Tropical Gardening in New York City!
Pics of my "tropical" New York City yard. I am in a USDA gardening zone 7 and I use plants that are hardy to our winters, are easy to overwinter indoors, or use as annuals to get the tropical look this far north. Please ask for my permission and give me credit if you use any of my pics! Thanks for looking!
Search My Yard!
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
A few Spring Blooms
Friday, April 5, 2024
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
New Plants from Florida!
Everytime I visit Florida I try to bring some fun plants back & this might be my biggest haul I've ever carried on a plane!
Going Bananas
I purchased three new banana plants from an incredible local banana plant grower. The Musa Thai Black was field dug and is already large & showing some gorgeous dark coloration. I'm also trying Musa Sumatrana X Gran Nain, and what I thought was Musa Velutina.... but could be Musa Viente Cohol. We'll have to see.
Here they are when I picked them up...
Unfortunately the Musa Sumatrana X Gran Nain banana had damage so I decided it would be healthier to cut it off right from the bottom of the damage. It's already growing back.
Mounts Botanical Garden - Palm & Cycad Sale
I had a blast talking with the palm tree hobbyist at this sale! They showed me pictures of their gardens that truly had me drooling. Unfortunately, a lot of vendors couldnt make it to the sale because of the weather, but I still managed to bring home some cool plants like Chamadorea ernestii angusta & Dypsis maroantsetra.
Dypsis maroantsetra develops red new fronds. I'm so excited for that!
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Tropical Plants outside ... IN MARCH!
March is usually cold, cloudy and generally miserable here on Long Island ... but we got a VERY nice reprieve this week. Temperatures soared into the 70s for 2 days straight in my garden & we had a string of 60s too. So I took out the tropical plants for some fresh air and sunshine!
Queen Palm, Singapore Twist, and Camellia |
Lady palm, Sasanqua camellia (it's been blooming on and off all winter), and to the left, a variegated kumquat. |
A closeup! |
I'm playing around with some color combinations and really like the way the variegated ti plant looks with the chinese fan palm |
To the far right you see a poinsetta is still filled with color! |
Flamethrower palm living its best life with the Staghorn Fern and Ti Plant |
I repotted my Orange and Yellow Bird of Paradise. It took me over a half hour to pry the roots off and unfortunately I did damage a few of the roots. |
A very exciting purchase - a Monstera Thai Consellation! |
Bismarkia Palm looking good! |
Monday, March 18, 2024
Mid March Fun in the garden!
We were blessed with 2 days in the 70s this week here on Long Island and my garden was LOVING it. Here are some photos.
My pansies re-seeded themselves on the lawn. This happened one other time when I lived in Florida so it was a fun reminder of the time I had down there!
The oleander has had better days. And this is with protection. Some varieties are more cold tolerant than others, but this one is definitely the latter.
Friday, March 15, 2024
A few photos from Planting Fields in Oyster Bay yesterday
It was the warmest day since October - our first one in the 70s in nearly 20 weeks! The high temperature in my garden was a balmy 76F and today is in the 70s too. Everything is coming into bloom. Here are a few photos.
First some deer |
Gorgeous hellebores |
Korean rhododendron Rhododendron mucronulatum |