The Tropical Garden In the Spring

Normally when I show off pictures of the tropical garden it's in mid-late summer or even early fall.  That's when all the plants have filled in and it has it's crazy jungle look.  

You can see from this picture I took last week that things are getting started.  The hardy tapioca is already taller that the privacy fence, and has been kept under control this year.  The last few bananas sent out their first leaves of the year too.  I've pretty excited that the majority didn't die back to the ground completely.

Most of the plants in this garden actually die back completely.  Most of the winter all we have are dead banana leaves and a bit of daylily foliage.  this picture is the same side of the garden for a different angle about a month earlier.  I tried to find a winter picture, but I don't have any.  I guess the dead mess of leaves isn't something I try to showcase.

This blue pot is always one of my favorites.  We repaired a crack in it at the old house hoping we would get a few more years out of it.  We got two more there, then moved it and we are onto our fifth summer in in our new house and it's still going strong.  This year it has some marigold among the other plants.  The Garden Apprentice likes yellow and likes planting seeds.  The Plant Geek is a big fan of the Garden Apprentice, so even though marigolds aren't very exciting or stylish, they have been showcased here.

Across the pool we have a collection of daylilies all by a certain hybridizer (Linda Michaels/Daredevil Daylilies).  We love the flowers, but wish they grew taller for us.  Not sure if it's our heat, not enough water, or not enough fertilizer, but we're planning on making an effort this summer to baby them a little and see if we see any changes.  We also have a pineapple guava here.  This is the first year I have really liked it.  Probably because it's blooming up a storm.

The blue pots along the end of our pool are the subject of a lot of my photos.  We have had a few different arrangements.  This year we turned the oval pots sideways, allowing better access and views of the plants behind them.  We also didn't put the succulents out here this year, instead using the space for the expanded mangave collection.

The tropical really is the heart of our garden in a lot of ways.  The pool lets us use it all summer long, even when it's too hot to just be outside.  Since this garden goes from bare earth to 8-10 feet tall at the end of the season, it's fun to watch it's progress through time.  I'll try to remember to do a mid-summer update showing all the growth.