I love your yard.....how about jewel orchids.....i read they like shade....I have one that I got from a swap that is under my ficus tree just thriving. Its so pretty .....it looks fake....

I think I got my black sapote from you....wanted to let you know it survived my absence and is doing well.....the star apple though did not have the same luck :-( Oh and hubby and I have been using the big repellant you suggested and we love it.

Trinigemini,
thanks for your compliments.
I am glad your sapote survived. Don't worry about the star apple, I will give you another one, next time I see you.
The jewel orchid is a great idea, I did not even think of that. I have one in fact from D'Ann, and I will find it a nice shady spot. What else does it need, as far as fertilizer of water?
I do not remember the repellant suggestion, I still struggle with mosquitos my self. But please share what you do, maybe I can apply it here.
You have to come to our next play date, we are thinking to shift it to the early spring, (as far from Ricky's as possible, so we don't interfere with his swap), hope you will be able to join us with you hubby.
V

Veronika, I love what you've already done. It is beautiful. I also love the things you've selected to plant. It will definitely look like a tropical jungle. I also keep picturing bird's nest fern or birds nest type anthuriums. Maybe some creepy crawly groundcovers like iresine herbstii, iresine purple lady, purple knight alternanthera, hemigraphis alternata, that would add a little foliage color down low. Strobilanthes dyeriana too.

You might lay down cardboard where your paths will be and get mulch from a reputable tree company. Your yard lends itself to that natural look, and it would transform it quickly.

Iris banocchie is not a slow crawler. In less than two years, mine has gotten maybe twelve feet wide, and 7-9 feet tall. Very pretty though.

Veronika, you garden ideas are just wonderful. I think your new beds will be great. A path around the bamboo will add to the experience of walking through a jungle.

Thanks for sharing your beautiful backyard with us..Now the real question! Can I come live in your backyard? LOL:0)Rigo74

Hi Veronika - You have really done a great job of creating a tropical paradise. You are so lucky to have a husband strong enough and willing to rip up a circular driveway! You might be too young to know of the Incredible Hulk, but that is what I'm thinking....
Anyways, your place looks like it could be situated on a little island in the Pacific. Keep us up-to-date with more pictures as you go.

Oh, and if you still have the Tagami Heliconia, would you post a picture if it ever blooms for you?

Thanks for the tour! Susie

Veronika,

the pictures are great.........

I don`t know if I told you how much I love the colors that you used when painting your house......

I think you need to take a close up pic and post. Very relaxing.

Yes the jewel orchid does best when in the shade with shifting / dappled light.

Lisa is coming over in a few week to teach me how to post pictures.

I will be more that happy to show off my jewel orchid this February when it is in full bloom .

That Phil McDowell looks hand painted. You have some great plants, but hey, I loved your garden the moment I stepped into it. I still love your tree table the best.

Veronika, all your plants looks great. Can't wait to see the finished projects.
Jan

Veronika ~ I love what you already having going on there. With what you are adding and what you have in mind, your tropical paradise will even be more lovely and relaxing. I can just picture the winding paths. Getting ideas and working on them is half the fun. Enjoy and do post pictures as you go along. Your gardens have inspired me.

FlowerLady

Veronica,
I love your jungle look. I really like your choices and the
Philodendron McDowell will be a great addition as well as the others. Just go ahead and get lost in your jungle that is.
Good job!
Felix

Veronika,

I got my jewel orchid from D'Ann also :-)You just let us know when the next swap is and we'll be there :-) I have to see your place. The repellant you suggested was one you were putting on your son. It's the avon one (skin so soft---bug guard plus)...we brought the lotion version....

Hi Veronika,

I believe I once mentioned that I'd love to live in your already beautiful gardens too.

I loved the last play date and am looking forward to the next one!

To address your question:

How about an occasional long leafed croton like "painted lady" or another banana leaf variety for a color enhancement. I'm sure Ricky could help with that. He has for me!

Another pretty plant this time of year is the Bridal Veil Clerodendron. Loves a bit of shade and has wonderful pendulous white blooms in the fall/winter.
Also the Musical Notes Clerodendron, blooms profusely during the summer, again white, wonderful plant!
I can start some cuttings of both in the spring if you would like.

Brazilian Red Cloak is another winter bloomer that prefers partial shade. Very tropical looking leaves, grows to maybe 6'. I have one in a pot looking for a good home.

Bromeliads always add an unexpected splash of color low to the ground.

And don't be shy with coleous. This was the year of the coleous for me, after our wonderful party at Katkins last spring. They really brightened my whole yard this year!
And they can be kept going indefinatly!

Have you grown "Jewels of Opar"? The variegated one. Small white plant with pretty sprays of pink flowers and balls.

