WINTER IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA MEANS BUY MORE PLANTS

While most of North America is waist-deep in snow at the moment, it is uncharacteristically hot in Southern California. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. My tropical plants are OK with it too. But I decided to take advantage of the summer-like weather and recently bought some starter plants. Although my small apartment garden has a limited amount of space and already has way too many plants, I've managed to clear out one section and now have room for more plants. And I'll need every inch of space since most of the new plants will grow into monsters. Here are photos of the plants I got, as well as some "after" photos, provided courtesy of Brian's Botanicals.

Back row, left to right: Staghorn Fern, Sunset Glow Bamboo, Coffee Plant, Alocasia Borneo Giant

Front row, left to right:  Alocasia Calidora, Colocasia Bikini-tinia, Alocasia Macrorrhiza

Back row, left to right: Rosemary, Coffee Plant, Barbados Cherry

Front row, left to right: Basjoo Banana, Abyssinian Banana, Basjoo Banana

Here's what the abyssinian banana looks like when it's only about a half a year old.

I've already got one of these in my garden to prove it.

Here's a bunch of basjoo bananas plants. These guys are the most cold-tolerant of all bananas

and can survive sub-zero temperatures and have been grown in pretty much every climate.

Here's the curiously-named colocasia Bikini-tini. It grows to around 6 feet tall and is fun to watch

during a rainstorm. The leaf 'cups' fill with water and tip over and over and over again.

Here's Brian from Brian's Botanicals (thanks for the photos!) posing in front of, and dwarfed by, mature Alocasia Borneo Giants. I really don't have room for one of these but I'm a sucker

for monster plants so I couldn't resist. Please don't tell my wife.

EXOTIC FRUIT TREES PART 2

Digging through old photos that I meant to post but never got around to, I came across some that I took back in October last year from one day's gardening session. A few months before then I had started a micro tropical fruit tree orchard in the main section of my garden. (See my August 30th  "Midnight Gardening" entry). On this particular day in October, I transplanted several of these trees out of their pots and finally into the ground. The orchard consists of these tropical trees: three papayas, three guava and several bananas. Not seen in these photos in another area of my garden, I also have avocados, fig, orange, lemon, a couple passion fruit vines and three goji berry bushes.

MIDNIGHT GARDENING: EXOTIC FRUIT TREES

I've earned the unofficial title of "Goth Gardener" because of my habit of doing a lot of gardening at night, sometimes after midnight. It's not that I necessarily have a penchant for lurking around in the dark, but is usually done out of necessity: I simply don't have enough free time during daylight hours. But I will say that there is something quite relaxing and zen-like, hanging out with plants late at night. 

 On my latest nighttime venture this past weekend, I headed out into the garden around midnight to remove five overgroan cherry tomato plants to make room for my growing collection of young exotic fruit trees. Gardening real estate is scarce in my apartment backyard so I need every spare inch of space. I purposely did this weekend's gardening late at night for a good reason. It was one of the hottest day's of the year, several degrees over 100 and even working at night was very sweat-inducing since the air was humid and in the mid-70s.

After picking the last few red tomatoes, I snipped the base of each plant and then spent a good deal of time breaking down the tangle of tomato vines and cleared out the debris to prepare the area for the exotic fruit trees.

At 2am, the job is done and I am beaten to a pulp. It was exhausting but satisfying work and I am quite pleased with the results. I've purposely kept all of the trees in their pots because I am still trying to figure out the ideal arrangement. Most of the trees are small still and I'm trying to gauge which ones will be fast and slow growers in order to keep the taller ones in the back.

Here's a clearer view of the exotic fruit tree area in daylight. I have are several bananas, a tropical guava, two strawberry guavas, three papayas, three wolfberry (goji), several avocados, a fig, and a Surinam cherry. They fit nicely in this area now but I am still in a state of denial about the reality of exactly how much room they will need in the near future. There's still time to plot my long-term strategy.