Well, since everyone else seems to be posting pics of their cold hardy tropical gardens, here's mine.
First up is the one indicator from the outside of the woods that it's not your typical S. central PA woodlot, one of my 3-gallon Needle palms:
Pennsylvania "Tropical Rain Forest"
Here's the other 3-gallon needle palm as well as my Hardy Sugarcane (Saccharum arundinacea) and two of my Maori Dragon trees (C. australis):
Here's my Yellow Lotus Banana (Musella lasiocarpa), which I got as a 1 gallon plant from Plant Delights Nursery during their spring open house. If you look closely through the leaves, you can see one of my two seelding needle palms that I also got from PDN:
Here's my "Banana Plantation" which is near the Yellow lotus banana. There are 3 M. basjoos in the pic as well as an unidentified banana I got off the bargain rack of a local nursery for $5, which looks like it's either Dwarf orinoco or Rajapuri... In either case, based on others' experiences it SHOULD survive if I mulch it good. In the center of the pic is a C. australis "Red Star Spike" that I got on clearance from Wal Mart for $0.50. If I lose every single C. australis I have planted, I'd only be set back $12 LOL!
and right beside the bananas is my Yucca bed, including my pride and joy, the 3 gallon Y. recurvifolia I got at Home Depot for $25:
In between the Yello Lotus Banana and the Two right-most M. basjoos I have two Sabal minor 'Mc Curtain's. Both are 1 gallon plants I got in June from Gerry's Jungle. This one still has its strap leaves:
Here's the other S. minor 'Mc Curtain', which has spent this summer putting up its first adult leaf. The bank upon which I planted the one 3 gallon Needle palm, Yellow lotus banana, hardy sugar cane, two S. minor 'Mc Curtain's and two Musa basjoos was completely overrun by about a dozen HUGE multiflora rose bushes, which I mercilessly hacked down and dug up, planting the new plants in the holes the rose bushes once occupied.
On top of the bank is my 9-year old Yellow Groove bamboo grove, one of the two original plants that I put in the woods to kind of give that tropical feel:
And on the other side of the bamboo grove is the first "tropical" plant I planted in the woods, my 10 year old giant reed (Arundo donax) clump. Last year, because of the Hurricanes in the gulf region, we had an extended "Indian Summer" and we didn't have our first frost until the beginning of November, so my Giant reeds bloomed for the first time since I planted them. I don't think they set seed, since I haven't seen any seedlings come up. I also have my fourth Musa basjoo planted at the edge of the A. donax clump. I'm kind of hoping the bananas and reeds kind of merge to create that real jungly effect:
Here's one of my two Trachycarpus takils, along with an Ensete maruelli that I bought at HD by mistake. My three Ensete maruelli's are available for trade, since I don't want to grow anything I have to take inside every winter:
Here's the other T. takil:
This is a Rice Paper plant (Tetrapanax papyrifera) that I got last weekend at Brian's place, and planted beside my two other E. maruelli's:
A hardy spider plant (Chlorophytum major) that I got at Plant Delight's spring open house, along with the Yellow Lotus banana. Immediately behind the spider plant is some Arundinaria Gigantea, our native bamboo, which I got from alongside Cane Creek near Seneca, SC:
And to wrap up this digital tour will be the two Chinese Windmill Palms I got from Brian when I drove all the way to Louisville, KY last weekend. These palms, as seedlings, survived being froze solid in their container when they were left in the coldframe (Brian's dad said it got to about -5 in the cold frame that night) without any noticeable damage. I got some other plants from Brian, but since they are still recovering from transplant shock, I'll post pics of them later.
This palm is planted not far from the Hardy spider plant, in between a dead and a dying American elm tree, and hopefully will be able to take their place:
....And this is the other T. fortunei that I got from Brian, which I planted in the middle of the woods, to kind of give a more 'natural' feel to things.... If you download the pic and zoom in on the left side, you'll just notice my bamboo grove through the dead garlic mustard stalks.
I hope everyone enjoyed the show. :)
AMAZING!!!
Judy
Hikaro, that's beautiful! :) Your trachys, most of them have already spent a winter or two outside? What do you protect them with? And Brian, HEY!!! Your Dad is unloading some of his hybridized cold-tolerant trachys?!!! Ooooooooo I have spots here in Ohio where I'd love to try 'em. :)
-Joe
Hey, Joe!
No, none of my Palms, Bananas, or the Tetrapanax have spent the winter outside (with the exception of the Trachys I got from Brian's place, which as I stated before were froze solid), however, People have successfully grown every one of the species of palms that I have outside in places as cold as or colder than where I live, which is why I'm trying them. My winter protection scheme involves about 3 inches of shredded hardwood mulch, with about another 3 inches of leaves over that to help protect the roots, and on days where the nightly low is expected to get below 10* F (about 3-6 nights a year on average), I'm going to put a cardboard box with a piece of translucent plastic over the top over the palms (as a temporary cold frame), although the 3-gallon needle palms probably won't need it, and I'm 99% sure the Sabal minor "Mc Curtain"s won't.
Also, the Trachy takil might not need protection either... There's some guy living in a town just South of Toledo on these forums who's been growing them in his yard for some years without any protection, and he's reported that even with -9* F temps, they only suffered minor tip burn.... I might do some experimenting, since I have two that I planted at the same time, and leave one without protection (other than the mulch) and the other with, and see how they fare.....
As for the Bamboo, I'll be adding some more pics to this thread of my hardy bamboos, all but two of which have survived at least 1 winter with temps dropping to around 0 or a little bit below.