Anyway, just some of my thoughts.

I love your yard already!

Treefrog

Thank you, thank you everybody!!!
Your kind words have poured so much gardening energy in me. Yesterday afternoon I was pulling the oyster plants out (behind the bamboo by the fence line) and got such a bad case of contact dermatitis on my fore arms that I wanted to take my skin off and take a break from gardening. But now after reading all your responses will go right back and continue (will not touch the oysters, though).

Michelle, yes, you are right about the bug gard, now I remember. LOL.

Anna, thank you for your planting ideas. I don't know most of the plant that you mentioned, but will research them (one of my favorite think to do). I am also a foliage person like you are, and your pictures of your plants combinations are a big inspiration for me. I do have the bird's nest fern, and I am on the look out for a bird's nest anthurium. Also thanks for the warning on heliconia bannochie, I am about to plant it, so I will burry around it some type of preventative from spreading around too much. I love the blooms, do you use it as a cut flower? How long does it lasts?

Rigo, you are welcome to move in the garden for a day, I will announce the play date in time.

Susie, I will post the picture, it has not bloomed yet. And yes, I love the jungle like look. Being from Europe, where the gardening outside in so limited, I am really on cloud NINE here.

D'Ann, I will go out there and take a close up on the house colors. It goes with the tropical look, does it in. I always wanted such colors, that will put a smile on my face when I come home.

Flower Lady, and Jan I will post pictures of my progress and also the finished look.

Felix and Kristi, the McDowell, should be a good trade-able item once it gets established. I also love the leaves. It is a crossover between my favorite philodendron gloriosum and philo ecuadoriana.
(It will be right there on the favorite list too, I think.)
here is the picture of philodendron gloriousum:

Treefrog, thanks for all the plants recommendations: the clerodendrums I have in pots from last swap, so I will use them. That is a great idea. I will research the other ones, that I don't know.
Please, If you like to save the the brazilien red cloak, that would be great. I don't have the jewels of opar, will look into it. Bromeliads I have, and planning to use them. Will have to figure something out not to breed mosquitos, though.
Yes, the coleus is also appearing in my yard more and more. They do brighten things up, don't they.
Thanks again, everybody.
I will post the house picture, later today.
V.

I love your tropical oasis Veronika!

Anna, do you happen to have any pictures of your heliconia bannochie that you can post? It sounds beautiful and I would love to see what it looks like fully established. That's the problem with most online plant sites, they only show you the bloom!

Veronika and Wanna,

I did not mean to imply that this plant is invasive in any way. It is just a vigorous clumper. About a year and a half to two years ago I traded with Bihai for four rhizomes. I think 3 survived. This is what it has turned into:

The wall pictured is 10-11 feet tall, so it is easily 9 feet on average in this full sun situation. The foliage is a bit yellow-green because it gets so much sun and I fertilize it infrequently and weakly. Here is a little closer look at the foliage.

One thing I found out about this plant is that in order to visualize the blooms/bracts well, you have to remove a lot of the foliage. I have removed about half of it. I don't think I did a good job. Need to figure it out better next time. You can see that there are many bracts that haven't even started emerging yet. It will have about twice what it is showing now.

I have never used the blooms as cut flowers cuz this is the first time it blooms. Not a bad idea for the Christmas centerpiece though.

Anna

Wow, Anna,
that is beautiful heliconia, I am even more glad after seeing your pictures, that I got it.
Thanks for posting them. The red bloom around Christmas time, was one of the selling point for me.
I think that I don't need to worry about the runner preventative, and for it's vigor it will be a good trading item.
Thanks again.
Veronika

Like I promised,
here are our house colors. They add to the tropicality, and put a smile on my face every time I come home. (But I have to mentioned, when we started painting it, our neighbor from across thought, that the magenta stripe was a masking tape.)Good thing is that we have so much foliage, I guess. LOL.
Veronika

I LOVE IT !

I love the colors and the yard. Beautiful!! I am always so jealous when I see other peoples pictures. It seems I am always battling bugs of some sort.

Veronika, what do you use to control FL bugs?

Joanm,
I ignore them bugs, that is my weapon.
Really, the nature takes care of its self, I see aphids, than I see ladybugs, and lizards, and etc. If it really gets out of hand, then I spray the neehm oil spray or soapy water. It seems to work fine. We don't use any other chemicals in the yard.
Veronika

That's a pretty heliconia.
And that it blooms at Christmastime makes it really special.
All my heliconias are summer bloomers, so not much color now.
If anyone wants to trade a piece of rhizome next spring, keep me in mind, please.

Veronika, another pretty bush for shady gardens...Whitfieldia longifolia...White Candles.
Just another suggestion.

