Wet Garden

A nice view of the very wet backyard, complete with alocasia to the right, peace lily, gingers, monstera, bottlebrush and liriope in the back, and agapanthus, eucomis and fishtail pam to the left. All of that grass is partially submerged by water and starting to get replaced by moss, so its safe to say that all of these plants can handle soggy soil. It's so wet out there that we can see fish swimming amongst the tadpoles and frogs. Maybe the wading birds will catch on soon and find an easy supper!

This is a swampier part of the yard, and some plants can't take it very well. Thought the agapanthus clump to the left is thriving, I also built up a berm before planting them so the roots could breathe. In the middle of this shot you can see a "Cat palm" (Chamaedorea Cataractum) in it's element, since it naturally grows in swamps in its native environment. To the left of the palms is a clump of billbergia bromeliads growing epiphitically in a sweet bay magnolia.



One of the best plants for a moist garden, Alocasia "California" forms huge clumps of upright glossy leaves and is relatively hardy, coming back just days after a frost. Treefrogs like to lay eggs in the leaf axils, leaving a litter of froggies to blend in perfectly with the shiny apple green leaves.








Part of the garden featuring a tree fern, weeping bottlebrush, golden dewdrop "aurea", banana sp., paurotis palm, Passionflower "incense", fishtail palm and false cardamon ginger. The tree fern, bananas and paurotis palms will eventually form a secondary canopy under the weeping bottlebrush giving shade and frost protection to the understory of gingers that I will plant later on.