A lot of these are familiar to me since I garden with exotics in mind. Great pics! Thanks.

Barrie.(Vancouver Isl.)

Tropicallvr,
Beautiful plantings! What is the spiky purple plant in the second pic?

Thanks Leigh711!
I have no idea what it is, but they grow all over the local area like weeds. After they are done flowering you find little one popping up.

Kind of spooky looking. Is that a view to the sea down the bamboo aisle?

It's looking out to the bay, and it does kind of look spooky. It's overcast alot of the time, and that one was taken when it was raining. Semiarundinaria fastuosa 'viridis' on the left and arrow on the right. They both get swamped ever winter by salty bay water, and they are both doing fine.

The spiky purple plant in the second pic is a Echium species. All of the Echium species are from the Canary islands.

I believe the purple plant is a Gunnera.
Does he leave the tree ferns and Ensete ventricosum Maurellii bananas in the ground during the winter?

Here is a link that might be useful: Gunnera/several pictures

They are in 15 and 30 gallon pots, but it is in a really warm microclimate, and last winter hardly any leaves were frozen in a fully exposed location.
Your right the one plant is gunnera, but I think she was talking about the Echium plant.

Does the tree fern winter inside?

After looking 2 or 3 times I spotted the Echium. Too busy looking at the fern and had to scan over. Pictures too big for my laptop.
Very nice. We can't grow them here. Too humid.

The tree fern loses it's leaves some winters, but last winter no problems, very mild.

The tree fern looks like a Cyathea cooperi (AKA Australian Tree Fern in America). They are leaf hardy down to about -2C (28F). A better choice for this area is Dicksonia antarctica, which is leaf hardy to around -6C (21F). What is hard for me to believe is that sea water gets on them in winter and they don't mind. Tree ferns have pretty low tolerance for salt in my experience.

Thanks for the cool pics! PF

You're right it is C.cooperi, but I can't give you an anwser why it survives the bay water. Maybe it's the very fine sand that doesn't let alot of water get in, but some would have to. Maybe there's alot of fresh water in the bay at that time of year.
They grow oysters less than a mile away in the bay, and seaweed washes in through out the winter.