Outdoor Tropical/Winter Gardening Tips in Tennessee? - strapped for cash and needing other things just as April rolls around

[L.A.M.]

I really, really, REALLY wanted to get southern wax myrtles, sand laurel oaks, swamp laurel oaks, sweetbay magnolias and Brazoria palmettos this April. Given that my southern magnolia, Carolina cherry laurels (at least at the stumps), needle palm and dwarf palmetto all survived the -13 degrees Fahrenheit cold wave in January 2024 with no unnatural protection and other southern magnolias here were consistently OK too, I'm feeling confident that I'll eventually be able to grow the other things I'd been planning to get this April prior to an unexpected financial blow. I'm terrified of being set back yet another year on the plant farm, though, especially given that I get crazier each winter than the last as long as there's an insufficient variety of evergreen trees and shrubs around. I'm also terrified of planting too late in the year and them being too poorly established to weather an autumn drought and/or the imminent winter cold waves that healthy, well-established individuals can handle, though. Simply keeping them indoors for the winter may not be an option; I got southern wax myrtles for my birthday (March 12) in 2022, but all but one of the ten was killed by the low indoor humidity within a month despite being misted twice a day. I accidentally lethally overfertilized the one survivor that May, underestimating how potent one scoop would be on something a foot tall with minimal branches.

Due to my PC's old graphics card suddenly malfunctioning, I've been completely inactive for weeks now. I finally got a cheap new one so my PC at least works, but unfortunately, I can't play certain games (e.g. Minecraft) at all because they won't work with my current drivers. Even games that shouldn't be remotely problematic are slow (e.g. Jewel Quest II) or outright laggy (Wildlife Park Tycoon 4). Nonetheless, I checked to be sure everything was up to date and tried to change the display settings to what was recommended. I couldn't force any of my drivers to update automatically nor find the recommended 1920x1080 display as an option in my settings. I'll probably have to get a new, better graphics card that I almost certainly cannot currently afford. Given the spring planting season beginning in earnest here in Middle Tennessee, the unpredictable nature of my job (I'm a construction painter) and the fact that I'm almost certainly going to have to look well out-of-state (not simply in Kentucky or North Alabama) to find a suitable boyfriend but currently have no reliable friends to go with, there's a serious risk that I won't be able to get even one of the things mentioned above. I hate to leave the issue unsolved; losing my biggest hobby almost completely for the foreseeable future is making an already-unprecedented mental health challenge even worse. I'm unlikely to take the risk of getting a loan and/or changing jobs simply to be able to pay for everything sooner, however tempting both ideas are on paper.

Anyways, I digress. Any ideas? Growing things indoors tends to be a lot more challenging and less rewarding for me, although I do eventually plan on trying to bring saguaro cacti, Joshua trees, dragon fruit and black mangroves indoors off and on when it gets below twenty degrees Fahrenheit and/or stays below freezing all day. At most, maybe I'll try keeping certain herbaceous flowers in humid, well-lit terrariums during winter or summer. Growing something deciduous this growing season is likely to cause my mental health to plummet even more in November (when we'll already have the most stressful election ever to deal with), especially if it's not something like black willow or southern hackberry that tends to leaf out in February in our climate. I know I could just get some escarpment live oak acorns or Brazoria palmetto seeds in autumn, but they'd take time to germinate and be super small once they did, making it a delayed and underwhelming relief. My seasonal depression is powerful, and winter greenery and flowers are very helpful to mitigate it (although I don't want to grow most woody Eurasian species because they could easily be killed by a severe cold wave or invasive). Spruces and some shade-tolerant subtropical palm species (like the ones we have in the Southeast) are especially helpful to mitigate it due to the unique leaf patterns, and I feel like southern wax myrtles would be too due to the especially lush leaf color compared to other native evergreen trees/shrubs that can handle this climate. Please help!

Edited April 5, 2024 by L.A.M.

[SeanK]

I have added Rhododendrons to my yard as insurance against cold winters. You might also try Kalmias (Mountain Laurel). There is now variety in the sizes and bloom colors.

[L.A.M.]

On 4/6/2024 at 5:56 PM, SeanK said:

I have added Rhododendrons to my yard as insurance against cold winters. You might also try Kalmias (Mountain Laurel). There is now variety in the sizes and bloom colors.

We already have a lot of Kalmia latifolia on our land naturally. I've long intended to grow some Rhododendron maximum, but they're surprisingly hard to come by commercially for something so big and common. Thanks for the advice, though!

[L.A.M.]

It turns out, all I needed was a new driver. I was skeptical but accepted mom's offer to try to help anyways, and it paid off. Minecraft works now! This should free me up financially and mentally to deal with planting southern wax myrtles and possibly other things very soon. Nonetheless, I still welcome input to the thread anyways. It could help if I'm ever seemingly strapped for cash around this time of year again, and it could help others in similar climes of North America facing a similar situation.