grow moringa because it is one of the most nutrient dense leaves you can put in your yard. That part is not in dispute. Just do not let anybody sell you the miracle tree story. If you want the growing details, here is how to grow moringa in Florida.

19. Gut trouble and bad bacteria: dragon fruit

Grows in: Zones 9b to 11.

Everybody is buying probiotics. Almost nobody is feeding the good bacteria they already have. That is what dragon fruit does.

Researchers put 107 healthy adults on either four grams or eight grams of dragon fruit fiber a day, or a placebo, for four weeks, published in Food Research International. At four grams, the antibody that guards your gut lining went up almost eleven percent. At eight grams, the good bacteria went up and E. coli went down.

Two different doses for two different jobs. Four grams for the immune side, eight grams to shift the bacteria.

I have dragon fruit in two spots and it is the easiest fruit out here. It is a cactus. Cuttings root in a bucket, and it could not care less about our sand.

20. Period cramps: guava leaf

Grows in: Zones 9b to 11.

Last one, and it is for the women reading this, or for your daughter.

Researchers took 197 women with bad period cramps, average pain of eight out of ten, and split them four ways. Two different doses of guava leaf extract, ibuprofen, or a placebo. Four months of follow up, published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology.

The higher guava leaf group had a lot less pain than the placebo group. And in the first two cycles, it did better than the ibuprofen group.

The honest half: a later review looked at it and said the evidence was not steady enough to call it settled. One good study is not five. But it is one good study, on a leaf off a tree I am growing anyway, that went toe to toe with ibuprofen and held up.

The two plants that did not make the list

Two plants people expected to see here got cut, and the reason is the whole point of this page.

Loquat, for cough. Long tradition behind it, especially in Chinese medicine, and almost no human studies. Tradition is worth respecting. It is not the same thing as evidence, and I am not going to blur that line.

Katuk, for milk supply. This one needs care, because katuk is still growing on my property and I still stand behind it as a cooked green. What I could not put on this list is the milk supply claim. The human research on it is thin, and the harm that is on record came from people drinking large amounts of the raw juice, which caused permanent lung damage in outbreaks in Taiwan and Japan. Raw juice and a cooked green are two different things. But thin research means it does not earn a spot on a list where every other plant has a named study.

If somebody says a plant fixes a disease and they cannot name a study, they are guessing. And they are guessing with your health.

If you only plant one of them, plant sorrel

Blood pressure is the most common problem on this list. Sorrel has the most research behind it. And it will grow for just about everybody, whether you are in Florida or Ohio, because you can run it as a summer annual anywhere.

You dry the red pods, you steep them like tea, you drink it. That is the whole thing. And it grows like a weed down here in sand that will not support much else.

One plant. Start there.

Watch the full video: 20 problems, 20 plants

I walked through all twenty of these on camera, in the yard, naming the study out loud for every single one. It runs about half an hour and it covers a few details that did not fit on this page, including the safety notes for each plant and what I would plant first if I were starting from scratch.

Watch 20 Problems, 20 Plants on YouTube. Every plant on this page is in it, in the ground, on my quarter acre.

The tools, seeds and gear I actually use out there are in the GrowFitFL YouTube store.

Frequently asked questions

What medicinal plants grow best in Florida?

Sorrel, chiltepin pepper, moringa, lemongrass, guava, dragon fruit, Barbados cherry, passion fruit and mulberry all handle Florida heat, humidity and sand well. Sorrel and moringa are the two easiest to start with. Sorrel runs as a summer annual almost anywhere in the country, and moringa comes back after dieback in zone 9.

Which of these plants has the strongest research behind it?

Sorrel, also called roselle or hibiscus, has the deepest body of human research on this list. Multiple pooled reviews covering more than 1,200 people found systolic blood pressure came down roughly 6.7 points compared to placebo. Capsaicin from chiltepin peppers has the strongest regulatory standing, since the FDA approved a capsaicin patch for nerve pain in 2009 and again in 2020.

Can these plants replace my medication?

No, and nothing on this page should be read that way. Hibiscus beat a placebo in trials and did not beat blood pressure medication. Several plants here push in the same direction as prescription drugs, which is exactly how people get into trouble when they add one without telling their doctor. Talk to your doctor or pharmacist before adding any of these, and never stop or change a prescription on your own.

Which plants on this list have safety warnings?

Six of them. Never eat elderberries raw, cook them always. Leaf of life contains compounds that act on the heart, in the same family as digitalis, so do not use it while on heart medication without your doctor. Mulberry leaf pushes blood sugar the same direction as diabetes medicine. Ashwagandha has reports of liver injury in supplement form and should be skipped in pregnancy or with thyroid conditions. Capsaicin from chiltepin burns skin and eyes. Lemongrass essential oil must be heavily diluted and never swallowed straight.

