NEW PLANTS FOR 2011

Well, it seems that our Southern California "winter" is mostly behind us now and I'm starting to work on the garden again. I brought a bunch of baby plants indoors and placed them on the warmest/sunniest spot in our house, our large kitchen windowsill, to get them a headstart on growth. Already they have grown quite a bit. I also bought some new plants: A couple of nice, large alocasia plants that I bought at Lowes hardware store and two papaya trees, two banana plants and a night blooming jasmine (all still baby plants) from my favorite online tropical plant seller, Wellspring Gardens in Florida. You can click on the photos to see larger, more detailed images of each plant.

 These two alocasia plants (there are two in the pot), also known as elephant ears, are around four feet tall but they could be well over twice that high by midsummer, possibly even taller!

 

These papaya trees are tiny right now but are expected to be over eight feet tall and producing fruit in less than a year!

 

More banana plants! As if I don't have enough already (last count was around nine). These new ones are basjoo, which is commonly seen in tropical landscaping and bears no fruit. The other one is called ice cream banana, and like it's namesake, it is supposed to taste like vanilla ice cream and is considered one of the tastiest bananas. I can't wait to find out!

Here is my Monstera Deliciosa plants and my blog is named after it. It's also known as split leaf philodendron, but it's a a more exotic variety than the more commonly seen houseplant of the same name. This one eventually gets huge leaves (see the photo of me next to one at the top of my blog) and also produces an edible fruit. My plant is a year old and and already pretty good sized.

 

Here are some 2nd generation baby colocasia/alocasia (elephant ear) plants from the parent plants I bought last year. The one on the left, I believe, is a green ruffle colocasia and on the right is alocasia portei.

 

Here's an avocado tree I grew from a pit and is a descendent of Candee's avocado tree (thanks, Candee!). It's growing with two stalks and looks more like a short bush than a tree. Normally, it would make more sense to cut off the 2nd stalk so the tree can put all it's energy into one taller stalk but I love the way this looks so I'm letting it do it's thing!

The two pots in the back are black magic colocasia, which will grow huge leaves that start out green and eventually turn purplish black. I've been taking some gorgeous photos of the larger leaves and will post them soon. The plant in the front is a Chinese orchid. I bought two bulbs at Huntington Library. The other one is still dormant but hopefully will sprout soon.

 

Here's another black magic colocasia. The leaves are growing from the original parent plant. I cut the plant back to the dirt level when it died back in the winter and now the plant is growing back with a vengence.

 

Here is yet another, larger black magic colocasia. This is one of the parent plants that I was able to keep from going into dormancy during the winter. This should be huge by mid-summer, maybe six feet tall with massive leaves.

Here are two strawberry guava trees that I bought last year. They are doing quite nicely. Not sure when they'll start producing fruit but I'm guessing maybe in a year or so.