Your indoor arboretums?
 

Seems like a lot of us bring A LOT of plants indoors for the winter. Thought it'd be cool to see some photos. As I said elsewhere, I can use it as evidence to my wife we're not the only people giving up half our house to plants.

Too early for this year yet... but here's last year in the garage. And I'm better prepared this year with better insulation and tarps to protect my walls. This year I'll have significantly more bananas in the garage since it's so tall. Most everything else that's not super sensitive is going into the new GH's this year. I'm waiting to see what's taller, my Traveler's Palm or the biggest Banana. It's gonna be close.







The things we do for our plants :ha:

Re: Your indoor arboretums?
 

plus many many more just in the den.

Re: Your indoor arboretums?
 

If there is floor space left, there's still room for plants! Right? LOL

Re: Your indoor arboretums?
 

This is last year's pic of my living room:



And the kitchen window:



Sam- I better get moving. You are so far ahead of me.

Re: Your indoor arboretums?
 

Stand by I'm still having to cut holes in my roof to fit them all in...:ha::ha::ha:

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I can tell where John spends his time during the winter... :ha:

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:santananer: Fighting insects and convincing my neighbors I'm really not growing THAT other plant.

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If you put lights on 'em for Christmas, don't forget to take pics. :ha::ha:

Re: Your indoor arboretums?
 

is it that cold overthere? I put them inside when it starts freezing.
it gets not warmer then 12 degrees the last day and tomorrow a storm. after that better weather:D

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ha ha!! i live on a corner lot and the law rides by all the time. last winter i had my grow lights on and the law stopped at the corner and sat there for a long time. it was like 1130 pm, i was out in the yard smoking a ciggarette saw him just looking at the side where the light shines through. i was waiting for him to pull into my driveway with a 9 mil pointed at my head.

Re: Your indoor arboretums?
 

LOL, yeah I bet they had an eye on your place for a while. I can see them busting in to find nothing more than White BOP's, Gingers, Heliconia, and of course Bananas. haha

First year we moved in, my neighbors across the street could see into my plant room at the time - where I had just regular cheap grow lights. Once we got to know them better the next Spring, their daughter confessed to thinking we were growing "stuff." LOL - now that I've expanded I have this glow coming from the corners of my garage all night (I turn the metal halides on from 6pm - 8am for heat). It looks like I turned on the sun in my garage. But I guess since most folks see my yard literally disappear the night before the first frost - they put two and two together.

I just hope I can fit everything in this year - especially since I'm bringing in a lot of the nanners now. Darn Christmas Palms take up too much room.

Re: Your indoor arboretums?
 

When I had 3 reef tanks going in NY, all with metal halides and 420 actinic blues, the local gendarmes did indeed come by and knock on my door. They were impressed with the corals and fish, and one of them and I ended up setting up his own tank!

Re: Your indoor arboretums?
 

lol! yes i was going to introduce them to oscar(oronico) brutus(saba) musella( chinese lotus banana) and of course bubba(chow-sheppard mix) rocky( german sheppard) and sgt( husky mix) and see what they would say about "them" nanas!

Re: Your indoor arboretums?
 

I brought very few of my cannas in as house plants but will be overwintering about 97% of them in the basement. My basjoo will be staying in the ground.

Anyways, I already noticed 6 insects coming out from the soil medium. What spray can I use to kill them without hurting the plants?

Thanks!

Re: Your indoor arboretums?
 

OK here is my office from last year. I will add new pics once it gets cold enough. My large naners and plumeria all get stored under the house.:bed:

Re: Your indoor arboretums?
 

Mskitty, I have the same trouble,I just set up a halide system with a light mover on my FRONT porch. It's on from 5 am to 7 pm and the local law drives by all the time , being that I know a lot of them I'm sure they think somethings up and no doubt I'll find someone peering through the glass at some ungodly hour(just what I need when I get up at 5 am). The mailman already started leaving my packages(still collecting new pups) on the front stoop when they've always left them by my main drive entrance! :hiddenbanana::hiddenbanana:

Re: Your indoor arboretums?
 

John,

Your first pic is what my garage looked like a few weeks back when I moved all my potted plants in before Ike came through!

Re: Your indoor arboretums?
 

I can't even imagine having a Hurricane - scary thought. I am glad we didn't have to worry about any storms again this year; but I'm worried our luck is running out before we have another Hugo.

