Favorite Tropicals

Well, I was going to give you my favorite tropical plants yesterday but Kathy and I decided to clean out the planting beds in the front yard instead. You have to understand that although we live on a small city lot out front yard is about 90% flower beds because I hate grass! Needless to say it was an all day job that filled both of our dumpsters and 13 trash bags besides. Glad that is over. Now Kathy is just after me to put the tropicals out on the front porch. She saw on the news this morning that there was going to be a night when it got down to 32 degrees so maybe she'll let me hold off for a couple more weeks anyway. This is the tussle we have every year. By March 1st she is tired of having potted plants everywhere and I'm worried that they will freeze if we put them out and want to wait till the middle of April. We usually compromise and put the out the end of March and I spent a few hours covering them up and moving them close to the house a few nights. This year shouldn't be so bad since I got rid of about 25 potted plants so we only have about 20 lest. That won't last long though. We tend to find quite a few that we both agree we just have to have every year.

Most of the plants I really like are large, colorful , interesting shapes or foliage shapes or spined, or all of the above! Ok, so my favorites.

The first one has to be the split-leaf philodendron (Monstera deliciosa) also called the breadfruit vine, because that is what it is. Breadfruit is a culinary staple of the Polynesians and it flowers and fruits fairly readily. Most of the time I don't want fruit because it pulls a lot of strength from the plant and you don't get the lush vegetative growth. This is one that makes you feel like you are in the tropics!

My next one has to be the Philodendron 'Black Cardinal'. I love this thing. The picture doesn't really do it justice and you need some room for it (and for most of the plants I like) but it is well worth it. The foliage is so dark and full, the leaves can be up to 2 or 3 feet long. It has very few pests and really sets the stage for smaller lighter-colored plants in front.

Burgundy rubber plant (Ficus elastica 'Burgundy') is another favorite. The dark reddish foliage and the wide thick leaves and wonderful and it can either be trained to be a shrub or limbed up as a tree (not a style I particularly like for rubber plants but some folks swear by it).

Another of my favorites are the Calathea species. The leaves has dark red or maroon backs and green fronts with bars or spots. Many different sizes, color combinations, beautiful plants.

I also absolutely love the fiddle-leaf fig (Ficus lyrata). This is a huge plant and needs room to spread out. Actually, if you have a sunroom, Florida room, etc, somewhere it can stay year round and not have to be moved, this will grow into a large tree. The largest I've seen was about 25 feet tall and 15 wide, but I've heard of trees 35 to 40 feet tall. Wonderful.

The Madagascar palm (Pachypodium lamerei) , which isn't a palm or from Madagascar, is another great plant but not for homes with children or where you can't put it to the side somewhere. Kathy was walking around our big Madagascar (about 7 feet pot and all) last summer when it was out and slipped in some mud. Out of reflex she grabbed for the palm but let go in a hurry. Her hand was sore and throbbing until she got each of the tiny spine ends out of her skin. A beautiful plant but somewhat dangerous.

Well, this is later than I was planning on working on this. The problem is I have too many favorites that it is hard to narrow it down. I'll do some more on this tomorrow.