Do I need a big yard to grow medicinal plants in Florida?

No. Lemon, chiltepin pepper, miracle berry, lemongrass and ashwagandha all grow well in containers on a patio. Dragon fruit roots from a cutting in a bucket. My whole food forest is on a quarter acre with over 150 edible plants, and a good part of it started in pots.

Is this list medical advice?

No. It is a gardener reporting what published research found, with the journals named so you can go read them yourself. It is not a diagnosis, a treatment plan, or a substitute for care from a qualified health professional.

The bottom line

Twenty problems. Twenty plants. All of them growing on one quarter acre in West Central Florida.

I did not tell you a single one of these cures anything. What I told you is what the research found, who ran it, and where it is thin. Two plants got cut because the claim was popular and the proof was not there.

That is the standard I want to be held to, and it is the standard you should hold everybody else to.

Start with sorrel. One plant. Then come back and add another.

Grow Food NOT Lawns.

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Sources

• Abdelmonem M, Ebada MA, et al. Efficacy of Hibiscus sabdariffa on blood pressure. Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology, 2022.
• Norouzzadeh M, et al. Hibiscus sabdariffa in cardiometabolic health. Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 2025.
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Qutenza (capsaicin) 8% patch approval history.
• Hawkins J, Baker C, Cherry L, Dunne E. Black elderberry supplementation effectively treats upper respiratory symptoms: a meta-analysis. Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 2019.
• Tiralongo E, Wee SS, Lea RA. Elderberry supplementation reduces cold duration and symptoms in air-travellers. Nutrients, 2016.
• Lopresti AL, Smith SJ, Malvi H, Kodgule R. An investigation into the stress-relieving and pharmacological actions of an ashwagandha extract. Medicine (Baltimore), 2019.
• Peou S, Milliard-Hasting B, Shah SA. Impact of avocado-enriched diets on plasma lipoproteins: a meta-analysis. Journal of Clinical Lipidology, 2016.
• Wang L, Bordi PL, Fleming JA, Hill AM, Kris-Etherton PM. Effect of a moderate fat diet with and without avocados on lipoprotein particle number, size and subclasses. Journal of the American Heart Association, 2015.
• Riche DM, et al. Impact of mulberry leaf extract on type 2 diabetes. Journal of Diabetes Investigation.
• Baek HI, et al. Effect of fig paste on functional constipation: a randomized clinical trial. Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2016.
• Rabbani GH, et al. Green banana reduces clinical severity of childhood shigellosis and persistent diarrhea. Gastroenterology.
• Seltzer MA, et al. Dietary manipulation with lemonade to treat hypocitraturic calcium nephrolithiasis. Journal of Urology.
• U.S. Department of Agriculture, FoodData Central, acerola (West Indian cherry), raw.
• Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Miracle Fruit, About Herbs database.
• Pantuck AJ, et al. A randomized double-blind placebo-controlled study of the effects of pomegranate extract on rising PSA levels in men following primary therapy for prostate cancer. Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases, 2015.
• Kaufeld A, et al. Kalanchoe pinnata in overactive bladder: a randomized placebo-controlled trial. Phytomedicine.
• Farid R, et al. Oral intake of purple passion fruit peel extract reduces pain and stiffness and improves physical function in adult patients with knee osteoarthritis. Nutrition Research, 2010.
• Dany SS, et al. Efficacy of 0.25% lemongrass oil mouthwash: a three arm prospective parallel clinical study. Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research, 2015.
• Saat M, Singh R, Sirisinghe RG, Nawawi M. Rehydration after exercise with fresh young coconut water, carbohydrate-electrolyte beverage and plain water. Journal of Physiological Anthropology.
• Nweze CC, et al. Comparative analysis of vitamin C and mineral composition of Moringa oleifera. Food Science and Nutrition.
• Doubova SV, et al. Effect of a Psidii guajavae folium extract in the treatment of primary dysmenorrhea: a randomized clinical trial. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 2007.
• UF/IFAS Gardening Solutions, Edible plants for Florida gardens.

This article is for general education about growing and using garden plants. It is not medical advice, a diagnosis, or a treatment plan, and it is not a substitute for care from a qualified health professional. Nothing here has been evaluated by the FDA and nothing here is intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Talk to your doctor or pharmacist before adding any plant to your routine, especially if you are pregnant, nursing, taking any medication, or managing a health condition. Never stop or change a prescription on your own. Growing conditions vary by site, so verify planting dates for your county with your local UF/IFAS Extension office.

Keep going: read what the studies really say about hibiscus tea and blood pressure, see how it all fits together in the hidden pharmacy in your backyard, or get the plant by plant details in The Southern Grow Guide entry for roselle.