nicely done.

Wow-good show. That's some very remarkable growth-you must have been out there fertilizing like a fertilizing fool! What variety of castor plants is that? I've never seen a castor plant put on that much growth in a single season. Again, congratulations, very impressive.

Nice jungle you have. Good camoflauge for the house. Really though, nice job.

Pretty neat! Why don't you try getting the red castor bean. That would really break up all the great and make it look even more impressive. Good job in taking photos throughout the year.

Hi all. Hi Daryl. I went out to JurassicDaryl's house. He gave me 9 huge DC. They were and are beautiful. I was so amazed by the castor beans(he gave me some seeds)Beautiful specimens. We need to start doing garden tours! Especially in Z6 and anywhere else you have to overwinter. Daryl's plants gave me so much confidence that i can and will grow my bananas!

Very impressive!! Many years ago, I drooled over 25'+ castor beans in a friends garden. He shared seeds and next season I had similar results, 20+ footers! It is amazing how big they can get! I certainly don't mean to poo-poo your grand results, but there is one caveat, you now have 10 or more trees to remove next season! I'll never forget the struggle come spring removing mine, I vowed never again!

I love your edging and the jungle that you get as the season progresses. I see banana, some kind of vine, elephant ears, and of course castor beans. What else have you got hidden in there?

I tried red shield hibiscus this year. It's a great plant. Grown mostly for foliage, not flowers. Looks a bit like a tall skinny tropical Japanese maple, with awesome red foliage. Got about 7 feet tall from seed, without a lot of babying.

Hey Huey, not sure on my variety of castor bean. I bought the original seeds from Gurney's seed catalog back in 2000. If your ever in the area stop by and you can have some. I have thousands from 2007 alone...I have a fertilizer recipe I copied off of Boca Joe but never used it on the castors. I put some slow release - Lesco 10-10-10, around them in May and that was it. Only watered a few times after June even with the drought. If it weren't for "biblical proportions" swarms of japanese beetles & some more rain, I believe they would have easily been a few feet taller. Still ended up being my best. I would love to see what these seeds would do down south!

Hey ohgirl, Hope all is well & good luck with those nanners. Oh, I had to change my name...Garden Web apparently thought I was a spammer lol...Oh well, Merry Xmas

Watergal, Thx. I have cavendish, musa basjoo, unknown red banana, windmill palm, trunked yucca, borneo giant & some other EE's, hostas, horsetail, zebra grass, moonflower, hardy hibiscus, valenca orange and a variety of hummingbird flowers to name a few...
Gaalan, Your right they take some work to get them out of the ground...Luckily I have some great loose soil...I cut them down about 3 or 4 feet from the ground in the fall. Drag them out with a tractor to my back yard where they sit & dry out over the winter and then I burn them the following spring...The roots/stumps come out in the spring. Often by prying the 3' stumps back and forth...ugh. Sometimes an axe. Always some cussing...This year I may need some C4 explosives...I weigh 170 and I could climb up the castor beans this year...Btw I have about 30 "trees" to contend with...

Whoa Daryl, 30?! Thank goodness you have some mechanical help!! I didn't back when I had mine so it was a nightmare. I recently extracted some red leaf castor beans at work and discovered they even have some pigment in their roots. They were a pinkish color. I had no idea. They were certainly easier to remove than their green leaf counterparts! Even with all the work of removal it is still hard not to marvel at the proportions these plants can reach!

Just to be clear, I pull them out & sometimes my back out... the olde fashion way - by hand, axe, spud bar...The tractor is merely for dragging the cut trees out to my back yard(we have a big yard). I may try that though.