"what-can-I-grow-in-my-zone"

Red I personally think their are 4 different hardy tropical looks and it is usually best to to stick with one for each section. You can mix them up some but usually they look better in their own groups.

One is the Hardy desert look. Mostly yuccas agaves and other hardy looking cactus

The jungle look. This is usually bananas colocasias and cannas with a few others.

Shaded tropical or prehistoric look. This usually deals in hostas petasites airasema and a lot of other odd shade foliage plants

The last one is the Mediterranean look using hardy palms and cycads as well as a mixture of other plants.

Now this does not mean you cannot or should not mix the plants but usually they work well together in these groups. I often like to have a transition from one to the next. You may go jungle in the bright areas and in the shaded go prehistoric and back to another area with the Mediterranean over to desert look. So you can have all of them in one garden but some areas you will water much more and some areas will need more or less light. Your light and soil and drainage can play a key on what areas are best.

Here is a small area of my mothers yard were it goes grasses and somewhat succulent plants over to a desert area fairly fast. She wanted to try some desert plants and this well drained spot worked out find. It is still only a 6 to 8 foot from here pond but its up high and dry and looks fairly natural in the area were it's at.

WOW Brian, please tell your Mother her garden area is beautiful for me!!!

Tropicals or tropical-looking plants in zone 5b:
I have a grove of Arisaema sikokianum and A. candidissimum that's very happy.

Nelumbo nucifera will do well, as long as it's sunken to 3' or lower under water,

I'm trying Agapanthus 'Hardy Blue', advertised as hardy to z5, and I've mulched it, but we'll see.

Echium vulgare self seeded this summer, so I'll be curious to see if I get seedlings this spring. Lots and lots of snow this year, so at least they've been very well insulated.

I'm trying Alstroemeria 'Freedom' and A. psittacina 'Variegata', both reputed to make it to z5, but lifted some for safekeeping in the garage just in case.

I'm also trying Bignonia capreolata 'Tangerine Beauty' on the south side of my greenhouse; we'll see.

I have had Passiflora caerulea, which I ripped out when it came back the next spring, in the original spot, and also 10 feet away! It's in a pot now : )

Weedsfree- I have a particular affection for Rhodies, and have clay soil, so I built a raised bed in which to grow my beloveds.

Anita- I am going for Begonia evansii BIG TIME! Thanks a lot >: p

This is a dangerous forum......

Yes, this could be a danger to our pocketbooks, couldn't it!?! smile

Joe and Brian...thanks for your input! it is exactly what I need...but Brian...I want it all....LOL but if I have to choose jungle it is....awwwwawwww (umm that was supposed to be interpreted as tarzan's yell LOL)

this bed will be getting nearly all day sun (my shade bed with hostas, ferns, old time bleeding hearts, hydrangeas, gardenia, camellia etc is on the right where the daffodils are) The left bed in front of the one I am inquiring about ideas for has lilys, iris's and mexican petunias in it and the bed in between the shade and mexican petunias have cannas and various lilium species in it - so with that said would you mind suggesting some bananas and EE that can tolerate all that sun?

tammy's right...your moms bed is gorgeous! I have admired many of the pics you have posted on the other thread too...she's gotta love having a son in the biz who can supply all her plant tastes LOL

I will let her know. She retired this year and I am already hearing she wants every plant I have LOL. I told her I only wanted her testing the hardy stuff but I think shes going to go for some other things like the red banana and a few others.
I was really impressed with one area we worked a few years back. I gave her a lot of cannas hybrids to grow out for me. They were all unknown hybrids but she did a good job and I may have her help out on doing it again.

What a stunning bed. Love it!

OOOOOOOOOOOH there is a red banana, too!!! I knew of the pink but not the red. Yet another to add to the list! HE HE HE
HI JOYCE!!!!

