I live in zone 9, canyon woodland, sloped, alkaline soil, shade, surrounded by oak trees.
During the months of late september - february I am in complete shade. Then I go into part shade.
I recently purchased a sago palm and planted it into a pot in the area that right now gets part shade. It has doubled in size.
Now I would like to try and plant one in my native soil to see if it will survive, but before I do that - does anyone know of any palms, tropicals, or whatever that grows fairly quickly that would do well in my conditions? I see my neighbors have tropicals, but not everyone's yard is the same.
Forgot to mention - my red banana is not doing well. It did fine the first year and now isnt doing much. And I have a few Philodendron bipinnatifidum also known as Selloum and most of them are doing fantastic.
Would love some suggestions.
Sherri
Dave's Garden
NEWBIE
banana's should go gang bangers in your temp. maybe not enough water?
I have timed sprinklers that go off by section - each section is for 3 minutes and right now, I am doing this everyday.
I would go thru your favorite palm books and read about conditions needed. There are SO many conidtions and so MANY palms.... There ARE ways to work the soil so you don't have to water everyday....soil amendments.....they might help.
Carol
bananas like a LOT of sun
Sherri
Have you thought of amending the soil? I garden in what my county agent says is good for blueberry's and nothing else, but I grow whatever I want. I simply add lots of compost and fertilizer.
Jeri
Amending my soil is a challenge since it is mostly sloped - I mean sloped. I havent figured out the best way to do it. Maybe I should hire some guys to just poor a bunch of compost and use shovels to blend it in. Would that work?
Sherri
I live in Louisiana about the only slopes here are on the levees. What about terranceing(?spelling) I've heard that is one way to deal with a slope. I have very hard clay originally so I built my beds up, added top soil and put mulch on top of that.
I had a soil test done after 10 year of gardening and they recommend adding doleminic lime. I promptly when to my garden center and asked for the lime and after I told him my beds were already planted he wouldn't sell it to me. He told me if it's not broken don't fix it. So I listened to him and everything looks good.
Hope this helps.
Jeri
I agree with Jeri, I think if you want to do significant soil amendments terracing is probably the way to go unless the slope isn't too steep, in which case you shouldn't have a problem. If it's steep enough that you'd have trouble amending the soil, then it's probably steep enough to slide if you get enough rain in the winter, so it's probably not a bad idea to terrace just for that reason!
I've come across this with landscape design and it came down to liability. We had to get a bonded professional and it cost way more than the client wanted. I've seen logs used effectively to do large terraces with large log/stump braces. Getting large bolders for terracing and placing them would take big equipment and cost but could be very nice to work with when completed.
Growin
That is exactly what I am up against. My situation would be quite costly to do terracing. A few months back I wanted to put in chain link fencing to fence my property so my dogs couldnt get out. Do you know it took me three months to finally find someone to do it - and it ended up costing me 11,000. Its because it was so sloped and full of woodland terrain. I am still in shock they were able to do it. But that's my upper back slope. My middle and lower slopes are pretty sloped too, but more accessible. The previous owners used large stones, which arent that hard to find around here, to place around the plants. But still it is very laborious and I just dont have the money to spend right now and I certainly cant do it myself.
You have no idea what a challenge my yard is. I still question myself on why I chose this place. But once you see it - you know why. It is just gorgeous here. But if you want a beautiful yard - you have to really work at it.
I am looking through the various tropicals - you guys are right there are so many. I found an eBay store that specializes in palms that is located in the same county as I live. They are helping me too. I am at 1700 elevation, and it has snowed a couple times in the winter - so I guess that makes a difference too.
Wish me luck.
Sherri
Do you get a little snow every year where you are, or is it just a few flakes once every 10 years or so (like last winter where there was even some snow on some of the hills in San Francisco)? If you see a bit of snow in most winters, then you're not really zone 9b, you're probably more like zone 8 because of the elevation so I would use that as a guideline rather than 9b when you're looking at what plants might work in your garden.
Ecrane
You make a very good point. WHen I type in my zip code in the hardiness chart it comes up 9b - but does that factor in elevation? Hmmmm. I live in Silverado Canyon in Orange County, CA.
I have only lived in my location 2 years. The first winter, we had snow and it covered the ground for about an hour and melted. But up the road from me, it stayed like I was living in the mountains. The elevation was more like 2000 - 3000. People from all over came to see it.
This past winter it was just snowflakes coming down and instantly melted. I dont know if this is typical or not because I havent lived here long enough.
What do you think?
I'm not familiar with your area at all so it's hard to say, but in CA with all the elevation differences and microclimates it makes it really hard to know for sure what zone anybody's in! Up here, last year we had this freaky storm where all the hilltops around here, even a few of the bigger hills in San Francisco, got a little bit of snow, but I'd say if you've had it two years in a row then it's probably not freak storms, it probably means you're in a colder area. The zip code zone locator probably doesn't account for elevation unless you're someplace where the entire zip code is at high elevation, but I don't think that's the case in your area. What's generally the lowest temperature you see in the winter? Here I've never seen it get below 30 and 35-40 is a more normal low (granted I've only been here 5 yrs), but if you're regularly getting under 30 then you're probably in a colder zone. Do you have the Sunset Western Garden Book? They came up with better climate zones that factor in rainfall, summer temperatures, and some other factors and it does a much better job accounting for CA's climate variations.
I absolutely agree - I dont have the Sunset Western Garden Book. I keep hearing about it. I need to get it.
Thanks for your help :)
Sherri
http://www.sunset.com/sunset/web/Sponsors/Garden/sunsetmonrovia_r1/htmlfiles/zone_map3.html
Just hover your mouse over the row of zone numbers to get a description of each zone.
What a great link. I am saving that to my favorites. Thank you very much.
Sherri