What's looking exotic in August 2012

Looks fabby John.

Rewarding how quickly Exotic-style gardening "looks like something" eh? Main part of my garden is another 5 years at least before I can take anyone around it, but visitors are envy-green looking at my Exotic bed that was planted in June. Blinking-Ace I say

 

Yes, good plan. I have some Bamboos (they will probably take over and in 5 years that will be all I have !!), and also some tall grasses - but they will cease to look interesting by late January I expect ... your hardy palms will still look nice.

Could you toy with some winter/spring bulbs? They will be "gone" by the time the thing needs to look Exotic in the Summer?

I have a trio of Fatsia - the bog-standard cooking-version, a variegated, and a spider's-web - I'm hoping they will make a nice focal-point on the end of my island bed which will be all-season, and I've got some Phormiums ...

... but in reality I'm in the fortunate position that mine is not directly visible from the house, so no need to visit it in the depths of Winter (in fact on our heavy clay a "walk round the garden" is not particularly enjoyable in Winter ... )

 

That looks truly superb JWK!

 

John , really nice , really love your red bananas , very differents from mines ,
before I wanted to create an evergreen garden as well to enjoy the winter garden , but shortly realised that as I usually finish to work late and I never manage to go in the garden, in winter , what I do now , is actually just leaving the bananas, cannas holes open and fill them with kitchen wayste during winter , before i was planting tulips ....but that is another battle with the snails , so don`t bother anymore .

ps wow I`ve managed not to say that you should put a nice musa next to the red bananas

 

Looks fab John, I'd love a t-Rex for my garden

 

Did the last winter's cold give you any grief John? I remember you being anxious about your new tree ferns - they look OK though?

(Have you got an irrigation "spaghetti" tube up to the crown or somesuch?)

 

see you get my same punishment , the old musa pups are actually 3 feet tall now ...
I`ve just noticed that all the Dicksonia didn`t do really well despite the rain and wet , including your big one .

 

I've got 4 x one-footers. Bought at the same time, from the same place, had identical treatment since ... one of them had tiny fronds this spring; I reckon it got cold, or dry-crown, at some point before it came to me - maybe the irrigation in the nursery missed it.

Asking around folk reckon it will be several years before it produces decent sized fronds again :(

I'm thinking of getting a couple of tall D.A.'s for the entrance to my Jungle bed, and was planning to drive to Seagraves to select suitable specimens (and so they don't cut the fronds off to ship them to me)

 

Looks great Rod and the smell will definitely smell good

 

Kristen , this is my dicksonia last january when I bought it .

each frond mast have been at least 5/6 feet long and this year didn`t even reach 3 feets .
that garden center I was on about had around 30 DA at the beginning of the season , they just got 1 left .

 

Has al been round again

 

Ooh, that hurts

If I lived closer to that place, it'd be my Sunday haunt for a couple f hours each week!