Hi, I live in Bothell. Have you been to Jungle Exotics Nursery near Tacoma? They have a ton of great plants. I use Bananas, Palms, Agapanthus, 'Hercules' Calla, Ginger, Gunnera, Australian Tree Ferns, Loquat, Tetrapanex papyrifer 'Steroidal Giant', brugmansias & Plumeria(overwintered).

Forgot: Colocasia, Pestasites, Amorphophallus, Cyperus papyrus, Leycesteria formosa, Begonia luxurians (overwinter), Fatsia, Passiflora-many varieties, etc.

thanks garden98011! I SO totally forgot all about them! I recall visiting them a few years ago and leaving with my jaw dragging on the ground --what an inspiration they are! I will make it a point this next week to go down and check them out again. I appreciate your tip!! Do you dig & store much of your stuff, or are you in a good microclimate? I lost my largest palm this past winter :-( and have not had good luck with many other things, but this year am hoping to develop a better overwintering space/small greenhouse. Hopefully that will help. what type of ginger do you find is most hardy for here? Does it ever get to blooming state for you?

Sorry about your Palm. Unfortunately, my Ginger has not ever bloomed, but I love the foliage nonetheless! I did a test this year with Brugs-left some out(we'll see) and took cuttings of them, have always overwintered them. My Palms still look okay, lost all my Cordylines. My 5' Cyathea cooperi that I planted the day before our last snow 4/19/2008 is toast-replanted with an inexpensive Cardiocrinum giganteum last week...argh!!!! ~Andrea

Ooooh, I should stay away from Jungle Exotics! I'm not sure I can resist temptation & I'm trying to avoid spending money on new plants this year. I've been to JE only once & it was like October, so the inventory was down and the temptation level was low.

I brought in some of my canna tubers this winter & left some out...we'll see where things stand before long. It really was a harsh winter for the garden.

I left a few brugmansias out that I didn't care about and I think they are all toast (I'm in SeaTac). Some of my phygelius really took a hit, but others look fairly decent.

Andrea, have we chatted about brugs at one of the Green Elephant swaps? I must admit my memory is not what I'd like it to be! There are a number of brug fanciers in the Puget Sound area.

Kangaroo Apple, Solanum laciniatum or S. aviculare, is a rather tropical looking plant that's related to brugs. It has small blue/purple star-shaped blooms reminiscent of potato or pepper blooms...also in the same plant family, nightshade. And the foliage bears a resemblance to marijuana - which it's not! The seed pods are rather egg-shaped, like small peppers.

~ Patrick

Hi there,

I've lost my two Butia palms and cordylines too; I thought they were hardy. I think I'm going to try a mule palm this year. The pink stem colocasia comes back 3 years in a row now (I just saw new shoots a few days ago). Steroid giant looks good too.

Where is Jungle exotics? I live in Auburn.

Thanks.

Hey, Patrick! good to hear from you. I need to get in touch with you and pick your brain on propagating Brugs. I can't afford to keep buying new ones each yr. Slip me an email & lets chat.

winsorw; after talking with the palm guy up the street, and taking my dead guy up there, he instantly deduced that it was fungal crown infection that got in when fungal spores set-up at the crown over winter, then when the weather warmed up the moisture at the 'frozen' crown expanded it, cracking the crown and allowing the fungal infection to enter. My bad. I knew I should have put fungicide on the crown, I just missed out in the timeing of it, by waiting too long. Expensive lessons learned.

winsorw: I saw your page, how can one contact you for a possible trade? I love tropicals too. Thanks

Take a look outside the Amazon spheres in downtown Seattle. It's almost like a small botanical garden outside. There are tree ferns (Dicksonia antarctica) and large-leaf Magnolia macrophylla.

Fig trees can be tropical-looking too, best varieties in this region include Desert King and Olympian. There are also hardy Russian pomegranate varieties. The fruit can be very ornamental hanging on the tree in late summer and fall.

Kahili ginger has tropical looking flowers and can survive outside in Seattle.

If you can find a source, Canna 'Peach Gigantum' has quite a tropical look. BIG rhizomes and long, lance-like leaves...blooms are up in the 10-12 ft. region! Blooms aren't very large...more along the lines of species cannas.