Most of this has already been said, so, to repeator reinforce! Any plant you have growing indoors that you want to move out into high altitude direct sun will need to be acclimated very slowly! To do it, move it out for an hour of the very earliest morning sun and an hour (at the most) of the very latest afternoon sun for the first couple days, and then keep gradually increasing the time in the sun little by little each day until itÂs all day long. If you donÂt want to be moving them in and out over and over, use the "covering them with a white sheet" method during the rest of the dayÂthe first few days you might even want to cover them with a double sheet for the middle of the day, but be sure thereÂs still air circulation under it! If you can "tent" it somehow, that would be best. Some of the leaves on some of the plants may still sunburn during this process. If they do, theyÂll look whitish (usually), or tannish! If they burn theyÂll probably fall off and new leaves will regrow. Individual existing sunburned leaves will not "recover!" There are very few "shade" houseplants, so most of them can be grown in quite a bit of sun. Not sure about your palms, and IÂd acclimate them VERY slowly if you try themÂespecially the sago. If you go somewhere like PaulinoÂs (very good selection of indoor plants), most of the things they have, including most of the house plants that have been named here, will be for sun, and if you have any questions, just ask somebody working inside. I havenÂt seen anything people have suggested that I think wouldnÂt work. Remember, again, that youÂre going to need to find some way to "secure" them so they donÂt blow over, and a good quality potting soil/mix will help a lot with the watering, but youÂll still need to water them very frequently. (DonÂt use Hyponex brand potting soil!) As someone mentioned, a mulch on top of the soil will help some with evaporationÂbark mulch would work well too and probably look nicer and be less likely to blow away than straw. I definitely agree with light colored pots or covered with something light colored. A few more recommendations! Tropical Hibiscus would do well as indoor/outdoor flowering plants. They can be bought in bush or tree form and will bloom year around with enough direct sun in winter. Come in all the warm colors. is another, and also can be bought in bush or tree form. The picÂapparently from a growing facilityÂis the only one I could find of the tree form, but they can grow much larger than shown in that pic. With either the hibiscus or Abutilon, if you cut them back pretty severely after each bloom, it will keep them nice and full looking, and encourage even more blooms. Bougainvillea also do well in , and would need to be cut back severely after each bloom to "contain" themÂthey can get very carried away if not cut back! They do well on a trellis in the pot. If youÂre putting the plants on the floor rather than the bench, you could keep them from blowing away by putting twine around the bench and around the top of the plant or trellis at "bench heightÂwould work with other taller plants too." And somebody has already mentioned Brugmansia, which looks the same as . These look very much like the Brugmansia I used to have, which was VERY heavily evening scented, but the pics identify them as Datura, so presumably thatÂs what they are. With Datura and Brugmansia, you really canÂt tell the players without a program. Come in warm colors, and some of them are wonderfully scented. In some ways these are easier to grow than the others, water wise, because they can take (and need) a LOT of water, and much of the time you can actually leave water standing in the saucer without overwatering themÂthatÂs what I did with mine when I had it to make it easy! If you do go shopping at PaulinoÂs or somewhere else with a good selection of house plants, DONÂT get a gardenia! IÂm sure youÂd be tempted, but they donÂt do well here, in or out, because of our low humidity, and it will eventually die or look so bad youÂll want to put it out of its misery! Lots of things you can try, including things that look "tropical." They might not all work, but thatÂs what gardening is all about! Skybird P.S. Bruce, loved your comment about breaking the boyfriend in graduallyÂLOL!

I have my fingers crossed the websites help you. Someone posted a question to the Texas forum about what tall, narrow evergreens might survive the heat, but I don't think anyone ever figured out a plant small enough for the space described. I think the poster was yearning after the smallish junipers that go next to front doors in magazines... in cooler climates. If memory serves, ligustrum and cherry laurel can be made into topiary, too. Older cultivars of ligustrum can be invasive via seeds, so some people hate it. By the gulf coast, it gets mildewy. On clay in the Dallas area, it seems to be very hardy. It might get too big for your deck, even in pots, though. Ditto with cherry laurel. Your containers should be large enough, definitely. The Container gardening forum has people who know about drip irrigation in containers. Conventional watering in containers is supposed to be done until water runs out the bottom of the containers, and then you let the dirt dry out according to the needs of the plant. I'm not sure how that translates into drip irrigation watering. You can't forget the fertilizer though (like I just did -again-). Hopefully you got the following message directly to your email address, but I'm not sure I've figured how to do that correctly, so here is a resend: The board won't let me post again so soon. Thought of this after the first post. I should have included chinese garlic chives, sweet potatoes, native honeysuckle, iris, day lilies, cannas, rosemary, jujube, and sweet bay. Laurus nobilis, not California Bay. The Herb forum and the Container Gardening forum might be helpful, too. You -don't- want japanese honeysuckle. The yaupons, sweet bay, and rosemary could lend themselves to topiary, similar to your poor, lamented spiral junipers and the ball gardenias. In our area, don't gardenias need morning sun, afternoon shade or light shade all day? They are an acid soil loving plant, so I've never grown them. We have a south facing, full sun back yard, with poorly draining clay full of nutgrass and bermuda .grass. I've been gardening these last years in big yard buckets that hold about 20 gallons of potting soil. Just wait until the nutgrass is gone, then I may make some raised beds! The yard is fenced, so is not as windy as your deck. The containers successfully hold sweet bay, fig, rosemary, jujube, day lilies, chinese chives, yaupon, iris, and cannas in full sun throughout the year. A fig might get beat to smithereens in your location, might not. The containers successfully hold onions, french sorrel, violets, salad burnet, swiss chard, potatoes, sweet potatoes in full to mostly full sun throughout the year or throughout their growing season. I did haul the tubs of plants into the living room during the nasty cold snaps this past winter, otherwise I don't think I've ever done anything special about them during the winter. Hope this helps.