Wow everything looks awesome. I had no idea that so much could survive a Pennsylvania winter. (I am originally from Pittsburgh but transplanted out to the desert when I was a kid)
I didn't know either until some guy from Richmond, who is a member of the SE Palm and Exotic Plant Society, told me about some Needle Palms at the National Arboretum in Washington, DC (about 1.5-2 hours drive from my house), and I decided to do some digging on the net, and found out that Needle Palms, among others, could survive sub-zero temps. This information was revealed to me after much web searching this spring after the initial discovery of said info about the Needle Palm (officially listed in DG as hardy to Zone 6b)....
All of these palms have successfully been grown with minimal protection (basically what I described above about putting a cardboard box over them only when extremely low temps are expected) in Colorado Springs, CO, which is listed as Zone 5b (and the winter temp reports at the 2Lazy2P Alpine Test Gardens website confirms this).
Speaking of Pittsburg, my brother and his wife live out there, and when I went there this June for their wedding, I saw they had Tropical Hibiscuses and an Areca palm or two planted in the gardens downtown... I've had half a mind to tell them to plant some palms and hibiscuses that would actually make it through a Zone 6 winter, such as the ones I'm growing, LOL!
How funny to have hibiscus planted down town. I do not remeber seeing those last year when I was out for a visit. I will have to really pay attention when I visit next summer.
I gues just not something I would expect to see there. They probably treat them as annuals.
Speaking of Hibiscuses, I've bought two different H. moscheutos hybrids, and I'm going to attempt to cross pollinate them with H. syriacus to see if I can get a Hardy, shrub hibiscus with large flowers that would rival or exceed the tropical hibiscus' flowers in size.....
Knowing my luck, though, I'd probably end up with a herbaceous plant that has flowers the size of a rose of sharon, LOL!
BTW, here's a pic of my two garden 'helpers'
Let me know how it goes. I am not knowledgeable enough yet to be trying to cross pollinate anything. But I would definetly like to see the out come.
I have two of those helpers too. Although mine are more of a hinderance at the moment (kittens) :o)
Your garden helpers look like slackers to me, Hikaro_Takayama. LOL.
I see you have been so busy. I can't wait to see it when it all matures. You are probably so busy trying to mulch your prizes well for the cold winter. I hope they all make it for you especially after all your hard work and great dreams.
Looks good should be interesting to see what comes of it in the next few years outside. Good luck with your garden.
Yeah, I just applied a primary mulch layer of about 1-2" of shredded hardwood to all my plants, and I've added a secondary layer of about 4" of grass clippings to my T. forts and R. hystrix.... Now those palms look like a pile of grass clipping with palm fronds sticking out. I'll have to wait until probably the end of next month to get the leaf mulch. That's when my granma's 3 HUGE oak trees drop all their leaves, and mom, dad and me go down and rake her yard for her every year (well, except the years I was in the Navy I didn't help because I was usually somewhere overseas during this time of year), so this year, instead of dumping the leaves in the woods behind her house, I'm going to cram them into several 45 gallon contractor bags and use them as mulch for my plants.
ALso, my hardy spider plant has started blooming! Unfortunately, unlike the tropical spider plants everyone has had as a houseplant at one time or other, it won't produce babies on the flower stalks. Tony Avent (the guy who I bought mine off of) said that they DO usually produce viable seed, and he has seedlings come up around the parent plant every spring.... Once I get batteries for my camera, I'll see if I can catch the plant with some of its white flowers open and I'll post a picture of it here.
Brian, glad you like it.... I don't know if I told you in the last Dmail I sent you, but I went over to the really weedy side of the woods towards the road, and have cleared out a HUGE tangle consisting of aobut 5 dead elm trees three GIGANTIC Japanese honesuckle vines (the vines were at least as thick as my thumb) and what had to have been one of, if not the biggest multiflora rose bush in the state (its trunk was about 3" in diameter), and I seeded the clearing I created with a quick-growing grass seed mix. I've also taken down all the dead trees outside of the clearing, and I'm planning on filling up around the edges with some of your plants.... I might have to borrow my grandmother's pickup truck when I go to your nursery next spring, LOL
And the cats do their share.... They eat most of the voles and other small vermin that would undermine my planting efforts. If they spend a lot of time sleeping, it's because Maggie (blue gray in the BG) is 10 years old and her mother, Noel (tabby int he FG) is at least 13....
This message was edited Sep 30, 2006 9:00 PM
Wow, nice property.
Thanks for the tour, I hope you have a mild winter. I read somewhere in one of the forums about somebody who hooks up long chains of christmas lights around their tender plants and when a frost is coming they turn them on for extra heat around the plants. I thought it was an ingenious solution.
Well, the christmas light option is out... I'd need about half a mile of extension chord to reach all the plants in the woods. Besides, most, of not all, of these plants have been successfully grown in Zone 6 and even 5b with little or no protection. It's kind of funny, but three of the palms I have are actually hardier than most Crape myrtle varieties, yet everyone and their uncle has crape myrtles here, and I and my one friend are the only ones growing any kind of palms......
I'm always coming across seedlings down here to share, but i guess if they're growing here they probably wouldn't do very well in PA.
Depends.... Supposedly S. palmetto can make it in ZOne 6 with protection, and the Florida Needle Palm (R. Hystrix) has proven hardy in N. Philly, DC and Columbus, OH... S. Minor is marginal in Zone 6 (except the Mc Curtain Co., OK form which grows naturally in Zone 7).
Well, if I can identify one and find a seedling I'll let you know. I have lots of baby Areca palm seedling right now
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/656610/
but according to the cool post you left about palm hardiness they're not much good below freezing , unless you want to baby them indoors.