Veronika, I just LOVE your house! How wonderful is that? Makes a wonderful backdrop for your beautiful garden... makes it such a paradise feel, too. Just lovely.

Treefrog, remind me in early spring and I will gladly share my heliconia with you. Please, please, remind me, tho, as I am already half senile. :)

Anna

Veronika, I just LOVE your house! How wonderful is that? Makes a wonderful backdrop for your beautiful garden... makes it such a paradise feel, too. Just lovely.

Treefrog, remind me in early spring and I will gladly share my heliconia with you. Please, please, remind me, tho, as I am already half senile. :)

Anna

See what I mean? Ha, ha, ha! That was not even on purpose. Sad, isn't it?

Veronika, LOVE your tropical house and garden! I mean isn't that why we live in SoFLA?????? Someone in my neighborhood has a TUDOR painted dark brown and I'm sorry I just don't get it (original owners who built it too). When my kids were little they called it the hansel & gretel house, and were afraid to trick or treat there.

Anna, your Iris Heliconias are stunning! I'm just getting into them but that is exactly the look I'm after. Do you have any more pictures or more heliconias?

Helen

Thank you, Anna and Helen. Yes, I love our house and the garden. That is exactly why we live in South Florida!!!
I have the heliconia bug for a while now. That is why I like Tropical Paradise, you can see all the plants that he is selling in their mature state right there on the property, it is like a botanical garden with store. But call ahead if you go, he will be closed over the holidays and even after that it will have sporadic hours of opening.
Veronika

Veronika, have you been down to Fairchild Gardens? They have absolutely stunning heliconias too. My problem is I love 'em all and can't picture where to put them in my landscape. I just love to see what other people do.

Anna, that heliconia will make a spectacular center piece for Christmas. What a beauty!!!
Jan

Helen, I hate to hijack Veronika's thread. I just got into heliconias a couple of years ago. I thought they would have trouble this far north in Sarasota, but the ones I chose have tolerated winters fine so far. The last couple have been mild, though. I have to say, I will not get any more heliconias as I find they take a bit of maintenance to keep them looking good, but I really am enjoying the ones I have. The first one I got was a noid. It was sold to me as heliconia rostrata, but after researching it and asking, I think it is H. pendula:

The next one I got at Tropical Paradise and is H. Dimitri Sucre.

This is my favorite. I got a rhizome in trade. It is not as vigorous as some of the others, but the flower/bract is stunning. Here is a photo of early blooms. They get a lot taller than this. When the clump gets a bit bigger, I will create another clump in a more noticeable area, cuz I just love this one. It is H. guapa:

I also have a rostrata that is small and I don't have a photo of it, and a noid which I think is yellow-orange gyro. I got a trade of Criswick which is still small and hasn't bloomed. That's enough! These photos are old ones. These are not blooming right now.

Anna,
those pictures are great. Please, keep talking heliconia, I love them as well.
I also have Criswick from Bihai, not blooming yet. And bunch of others that have not bloomed yet. I would love to trade with you for the pendent one (h. pedula and the last one), sometimes in the future.
Do you come to any plant swaps?
V.

Hi Veronika,

I love going to trades, but haven't been to one in over a year. My DH and I are very involved with my son's basketball team and it takes up our time on the weekends. It seems we're frequently traveling when the swaps come around. However, I can send rhizomes thru the mail. I've never harvested rhizomes, tho, and I'm not sure how to go about it. Maybe we can get a tutorial from Bihai.

Anna,
it is fairly easy. Same like all the other gingers. I usually wait until I see a sprout of a new stalk. Then I take a shovel and cut with it toward the main clump. The goal is to get the new forming stalk with a little of the root on it-rhizome (not just the stalk), if you know what I mean. But I have sprouted some just from the root part, and also just from the stalk, which did not have any roots on it.(Also if you dig up an old stalk, and cut it and just plant that, it will also sprout).
But lets wait until the spring.
How far are you from me? I would not mind to drive sometimes in spring, to see your garden and we can exchange then.
( I live in Boynton Beach, Florida). South of Palm Beach.
Veronika

Veronika,

Spring is good for the rhizome cuttings. I am in Sarasota, an hour fifteen south of Tampa. Too far to make the trip just to visit my sparse garden. However, if you're ever up my way for any reason, let me know. I would love a visit. Same with your lovely garden that I would love to see. I don't make it down that way very often, but you never know what circumstances arrive.

Anna

Anna,
if I am ever in your area I would love to come visit (I have a sister in Clearwater, she usually comes to visit us, but I think a trip for us there will be due).
Anytime you are this way, let me know and stop by. That would be lovely.
Veronika