I'm in the planning stage of landscaping almost an acre lot where we'll be building a small-footprint house next year, and my (adult) son who lives in Florida suggested that I include a small "Tropical" garden area in his honor. :)
The Dallas area isn't exactly a tropical paradise since our winter temps can get down into the teens, so I'm having a hard time imagining what plants could qualify as (sorta) tropical and still survive here without a lot of pampering.
There are a couple kinds of palm trees that are supposed to be hardy here. Gardenias? I've never tried growing them here, but they're listed as evergreen. Cannas thrive here but of course die to the ground over the winter. I have a Rose of Sharon hibiscus-looking tree that survives, but goes bare each winter. It doesn't seem like it would make much of a "tropical" area over the winter if most things are brown or bare. Dwarf Magnolias do fine. Any suggestions??
"Tropical" Garden Suggestions for North Texas?
What zone are you in? I'm in 8B. I do crotons, tibouchina, hibiscus and ti-plants. I take cuttings every year and if it doesn't come up I have a replacement. Out of all of the above mentioned plants the crotons only returned 1 year, but the rest have repeatly. I just give the rooted cuttings away or worst I use them somewhere else in my madness that I call my garden.
I'm in 8A. I love "mad" gardens! :) I had a small hibiscus plant last summer that looks dead... is that normal behavior for a hibiscus?? (I'm originally from Florida where everything stays green year-round.) We had one of our hard winters this year. Oddly enough, some cheap red carnations I planted in my current garden last spring not only survived the winter, but have BLOOMED off and on the whole time! They were blooming in late November and early February, and maybe in between although it was so cold that I spent no time outside to notice.
Do you know which Hibiscus it was? If it was a tropical one (H. rosa-sinensis) then it may be dead but if it was one of the hardier ones (H. syriacus, H. moscheutos, H. coccineus, H. mutabilis, etc) then it should be fine (some of them are a little slow to get going in the spring though)
I went and looked to see if, perchance, I'd tucked a marker next to the hibiscus, but nope. It was a really strange plant, though... the peach colored flowers never bloomed until AFTER the weather turned cold! Right as everything else died down, it suddenly popped into bloom.