Gosh, I can't believe you have to dig all those beautiful plants. So sad. Don't you just HATE the cold? The weather here in L.A has been simply AWFUL for the past two weeks, dreary, gloomy, in the high 60s. We've been under a deep bank of fog and I think I'm not the only one who's complaining, it is so depressing!
I hope this winter is a short one. I cant wait till March! Good luck with your babies!

Thanks! Its sad that most of the tropicals have to be dug up, but at least the palms stay in the ground. That gives me a small taste of the tropics in the winter when they arent covered up from the cold.
The weather here has been cold, cloudy, and wet every morning with dew on everything, and then its sunny and mild in the afternoon. It will be just plain cloudy and cold all day long according to the 10 day forecast. They were predicting a cold November for the Mid Atlantic and they are definitely right, it already looks cold!
I cant wait until March also. March is still too cool here to take out all the tropicals, but at least its usually warm enough to start dragging out about 1/4 of the potted plants by the end of the month. Probably wont see another really warm day here until sometime in April so about 4 months to go!
-Alex

Yard is looking great, too bad its that time of year. Your pindo looks healthy hate to see you sacrifice it cause its slow!

VERY nice!!!!!...We covered my greenhouse on Sunday and I told my hubby now we can start counting days until we TAKE IT OFF!!...lol.

Beautiful yard!!

I agree, nice pics, nice yard, nice plants! Do you have any idea what type of elephant ear that is? It looks huge! A Jack's Giant maybe?

Thanks Chadec! I agree, I wish my yard looked like this in July and not in the last week of October. Its going to be sad to let my pindo palm go, but I have so many more things to protect this winter and I have to focus on the plants that are doing well. But I might still give it some protection so it at least has a fighting chance.

Thanks Knotz! Im already counting the days until my plants go back outside and they didnt even go inside yet! I cant wait until spring. The first snow is always exciting, but I'd rather have 70s all winter long!

Thanks IslandBreeze. I bought the elephant ears at a store as bulbs and I thnk you might be right, it definitely could be a Jack's Giant since I have never had an elephant ear grow to that size and I didnt do anything special to get this one to grow so big. Im excited to see how big the bulb is on this ee, Id imagine its pretty huge! Hopefully it overwinters well indoors (I'm pretty bad at overwintering most bulbs, but I usually have luck with Elephant ears).

Thanks for looking everyone!
-Alex

Looks great alex.

I think you should give the pindo some protection you never know if it might take off next year.

Alex

Don't give up on Butias,mine has taken 3 years to
get established,it has done very well this year,finally.
I think it was grown out of full sun and had to reestablish
it's normal growth pattern in addition to adjusting to life
in the ground the fist few years.
This Eriospatha has been one of the toughest palms I have...
not sure what the coldest it has seen is but at least 20F
many winter nights.

Why do you think your D.Antarctica dried out???
My best 2 guesses would be it dried out once or is in to much sun???
T.ferns are not very tolerant of soil drying out,one time and they can defoliate...
not the best plant for a busy gardener/person etc.

Thanks Dennis! I hope your plants are doing well also. Did you take any indoors yet?

Thanks Jim! I think I might give my pindo palm one more shot, it all depends on how much material I have left to protect it with! And Im pretty sure the dicksonia was damaged because it got too dry one day. It was only one day, but tree ferns arent very forgiving. It is in full shade and so far its doing well again!

Terrible forecast. Winter is really here. Days in the 50s and even 2 nights in the 30s. I have to start taking the plants inside and I protected some tropicals tonight so they wouldnt have cold rain on them (and hopefully they will be nice and warm during the daytime. Im trying to keep these plants growing for as long as possible, but I think time is running out.
And Rain/Snow showers are in the forecast this Saturday! Not looking forward to it. Even if its too warm for snow this close to the coast, it will defintiely be a very cold rain.
-Alex

Looking good,Alex. My plumerias are going a little dormant,too. Everything is inside my room so I barely have enough room to play guitar! I wish cats didnt eat plants. I could have decorated the house if I knew the cat wouldnt eat them! Alex, what is the lowest temperature you have had recently? I think a few nights ago it went down to 33 degrees here. It was 75 in Virginia a few days ago. My grandparents went motorcycle riding! Ahh, zone 7. I love that zone! Here it is 41 degrees with a high of 48 and a low of 32. Way too cold!!
When I was looking at houses in KY with my family, I saw quite a few banana trees and even some bamboo! It really got me pumped up! My windmill palm is in a decline. The spear wont pull so maybe theres hope.
Hows your velutina doing?
Your plants are looking great. I would say keep up the good work but I dont know if it would be weird for a kid to say that to an adult,lol!
-Hunter

Hi Hunter! I have a weather station in a cold spot in yard and the coldest temperature it has recorded so far is 42F. Other nearby weather stations recorded 44F so I guess my yard is a little bit cooler (I wish it wasnt true!).
I had to take in a lot of plants today because the forecast is really cold. Saturday is suppose to get to 33F so it looks like this year we will get our first frost a month earlier than the time we got our first frost last year. Hopefully we get the cold over with in early winter and things warm up for late winter and spring!
My Plumeria was a big challenge to take inside today, it stands at over 10 feet tall right now! I remember 3 years ago when I got it as a 1 foot tall stick.
Banana trees and bamboo is a good sign of a nice climate! My Velutina is doing good. The bananas never really did ripen enough to eat, but I guess the seeds are somewhere on the ground. The pup outgrew the mother plant this year and It has some more pups on its way! I'll probably dig it up this year since its still small, but I'll keep it in the ground next winter.
Thanks for looking! Im glad you liked the pics!
-Alex

I dug up most of my plants and they are now inside safe from the storm, but I still have my pool plants (covered) outside and a few others outside. My mandevillea was beautiful still since it had so many flowers on it, but Im not sure what will be left of it after this weekend (I covered it though).

Anyone else have their plants inside now, and how much snow are you all getting? So far no snow here yet, hopefully the mild ocean temperatures can keep the snow away for a few more hours. The problem with noreasters is that it almost always gets colder as the day goes on and this storm will be no exception.
-Alex