It's a busy day for me but I do believe I will be there.

I took a writing course from Pam. She's great!

Cameron

I went and loved it (even though I didn't win one of the doorprize plants). She had wonderful photos of lavishly wild colored plantings that she talked about in a funny way. She was explained that most of the large tropicals grown out of zone do not recognize the weather cues that temperate zone plants do, so as the days shorten and the temps cool your big bold tropicals keep chuggin along oblivious to what lies ahead. She showed scenes of a long overplanted flowerbed overflowing with color and said something like, "this picture was taken on the 12th of November. The next day a hard freeze came through and flattened them all. They never saw it coming. They didn't have a clue!"

She made many good points. If you want big and bold and lots of color, tropicals will fill the bill and are one of the few plants that THRIVE in our heat and humidity. They grow faster than most temperate zone plants and often bloom longer. She also pointed out the misconception that tropicals need lots of water - some do, but most handle normal garden soil with normal amounts of water.

Can you give us the names some of those big and bold colorful tropicals she referred to?

Nancy the nancedar

Hi Nancy - she didn't show off anything that I haven't seen before, in fact I think there was only one photo with a Brugmansia in it! Mostly it was canna's and elephant ears and coleus or plants that look like coleus. She showed a lot of long "perennial" borders, or what would be a perennial border in any normal botanic garden but these were mostly made up of bananas, elephant ears and cannas with coleus along the front. She showed some nice Cuphea's that I had never seen including a chartreuse leaved 'Mexican Heather' (the normal green leaved form has overwintered in my yard). She mentioned that deer rarely eat any of the tropicals and some of the plantings were done in an emergency fashion after the deer had come in and munched down all the regular garden plants. By sticking in tropicals they were able to keep the display looking nice while the nibbled plants recovered.

For drought resistance she showed or mentioned the cardoons and artichokes, that silver leaved batchelor's button, phlomis or Jerusalem Sage, cupheas and variegated tapioca (Manihot).

She showed large clumps of Phormium - New Zealand Flax, stating that the purple leaved forms put up with our heat better than the gren forms.