Moving all this stuff is a royal pain too. The late frost this April prompted me to move stuff one extra time already, so I felt fortunate not to have any storm. Next spring I'm just going to leave it all in the garage until I know for sure the cold weather is past. It's tough though, those 70F days in March are tempting - but they got me this year.

Re: Your indoor arboretums?
 

as a rule i never plant to many tender plants outside till the first week of may. and if i do plant them out before then i make sure i have a big bucket just in case they need to be covered quickly.

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Yeah April 15th is the last day of frost threat here, and it's very unusual to have cold weather than time of year here. Just a freak cold front this year. It looks like this winter will be quite mild if NOAA's climate center is right with their extended outlook forecast.

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I built a sunroom addition on back of house late 04. It's really considered a enclosed porch because it has no heat or AC. I will attempt to post a pic here...the windows you see are facing east (yes, that's snow - taken early 07). There is 13 ft of window facing south (to right) & very large table there loaded w/ plants & 2 skylights above them. If I want heat in winter, I open the Fr doors to get house heat in from kitchen. Room is 16X18 - well insulated, & will be loaded with plants soon. There wil only be a walk space to back door.
Those are 2 IC nannas taken early 07. One is only smaller because it was in a smaller pot. They were planted inground these last 2 summers and stems (without leaves) are 6 - 7ft tall now. I built this JUST for my plants in winter.


Here shows south facing window, taken 2 winters ago. The plants are MUCH bigger now.



Showing Fr doors to kitchen

Re: Your indoor arboretums?
 

That'd be cool to see the plants from inside the house. I wish I could actually put mine around the house, just don't get enough light unfortunately.

Re: Your indoor arboretums?
 

With a possible freeze forecast for tonight, today I put aside my procrastination and burlap wrapped my large palms. I dug up my Siam Ruby and a pup of the Cavendish. It had no roots, so I dipped it in rooting hormone before planting in a pot of perlite and potting soil. I dug up most of my EE's and potted them. Then I started bringing pots inside. The EE's are in the basement for now as I was unable to get any more plastic runners to put over the carpets/floor. All my tropical hibiscus are inside now, as are all but one bougainvillea. I brought in my large Plumeria, and snapped a branch accidentally. I'll wait a few days and then put it in a pot. The only other potted plants still outside are my mandevillas, which are entangled in a metal planter. If they survive the night, they'll come in tomorrow. My back is killing me and my living room is jammed. Ain't this fun?

Re: Your indoor arboretums?
 

We decided with the threat of frost last night to move everything in as well. It was very borderline temp-wise (35F) this morning, but the bananas I left in the ground look OK. I did have some ice on the car, but plants looked fine. So now I wish I'd waited - oh well. At least now that saves me a lot of work one late afternoon and better safe than sorry. I'd be devastated if I lost some of my larger BOPs, and T-Palms.

It's naturally going to rebound back up into the 70's again the next few days, so I'm gonna leave the bananas in the ground until the absolute last day before a guaranteed frost - prob around the first week in November.

As usual the garage looks very tropical - will post some new photos. Everything is SO much bigger than last year, didn't know it until it was all back in. My insulation did the trick this year. 35F outside and it was 70F in the garage, so no heat needed this year. The two GH's also did good with their radiator inside - set to come on at 42F and to keep it above 38F. Right now I'm happy with the setup, but I'll see how I feel once the first power bill arrives.

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This year so far is funnier than last - everything is so much larger, and the big bananas aren't even in yet. Another threat of frost tonight so I covered them with frost blankets. It's going to get too warm later this week to dig them up yet.

Right Side


Left Side - including a BOP with 7 blooms (prob will bloom in Dec again)


Up High


Almost too big for the garage - no clue what I'll do then (prob next year with the T-Palm). Bananas will go in front of these.


And the two portable GH's - where the DC's will go

Re: Your indoor arboretums?
 

OK so I finally brought my camera into work, here is what I have growing this winter.

Re: Your indoor arboretums?
 

Nice, my co-workers kid me about all the plants in my office with my one window. But if I had all THOSE windows you have - LOL, oh I'd really be moving stuff in.

Re: Your indoor arboretums?
 

Nice banana infromation there. This kind of information is going to help us a lot and the plants here are nicely grown and are going to give good results for sure. So keep going on and keep sharing.