A few....... Ok a bunch of photos of my backyard gardens hope you all enjoy it!

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Good color, healthy plants...looking good! You can tell you love your garden.

Peter

Thanks Peter! I do indeed!

Great thread! Some of my favourate threads are garden tours!! Sensational. What are your extremes of temperature like?

Thanks NApalm! I'm in a zone 9b, we do get occasional frosts and the rare freeze, like 2010 when it hit 19 degrees over night!, but that was the coldest winter in 30 years so not at all usual. The summers are typically in the high 80's to mid 90's and very humid with almost daily thunder and lightning showers in the afternoon for an hour or two then the sun pops out again and the steam rises! Lol pretty tropical in the summers, almost no rain in the fall, winter and early spring.

Thank you Rob for showing such a nice garden;

I love the association of palms, bromeliads and others you did in your jungle.

Luckily you're allowed to grow bromeliads, which is forbidden in Sri Lanka due to the dengue fever mosquitos.

….very humid with almost daily thunder and lightning showers in the afternoon for an hour or two then the sun pops out again and the steam rises… THAT'S A DREAM

Thanks Philippe and thanks for all of your great posts! I drool over your gardens on a regular basis

Dude that is amazing. That is what I hope to get my yard to look like. How long have you been planting and how much was planted when you started?

Thanks Dennis

When I started planting 5 years ago there was just grass, no garden no pool no plants things grow like mad here so you should have a jungle in short order!

AWESOME!

I was on my way but lost a lot to the 2010 freeze..I learned and planted some new plants and have been slowly adding things.

Great stuff palmdude!! Your garden is looking great!! Amazing what can be achieved in 5 years when you are dedicated, your garden is the same age as mine.

Awesome garden - very 'jungly'

Be careful with the sword fern - it has nasty stolens (runners) that are like steel wires, and the get everywhere, choking off the rest.

http://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/parks/sword_fern.html

Edited April 29, 201412 yr by Pando

Thanks Benjamin

And thanks Pando, I pull the ferns on a regular basis so they don't get too thick but they do make a nice ground cover/weed block. Pulling some out around my bizzy is on the to do list.

NICE! like the big red aech.

Oh! Just read your link Pando! I'll be pulling more of those little suckers out! I do like them coming out of the boots of cabbage palms alongside some Broms but yes yank a good deal of them out I will. Are monster ferns the same story?

Thanks Derek the orange ones are blanchetianas and the red is Wally Berg. The Wally is by far my favorite so far it gets very red!

Looks like a wonderfull place to hang out in. you certainly can tell you do love your garden. Must bring you lots of joy

Absolutely Bill! It's my sanctuary! I build gardens everywhere I go, I really can't even help it, its like an obsessive compulsive gardening and plant buying disorder.

Oh! Just read your link Pando! I'll be pulling more of those little suckers out! I do like them coming out of the boots of cabbage palms alongside some Broms but yes yank a good deal of them out I will. Are monster ferns the same story?

Hehe, yeah the Nephrolepis cordifolia is difficult to get rid of. You may have the Boston Fern (Nephrolepis exaltata 'Bostoniensis') however, which is less aggressive. See Dave's garden for more info on that:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/58098/

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1948/

Great garden, lots of color. From the looks of all the crotons you must have created a nice little microclimate there. What is the size of your garden....looks like you were trying to block some neighbors. Also, do you worry about the bamboo clumps getting too large? .....keep talking ....I'm taking notes.

Wow, lush and green and colorful! I love the way you have blended everything together - palms, bromeliads and other plants! Pretty perfect!

Bo-Göran

Really nice combinations in a lush setting. I can't imagine growing all those tender things somewhere it can drop to 19°F, and I'm envious of broms like Aechmea blanchetiana, which I can't grow outdoors year round here in northern California. My winters are also zone 9b/10a, but rainy, and 7 months of dry from late April until mid November. I also have lots of bromeliads, but struggle with the more tender ones.

Stunning garden and all in 5 years wow! Do you get much wildlife in it (lizards, snakes etc)?

Regards Neil

WoW! Palmdude you've done sooo great! I love it!

Thanks Derek the orange ones are blanchetianas and the red is Wally Berg. The Wally is by far my favorite so far it gets very red!

yes I know its a great brom. we sell 1,000's of broms but dont have the wally for sale.

Thanks everyone it's really nice to share what I've done with people who appreciate it.

David (aliceHunter)yes I was building a living fence to block out neighbors, I'm on a 1/4 acre so the garden is not that big but I've taken advantage of all of the space I have. The bamboo are tropical clumpers but yes I'm worried about them and prepared for battle! You can control the bamboo by thinning it out or simply kicking over new shoots when they pop up. Most of the clumps I've allowed enough room for them to grow and the Gracillis is good for tight spaces but still will get a bit larger in circumference than I would like so I will divide the clumps and sell/ trade divisions for other plants/palms as well as using some in the projects that I do from time to time. I have 11 species of bamboo yikes! Lol most of them have room to grow

Neil, yes I get loads of wildlife! There were no lizards or anything else when I started, I now have hundreds everywhere which is a sign of a good ecosystem also lots of tree frogs, chameleons, squirrels, armadillo, a big bob cat that strolls the garden path in the early mornings and likes to lay under the Chinese fan palms (I mean Livistona Chinensis this is palm talk lol) and yes snakes! I have a resident black racer and find big beautiful corn snakes from time to time. I use a rake now to move stuff around before I pick it up because I picked up a Pygmy rattler in a pile of pine needles and it slithered through my fingers! Not cool ! Lol

David in Berzerkly, (lol) the 19 degrees was a 30 year low so as traumatized as we all were, we've moved on and the last couple of winters have been good to us, if it happens again I'll cry but then I'll do it all over

Thanks everyone for the words of encouragement I do love it out there!

Rob Norwood

AKA: Palmdude

Yes Derek the Wally is a hard one to come by, the gentleman who sold me a pup was in trouble with his wife for doing so lol

Rob

Your garden is fantastic a real tropical backyard oasis ! The combination of tropical plants works in really well with all the palms .

Great growth for only 5 years ! What fertilizer do you use .

Troy

Thanks Troy!

I use Florikan palm special 8-2-12. On my palms and Tropicals It's formulated for Florida so the phosphorous number is low, we have a lot of phosphorous in our water and soil, I use 13-13-13 on my bamboos.

I also ammend all of my planting holes with composted manure, peat moss and a 2 cu ft bag of miracle grow garden soil. Seems to work well. I also mulch the beds to hold in moisture and encourage microbial activity and all the little micro beasties

I have also used bio char in some of my garden and innoculated all of my palms and bamboos with Michorizal fungi. I have no control subjects do I don't really know how that's working out but everything seems happy and healthy and grows pretty well compared to the same plants I've seen in other gardens so who knows.... Not me lol

Awesome garden, very colorful and inviting.

Thanks Redant! You're invited anytime!

I say this on a lot of photo-threads, Rob, but I am very covetous of your garden.

Really, a beautiful collection and a pool to boot!

I really need to move south to stay sane in my later years...