Well Red in your zone most all colocasias are ok to grow to its best to pic out the nicest forms rather than go spreading weedy green forms. The bananas you have a bit of choices their as well. You could probably even get a few ensetes to over winter if you mulch them up well. Basjoo is a must. Their is a list I put up top this forum that shows most of the really hardy forms. The cannas are the same way. I find it's always best to go with the better performing plants. You maybe able to get the tall red flowering canna cheep possibly free but their are others out their that just out do it all around. My advice would be draw your lay out on paper list the areas that are shade sun and so on. Also list any areas you would like to look like a desert. The best part of the desert garden is you can throw them far out by the road or away from your original garden and they will do well with little care so finding a spot for them now or in the future is fairly easy if you have the land. Then I would suggest doing some research on the plants you like. Some bananas get large 20 feet plus while their are others that stay miniature same with the colocasias. Pick out your favorite. Once you have the plants I usually like to take them while in the pots and set them around to get a feel of what the landscape will look like. It's good to have a idea of what sizes they will grow to. I wrote about this on another forum and will see about copying it and adding it here. Over all it's fairly easy if you do mess up next year just dig the plant up and move it. Most of the plants are fairly tough and can be moved easily.

Brian - that is a feast for the eyes...so very nice!

Brian, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeewinggggggggggggggg and awwwwwwwwwwwwwwing over that picture!!!! (yes girls, more points!!!!)

I have a lot of cannas currently - from Cleopatra to Wyoming to Black Knight and a few others I haven't been able to ID yet...a friend moved...she didn't want to dig them up and bring them to her new home , I offered to, she said no she didn't want the hassle in her new yard but said take whatever you want...so I did...guess who now wants her cannas back...and guess whos not getting her cannas back LOL

Hey rednyr.....

You should start a separate thread so that we can show continued and sustained interest...(and I swear i'm not trying to be cute here), plus, you're in a different region than misty and it might be helpful to other folks

I have to get a few pics together before I can start a thread but the more discussions we have in hardy gardening ......

Good idea you have there, K!!!

Back at ya, Tammie. ;o)

Don't go tell the girls about my boo boo's, Joyce! HE HE HE

Well their is not much for planting a good tropical display. The thing is I have to do it differently than I would if I were just trying to make a colorful tropical effect. Here are my common rules to making a tropical display. Plant in mass groups. One of each canna next to each other is not as dramatic as large full clumps. I suggest this for most of the flowering stuff. If you have display plants sets of 3 to 5 are best in triangle patterns. 3 bananas in a triange patter look better than one. This is the same with Caladiums one form in a mass display is much nicer than tons of different forms scattered. Another thing to always do is lay the garden out as if it were a stadium minitures in the front mediums next and so on till you get to your tall stuff this give a better over all effect. The problem in my case is my displays are not just for show. I am breeding with the plants and I need as many of each form as possible. I also have found that planting new hybrids in the landscape can lead to odd effect. I planted cannas in the front and second roll of my beds a few years back all were new seedlings and very small. By the end of the season I found I had used omega in quite a few of the hybrids they were extremely tall and right next to the walkways. It took away from the effect but just something else to look out for in my future breeding.

Misty I usually plant coleus, caladiums, Eucomis, callas, amaryllis and oddly enough some amorphophallus up front. After that I usually use a zig zag pattern for Colocasias Alocasias and cannas. Then in the back is usually the bigger things like Ensetes bananas and larger cannas. It's hard to go wrong just most people don't know what to expect form their plants. At times they put what looks bigger at that moment in the back and plant the small bananas up front. It's easy to learn and as you do it more and more you get a feel of what should go where.

Years ago a friend of mine did a display using canna bengal tiger and Colocasia illustrius in a zig zag pattern. It was a large clump of bengal tiger then slightly out front of it was a larger clump of Illustrius colocasia this went on for around 100 feet and was one of the most coloful displays I have seen. Non of the plants were extremely rare or hard to find but putting dark colors next to light colored plants always draws attention.


This is not the greatest display but it seves it's purpose. I needed a place to propagate and grow out more of my pollen parent cannas. I also wanted to make a display that could be seen from the road draw people in to visit. A lot of people thought I was crazy when I planted those little plants out their but they kept looking as they grew up.

Brian, and others,
For those that don't have green houses, do you think that a sort of hoop house for over wintering plants would be helpful? I would think that they could be built right over the plants so they can be left in the ground? You would just have to cut them back so that you wouldn't have a hoop house 10-20 foot tall! HE HE HE

I have a hoop house 8' L x 4' W x 6' H but can't overwinter plants in it as it's very basic (no heat!). I use it in winter to store some of my pots and trays in there and then, when the weather gets nicer (as in "goes above 40 degrees"!!!), I bring out some of my plants to start hardening them off.

