No snow, but in another week or two I can start my planting I hope. We're getting four tons of rock delivered this weekend to finish up the beds around the yard and another two tons of wood chips to fill in.

I did a headcount in the garage and I have 18 topicals waiting to go in the ground, mostly banana's and various elephant ears (both alocasia and colocasia).

I am quite ready to get back out and work.

Great John! Can't wait for the pics man. Sure would warm up this poor cold soul!

Ohh I'm sore after this weekend. My legs and shoulders are hurting - got a little red from the sun too. I'll probably know how red tomorrow. Beautiful weekend after the hellish storms on Saturday evening. Got most of the rock moved on Friday and early Saturday. Got nearly the entire house surrounded now and formed three new beds - didn't have near enough Cyprus mulch though; downer. Our grass is so aggressive I have to keep the mulch almost 6 inches thick. And even that doesn't work at times.

Spent today putting some six new Majesty palms in the ground (in pots so I can pull them in the winter). Still waiting to put the 6 bananas and all my Elephant Ears in the ground until I know for sure the last frost has passed. Last week we had a light frost. Though I've moved about 60% of my plants out now since it's warmed up quite nicely - so I'm praying we stay above 35F at night from this point forward - else Tash and I will have a lot of stuff to move back in. The Easter morning frost last year really caught us all off-guard and was a bad spoiler for all the plants and trees here.

I really love this time of year. I'll just be happy when I can get the rest of my bulbs and plants in the ground and let them start doing their thing. Gotta get it all done before I leave next month.

I'll post some pics once we've got everything finalized

Argh, everything's gotta come back in bc of a slight cold snap tonight and this weekend. Guess I jumped the gun.

Now with the fence I can really got into landscape mode. I've been order online all winter, but now I'm getting the final pieces. Here's one I'm *really* looking forward too. Alocasia Macrorhizza 'Borneo Giant'. Second largest plant of its kind in the world.

Wow that's huge! Hopefully you'll be able to keep everything outside after the weekend

I hope so. It was nice having some of the garage back and seeing everything outside for a change. Feels like it's been forever since we had warm weather.

So, out of pure curiosity... how many of you consider yourself tropical plant fans? Tash and I are talking about starting a small information-based website (using EE) to go along with our selling of plants locally and online and I'm curious if any of you would like to be on our humble "staff" there? It'd be nice to have some folks who share our enthusiasm for all things green. Right now I plan to keep it focused on tropicals, but we could and likely will expand that

Just wondering.

kanaloa wrote:

So, out of pure curiosity... how many of you consider yourself tropical plant fans? Tash and I are talking about starting a small information-based website (using EE) to go along with our selling of plants locally and online and I'm curious if any of you would like to be on our humble "staff" there? It'd be nice to have some folks who share our enthusiasm for all things green. Right now I plan to keep it focused on tropicals, but we could and likely will expand that Just wondering.

I love "unusual" plants but couldn't say I'm an expert at them! Currently, I own a fantastic Musa Sikkimensis that's happily living outside and is about four-five feet in height, a Canary Island Date Palm and an Aloe of some kind that I can't recall right now. The aloe is wintered inside but the banana and the palm stay in their pots and are wrapped in fleece from around November to mid April and they cope just fine! I'm on the verge of ordering some flowering Gingers as well but I'm having a few problems with my supplier.

I also have some Mediterraneans, a lemon tree and two olives.

Oh I have always wanted a larger Canary Island Date Palm. How cold does it get where you are? I wonder if I could grow one of those here?

And check this beauty out - Ae Ae Banana

Usually drops to around -2 in winter, John. It can get much colder than that but not regularly or for extended periods. My palm is very small and is in a pot, which helps to protect it against ground frosts and the fleece ensures it can breath but is shielded from the worst of the weather.

That banana is very pretty. My Sikkimensis has beautiful leaves that are a deep red colour underneath.