Tropicals & Tender Perennials: Northerners! Change the way you think and garden!!!!, 1 by bwilliams

bwilliams wrote:
This is the same area shown in the picture above. In this photo I am actually taking the photo were Sarah is standing above. As you can see the bed is much like a giant compost pile of leaves some are piled taller on the bananas and larger plants. I find that 4 to 6 inches on the cannas and Colocasias is about right plants like basjoo banana and others do a bit better if you can have a few feet of trunk ready by spring so covering them a bit higher helps me get a head start on them every season. If you don't have that many leaves laying around in fall. It seems they are easy to find. Not to mention may places that collect leaves from peoples yards are always looking for places to dump their loads. This mix of leaves and chopped up grass makes for a great compost that heats up all winter long. In the dead of winter I can go out and dig in one of these piles to have steam pour out. Also I should add that in most cases these plants out grow the ones in the greenhouse sense they already have started producing new root systems early and usually their sizes are larger as well. Once the air temperatures get warm the plants shoot out at a surprising rate. In some cases so fast I get people who swear that I had to have planted them out for summer which is not the case.