Jan, who prefers brugs, EE's, cannas, etc. than tulips, daffs, crocus...

Thanks for the input, Jan!
Was wanting to get everyones thoughts on starting another thread for only posting names of more hardy plants with the hyperlinks in them? There is so much information here, I think it would be much easier if there was a specific link to just the plants so that people can more easily search to find things that they like Please give me your input, and if it seems to be a go, I will start another thread as such.
Thanks again to all who are giving the wonderful information!!!!

Misty their are tons of ways to over winter and protect the plants. You can do the hoop house but may get the same results from these suggestions with less work. Here are a few off the top of my head.

Hardwood mulch. As it rots produces heat and stays fairly dry
Leaves in bags the bag of leaves helps insulate the plants.
Chopped up leaves similar to the mulch produces heat best if chopped up but retains more water.
Hoop house works great for palms and other slower moving tropicals added heat supply such as a light or heat cable help on very cold nights.

A new one which I have been testing is a large black matting. What you do is cover your plants with mulch or leaves for winter. This usually gives you 1 to 2 zone difference then if you add this black matting over the whole area it will give you 1 or 2 more zones as well. What the matting does is collect heat from the sun and thaws out the frozen ground. The ground will freeze again at night but only penetrating around 1 to 2 inches. This is the main difference between zones 7 and 8 compared to zones 5 and 6. The more the ground freezes the more damage the rhizomes and tubers receive. Preventing this will give you a much larger variety of plants to work with.
The matting I have tested is used on the ground in greenhouses and nurseries as weed control and for walking on. It comes in on a 10 foot roll and can be pinned down. It may look bad for the winter but the results are very good.

Oh Brian I love that idea, thanks!!! And we are lucky enough to have access to free mulch, which is great! Stinks to high heaven, but very good.

Another thread with all the hyperlinks sounds great!
The links could be divided between several different posts which could be used to catagorize! IE: One post could just have links for different plams and another could just have links for bananas.

Steven :)

Now that would be nice if someone else wanted to keep up with all those links! LOL
I was just thinking of one thread where people can post the name of the plant/flower and give the link to plantfiles, or any other link that will give the information a person will need to know if there is any probability of it making it in their zone. So long as we have the names and the links, everyone could just click on it to check it out. Does that sound reasonable?

Brian, I actually put some black plastic bags on a portion of my green house to draw in more heat and it works great! But you would probably have to use like a pond liner for what you are talking about, right?

Misty pond liner is far to expensive and heavy to work with. This is not the greatest picture but you can see it has been layed out on the ground for the plants to sit on and on the left side you can see the huge roll of it. It's made similar to a tarp but black.

This message was edited Feb 27, 2008 2:50 PM

That does sound great and somewhat less complicated!
Its a great idea and maybe it could be made sticky so it's always easy to find? Just an idea :) I'd be willing to help with catagorizing the thread if it got too messy.

Steven

Brian, where do you find that? And I bet you can't walk on it barefoot when it is warm out!! :)
Steven, this may grow so big before long it will take all of us to keep track! LOL I do have something in mind, but I have Dmailed Terry to ask about something before I pursue it.

bwilliams,

I was thinking hoophouse, too. But your ideas sound easier and more efficient, not to mention cheaper.

Please explain the bag of leaves to me. Are these just set up next to the plant? I had thought of putting a chicken wire "cage" around plants and filling that with leaves.

Black matting. How deep do the leaves under the matting need to be? Can this method be used for plants already in the ground, i.e., mulch and then cut-outs in the matting for the plants?

Steve,

I like the idea of different threads for different plants.

misty,

These palms are growing outside a Mexican restaurant here in town. They have had temps down in the teens several times and mid- to low-20s many times with very little damage. I'm going to post the pics on the Palm Forum and see if anyone there can ID them for me. Because they were only planted a year ago, they don't have long fronds yet.

Karen

Karen, that is one cool pic! Even my 5 year old daughter looked at it and said, WOW those are Palm Trees!!! I guess she really is paying attention to her dear old Mom! HE HE HE

Karen, those looks like palmettos to me. :)

-Joe

Joe,

You think these are a fan-type palm and won't get the long fronds, then? I didn't know palmettos would get a trunk this tall.

Here's a pic of a different one.

