June is here, bring on the sun and fun!
June is the time to get ready for all the summer parties or get-togethers with our family and friends.
I love creating a little oasis on my patio at home, a place where I can sit back and relax with those that I love.
This year I decided to design my own tropical paradise. My trip to Florida this spring had a lot to do with that decision. While visiting all the farms to pick out some cool plants to sell this summer I simply fell in love even more with all the colors and textures that the variety of tropical plants have to offer to our homes.
When our tropical order comes in early spring it brings our tropical paradise to life. Imagine seeing farms full of that kind of color. Truly an amazing sight to see!
Everyone has their own idea of what a tropical paradise looks like. I personally like to use lots of colors so mine consists of lots of hibiscus and Mandevilla. Oh, and I can’t forget the gardenias! The smell from this plant totally relaxes me, so that one particular plant goes right next to my porch swing.
Now if I was lucky enough to have a pool, I would still have all the colors with hibiscus but I would also have to add in a few robellini palms. This is my favorite palm; it just loves the sun and heat so this makes the perfect pool or patio plant.


There are so many tropical plants to pick from to create your own special family tropical oasis. Here’s a list of our favorites

  • Yoder hibiscus
  • Mandevilla
  • Gardenias
  • Lantana
  • Plumbago
  • Canna lilies
  • Oleander
  • jasmine
  • Robellini palms
  • Spindle palms
  • Majesty palms
  • Areca palms
  • Bromeliads
  • Boston ferns
  • Elephant ear alocasia
  • Bird of paradise
Can you overwinter your tropicals? The answer is yes!! If you think about it, what do you have to lose?
Here are a few of my Favorites.
Hibiscus, palms, mandevillas, bougainvillea, elephant ears, and canna lilies. To get started let’s break them down into two different categories. The tree category will be your hibiscus, palms, mandevillas, and bougainvilleas. And your bulb or tuber category, those will be the elephant ears and the canna lilies.
Let’s begin with the tree category since that’s the one I get asked about the most. When the nighttime temperatures are consistently in the mid to lower 40’s it’s time to get them ready to overwinter.
*First hose down the entire plant. *Next spray the plant with insecticidal soap and then add a systemic to the soil. This will help with any bug issues you may have going on with your plants. Now it’s time to choose what method of over-wintering is right for you. There are two different but equally effective ways.
* First is the dormant method. With this choice, you will place your tropical plant in a frost-

sum sale

free garage, basement, or attic. You will water sparingly every 3 to 5 weeks. This is enough to keep the plant’s roots from drying out. It’s surviving but not thriving. That’s just what dormancy means. This method will also have the plant losing most if not all of its leaves so it takes a little more time to get it going again in the spring.
*The second way is the active growing method. This is my favorite way to over-winter. By using this method, I believe it gives your plant the best chance for a faster start in the spring by allowing the plant to retain most of, if not all of its leaves, so if you have a nice sunny spot in your home this will be the ideal place. Just water and lots of suns are what is needed to keep your plant happy. You might need to water a little more than normal during Jan and Feb, as these are the months when the heat in our homes really starts making the air much drier. So remember when your skin starts getting drier it’s time to up the water for all your plants.
* Now for the tuber category.
This one is pretty simple. For your elephant ears and canna lilies, all you have to do is carefully dig them up without causing damage to the bulbs themselves. Lay all the bulbs out on some newspaper and let dry for a few days. This gets all the moisture out of the bulbs to ensure they won’t rot during storage. Then all you do is place them in a brown paper bag with either peat moss or sawdust and then store them in a cool dark spot for the winter.
With all these overwintering ideas, you may put your tropicals back outside for the year once the treatment of cold weather has passed in the spring. We encourage you to give us a call, we will be happy to walk you through it all.

With Father’s Day just around the corner, do you think it’s finally possible that mother nature will turn the heat up and let the sunshine? I think we are all ready for summer to arrive.

I absolutely love being the annual greenhouse manager. Every day I come to work and get to enjoy all the summer color annuals provide throughout the summer and well into the fall season.

Early spring, we have show stoppers like nemesia, osteospermum daisies, petunias, snow princess allysum, and of course the number one favorite PANSIES!!

But, once the summer heat arrives so do the full-on summer colors.

For the best of all summer color, you can choose from a wide array of thriller plants such as:

Next, choose a great filler plant:

And last we need a great creeping/spiller plant.

Whether the annual color is in your garden or in pots on your patio any combination of the plants mentioned above will have you saying, IT’S FIVE O’CLOCK SOMEWHERE. “ L.O.L “

June is right around the corner, there’s no time like the present to turn your home into a tropical oasis of your very own.

As the weather starts warming up there’s nothing like sitting in your own backyard surrounded by tropical plants making memories to last a lifetime with your family.

I always seem to talk so much about all our tropical flowers, let me spend some time talking about all the tropical palms that will really give you that lush tropical feeling like you get when you are on vacation.

Our favorite Palms for your porch or patio are:

So as you can see palms are very different and all do not like sunny conditions as one often associates with palms. So no matter what your lighting conditions are there is a palm for you to help you create your own backyard oasis.