So what does he do with these tropical type plants in winter? They are not exactly petite!!

And that hardly seems like growth from full dormancy in only a portion of the growing season. Does he have a greenhouse?

Good point 'gg'. He digs them up after the first frost and brings them into a climate controlled green house with the temperature is, as I recall, between 50 and 55 degrees F.

He has some very large Brugmansia as well, planted in the ground. I didn't get any good pictures to show how large they actually are.

The property is probably 3/4 of an acre and he is finding it very difficult to keep up as he and his wife recently turned.....80!

I noticed the brugmansia - it's kinda hard to miss :-)) Surely that is not left in place year round? It doesn't even overwinter outdoors in my climate.

Nope, he digs them up and moves them into the greenhouse.

What an awesome garden!! So inspiring!! We all know the issues that come with age…..😝

Perhaps a local garden club or horticultural and botany students would be willing to help…. It would be a great learning experience!!

debra

I showed my daughter your pic of Pharoah's Mask and the dragon wing begonia, Rouge. She has just moved into a new house with a really promising garden so your photo has inspired her to grow some evergreens, aroids and such for what will be a small tropicalesque courtyard (her garden is terraced on several levels). She has just started off with a fatsia, a mahonia ('Soft Caress or similar) and the first of many begonias. Not hostas though (cos snails).

Perhaps a local garden club or horticultural and botany students would be willing to help…. It would be a great learning experience!!

Great ideas @djacob Z6a SE WI

Excellent @rosaprimula UK (Cambridge) Z8/9! I really like that veining in the leaves of "Pharoah;s Mask".

(Although I have yet to successfully overwinter a colocasia I am going to give it a try...*again* for PMask.)

Um, it isn't to my taste at all, despite having cycled through some weird garden crazes. I don't like to wander too far from some sort of genius loci, these days, even though all our gardens are 100% artifice. I am having a bit of a rethink about growing alpines in the flattest and lowest part of the entire UK.

Plus all that digging up and storing is a lot of effort.

Plus all that digging up and storing is a lot of effort.

And compounded by the fact that he and his wife are 80 years old young.

(The backyard was mostly a huge vegetable garden...I have *never* seen more potato plants on a residential property and they were all covered in potato bugs...yuck!)

From the same garden:

(Hard for you to judge but that grass was 9 feet tall and likely 6 feet across at the top)

And this very large, quite tall, variegated clump was so eye catching