Karen

The bags of leaves works much like your chicken wire. I just found it much easier to put up and take down. Though it maybe a eye sore during winter. Take the bags and make a circle around your plant. Then add leaves or mulch around the trunks or plants your protecting. I then add more bags and more leaves till it is completely covered up. I usually use this one things like crinums and Musa basjoo. The stuff your interested in saving the trunks on.

As for the black matting is commonly called ground cover or weed protection matting their are a few form heavy duty and lighter forms. The tough form is what I use and can be used again and again.
What I do is mulch my plant regularly then add the matting over top. It is not level or flat some bags or rocks are on top to hold it down from the wind. This seems to work well and come spring is easy to remove and store. The mulch is then raked from the plants and spread out. The mat works good for areas with Colocasias, cannas gingers and other plants that die back fairly level with the ground. I dont think you would get the same effect if you used it as a weed barrier because you would then cover over the whole mat with mulch which will not collect as much heat. The other problem I find is that many tropicals will grow fast and spread usually under the matting and raise it up.

Now for small hoop houses or greenhouses. I usually only suggest them for Palms or similar plants that can take a lot of cold but need just a bit more protection. Here are some pics of our palms in their winter protected greenhouses. These houses have 2 spot lights which are turned on if the nights are cold. They produce just enough heat to keep the plants from getting damaged.

Thanks so much again for the wonderful information, Brian!!!

bwilliams,

I've read about putting bubble wrap around bananas and palms to keep the trunks warmer. Have you tried this? Do you think a rajipura banana is hardy to my zone? I want some fruiting bananas as well as the ornamental ones. With the bags of leaves, do you have to take them off when it is warm during the day or can they just be left in place all winter?

I would not put the weed barrier down on the ground with the leaves on top, but I didn't even think about putting the leaves first and then the weed barrier. I hate that stuff as an actual weed barrier. But putting it on top is a terrific suggestion. We have lots of leaves as there is a forest behind the property.

I'm not concerned about how it looks during the winter. Right now I have blankets out there topped with frost cloth. I take them off during the day and then back up for the night. Oh, that's not pretty, for sure.

This bed now has a four-foot dogwire fence around it. My daughter's dogs got in there and had a lot of fun uprooting plants. Grrrr! She said, cheerfully, "Well, now you have an extra place for vines." Grrrr again! All I need is concertina wire on top for it to look like a maxiumum security prison for plants.

Your little palm greenhouses are similar to what I was considering for next winter to put over individual small beds where I have bougainvillea and a tropical hibiscus. I couldn't run a heat source out there, though. This year I tried filling the bed with straw up over the tops of the plants and put a frost cloth on top. Time will tell if that was good enough.

I have a window that faces onto the front deck. I opened the window, put a fan in it to blow air from the house out there, and then taped frost cloth on the window and down to make a sort of "tent". This is working very well. So, I thought I could enlarge on this idea by putting up a similar "tent", using a PVC frame to hold it up, over my sliding glass door on the back deck and put a small heater out there or else use the fan idea again for next winter. This would be for stuff that I simply cannot put in the ground and then cover them with something. I have several small orchids in the house now but I'm limited as to how many, because I have to keep them out of reach of the cats.

Joe,

You are right about the palms. I got the answer of sabal palmetto from the Palm Forum. I wasn't aware that sabal palmettos got that tall. Learning new things all the time here.

Karen

Maybe on the new thread several DGer's could each manage a catagory? Just another thought!
Keep us posted on your idea misty!

Thanks Karen!

Steven

Now I think that would be great, Steven!!!! I am still waiting to hear from Terry. I guess she is really busy!

Thanks!
I found another plant for the list, I have it as a houseplant but according to some of the info in the plantfiles it sounds like it might grow as a die-back perennial in some colder zones http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/54477/ It's the China Doll Tree.

Steven

i like the idea of a thread for the links to the plants only, misty.

Steve, I think, with heavy protection, it would probably do fine. Now just to figure out a way to get by with planting in my neighbors yard! HA HA HA
Hi Mama, are you gonna help add to it when it is up and running? smile

I think different threads would be awesome...tropical bulbs, tropical trees, tropical shrubs, starting beds, maintaining beds, amending beds, watering requirements...the list is endless and it would make a wonderful reference!