Do you dream of a seaside trip? I suppose you're imagining a palm tree. Fantasizing about life on a distant island? You’re most likely imagining a stroll amongst birds of paradise, cannas and bananas. Nothing evokes the sensation of the tropics greater than big crops with lush leaves, and for those who stay within the tropics or subtropics, you’ll be able to get pleasure from all of them yr spherical.
The remainder of us have to purchase them yearly and deal with them as annuals or, if we're maintaining monitor, save them from yr to yr. After studying this, you'll fall into the latter camp, saving cash and making future summers at house really feel like an unique getaway.
Elephant ears cannas and caladiums
If you happen to bought potted elephant ears (Colocasia), cannas, or caladiums, deliver the pots inside as a substitute of tossing them on the sidewalk. Place them close to a sunny window, water them steadily, and fertilize them sometimes with common houseplant fertilizer diluted to half energy.
If they’re too massive for the home or have been planted within the backyard, depart them outside till the primary frost causes their foliage to show brown, then minimize the crops to six inches tall and dig up.
Rinse and separate your “bulb” roots and allow them to air dry utterly, then place them in peat moss in a field wherein you’ve gotten made some holes for air flow. Milk crates work nicely for storing massive portions. Place the field or drawer in a cool, darkish place, equivalent to a basement or basement.
Examine them about as soon as a month and spray them with water in the event that they begin to wrinkle, and discard any that begin to rot. Plant outside and fertilize when the soil has warmed in spring (about whenever you would plant tomatoes), or give them a head begin by planting them indoors in potting combine a month early and inserting them subsequent to the sunniest window or beneath develop lights. , maintaining the soil barely moist.
Angel trumpets and hibiscuses in pots
Potted hibiscuses and angel trumpets (Brugmansia) must also be introduced indoors earlier than the primary frost and handled as houseplants subsequent to the sunniest window through the winter. The crops could drop leaves and even seem sickly, however they need to get better once they return outdoors in spring.
If you happen to don't have room for crops in your residing area, you’ll be able to induce dormancy by storing pots at 40-45°F, checking them twice a month, and watering very flippantly when the soil feels dry inside attain.
Place the crops in a hotter, sunnier location, prune flippantly and fertilize a couple of month earlier than hazard of frost has handed, then transfer them again outside.
banana crops
Potted banana crops must be reduce to floor stage when the primary frost browns their foliage. Retailer containers in a darkish place at roughly 40-45°F. Examine the soil month-to-month, watering very flippantly solely when it’s utterly dry. Development will resume in spring, however maintain crops indoors till hazard of frost has handed. Fertilize and resume common watering.
Don’t minimize buried bananas within the fall. Merely dig them up, retailer their roots in a plastic rubbish bag, and retailer them as you’ll their potted counterparts. Minimize them again to six inches in spring and plant them within the backyard after hazard of frost has handed.
Then, put the cash you’ll in any other case spend on new crops towards a water characteristic, a fireplace pit, or elements for tropical drinks. In any case, it's all the time 5 o'clock someplace, and beginning this yr, someplace might be your yard tropical oasis.
___
Jessica Damiano writes weekly gardening columns for AP and publishes the award-winning Weekly Dust Publication. You may join right here to obtain weekly gardening suggestions and recommendation.
___
For extra AP gardening tales, go to https://apnews.com/hub/gardening.
Jessica Damian, Related Press