Well, thanks to you folks at the ETN Plant Swap, this side of my house has an official theme! It's going to be a Tropical Garden! The dimensions of the garden are 14' x 15'. It gets sun from 9am to 5pm nearest the deck, and 10am to 6pm at the east edge. I've graded the area to be as close to level and flat as possible. We just tilled 5 inches of decomposed leaves into this bed. Actually, the leaves were so deep we didn't bring up a lot of clay... so it's mostly just finely mulched leaves, sticks and coffee grounds and an occasional hunk of clay at present. I stomped all over it thoroughly to try to compress it, but it's still a little spongy when walked on. Is this an acceptable medium for planting these plants, or should I be adding something? Here's what I have to put in it: Varigated Hibiscus (need to dig up?) Versi-peach Brugmansia (need to dig up?) White Brugmansia (need to dig up?) Clerodendrum thomsoniae (Bleeding Heart Vine) Cestrum nocturnum (Night Blooming Jessamine) Cannas in many colors and foliage colors! Buddleja (butterfly bush) Hibiscus syriacus (Rose of Sharon) Crocosmia Touch-me-not Grasses Tomatoes Colocasia esculenta (Taro root) Angel-wing begonia (B. x superba) Tamarindus indica (Tamarind) seedling (may not live, but if it does it will be a tree) Dracaena fragrans (Corn plant) cutting (need to dig up) Ponytail palm Yucca Daylilies Irises Kniphofia (Red hot pokers) Gladiolus Calladiums (need to dig up?) Castor bean Red honeysuckle I'm also getting: Musa basjoo sapling (Hardy banana) Now my question is, design! I'm not sure of the best way to lay all this out. Do Bananas give much shade? How tall should I expect it to get? If it does provide shade, perhaps it would be good to place near the deck so the deck gets some shade in the hot part of the day? A friend suggested getting a yellow locust for next to the deck, and planting the banana elsewhere. I'm interested in your opinions on this. I'd like some privacy from the neighbors to the east. What to plant on that border that won't get too tall and block the sun for the other plants? I'm thinking 12 feet maximum. Are Buddlejas and Altheas good for this? I'd like a nice relaxing area in the middle of the bed, where I can do a little sunbathing without feeling like people can see me. I have lots of cobbles of all sizes, and quite a lot of marble pieces. Would either of these be useful here? Another thing that would be helpful to know in planting this is heights and space requirements. It's a long list so I'm going to start researching it, but it would be helpful if you know offhand what heights, widths, spacing, and other requirements or restrictions I should know about - I'm so new to tropicals!

Like dave said, moving from a winter exposure of around 1,000ftc or less for >4 hours a day in the winter to 7,000 + FTC at the height and (heat) of summer is just too much for some plants, even many cacti. I know figs do fine, but other plants, even those that love sun in nature like crotons, will burn and fall off, groing new leaves that are sun aclimated. Its always better safe than sorry. Our houseplants do wonderful outside, but let it dry out to much, a bad storm, a sunburn, and you can lose them easily. Put it in partial shade and watch water frequently, fertilize and your plants will grow FAST even in shade. Full sun sometimes makes plants grow faster, but the growth is spindly because they are actually losing energy by excessive heat root growth drought and breathing. The best growth is proper soil mix, fertilizer, temps (some plants actually grow slower in temps over 88ish F, right amount of wind and draft, and long long balanced light. I have always had the most sucess growing my china dolls in the shade, lately ive tried full sun, and they just dont do well. The winter is too dark, the spring too cold and wet, and by the time summer hits with vengance, they have some amount of root rot and fall apart/behind in the sun........