Orange trees do fine in full sun. I've had some for 12-14 years that have had full sun every summer and never had any problems. I have a Brugmansia that I keep in full sun too. Some of my other cycads get full sun as well, but the sago never seemed to like that. Of course, they're rather slow growing so it would take a while to get a nice tall one.

Honestly, I don't think I've had any problems because of the altitude. If I've got something that burns in the sun, I always find out that it needs more shade. I've never found something that is a full sun type of plant that then didn't do good for me in full sun.

I have 3 very large house plants that I have been moving from indoors to outdoors each summer for many years. One is a ficus tree, another is a rubber tree, another is combined an umbrella plant (I think called shefelara or something like that) which is potted with several things that kind of look like a chimney brush. Sorry I've forgotten the real names of these things. All three have been brushing the ceiling in my house for many years. I cut them down, and prune them so I can get them back in through the patio door each fall.

When I set them out around the last week of May, I either put them under a tree which has already leafed out, or cover them with a white sheet for a week or two. Even so, they sometimes get a sun burned, and some leaves die or sunburned portions of the leaf die. Degree of the sunburn and how long it takes for them to look good again depends on how diligent I've been about trying to protect them that first week or two. Regardless, they've put on new leaves, and they're usually looking pretty good again by the end of June.

They give my deck a little bit of a tropical feel. These plants are really much too big for my house, and don't get good sun in the winter, so they would probably die or go sprangly if I didn't put them out each summer. Sometimes I get tired of dragging them in and out each year, but I've had them about 25 years, and once you've been caring for something that long you can't just put it out with the garbage.

Last fall a month or so after I'd brought the ficus tree back in, I got a startling surprise. All of a sudden, I noticed there were little..... THINGS all over the tree. Little green balls, about the size of a small marble. They looked a bit like those little balls that fall off a russian olive tree only greener. I was amazed. After 25 years..... FIGS! I don't think they were edible or anything, but they were definitely tiny little fruit. I snapped some pictures, I'll post them if I can find them.

Your BF sounds like quite a stick in the mud. I don't think you should be paying too much heed to his plant advice. It's difficult for me to imagine that most any kind of palm couldn't handle full sun at high altitude if you broke it in to it gently. I'm no house plant expert, but I'd certainly give it a try if I were you. Especially if it's not a plant you're, like, personally attached to, and will not have a heartache if it dies. Just break it in to the full sun slowly. Maybe break in your BF in the same way.

Good luck,
Bruce

One thing about balconies, the overhang makes it even hotter there, so BF is sorta right in that harder to deal with, not impossible. And you should shade your pots, but this place is not plant h*ll.

Dan

Try real figs, certain cacti, aloes, other succulents (Euphorbia trigona, for example), sanseveria, etc.

How tall do you want them to be?

Would you consider summer annuals/vegetables/herbs that wouldn't need to come in during the winter because they'd be done?

Thank you for all the suggestions! By "you should shade your plants" do you mean all the time, or as they are brought out for a bit as Bruce described? Because there is no shade on the balcony at all, and no room for a large umbrella.

I have seen the Schefflera, we call it umbrella plant. I love the big bananas and, do not know the latin, the elephant ear. But those like some shade. I'd put up an arbor or trellis for vines but there is some rule about no things attached on the outside walls.

But you can have a light, so yesterday we put up spirit house light! Picture here.

Here is a link that might be useful: Spirit house

Hi,

What about trying some really large annuals that grow quickly? The first thing that comes to mind is trying to plant some corn or broom corn in a large pot. It will take the sun and the heat. I am thinking the biggest issue here would be enough moisture - you would have to water it every day. Seeds are available everywhere and super easy to start. Maybe put some Nasturtiums around the base to hide the dirt.

I am certain other people may come up with more suggestions - how about African lion tail - Leonotus leonurus? It loves heat and sun. You might have to mail order seeds but they are easy to start. These puppies get 6 to 8 feet tall in my garden. Don't know how tall they would get in a pot.

Or maybe some annual vines on a trellis? How about some scarlet runner bean? Seeds are easy to come by, grows quickly and doesn't need so much water. I start these from seed in pots every summer with no issues.

I would think that these plants aren't going to get really showy until July (assuming you put out seeds in early May) but you won't have to store anything inside over winter either.

Good luck, Nancy

Hi,

I just had another thought. If you put up a trellis on one side of the balcony, you might be able to hang smaller potted plants off the trellis and get the same green effect of growing a few really big plants. Then you could really go with easy annuals that take the heat and sun. Please note, your trellis would have to be strong enough and anchored well enough to handle the weight and wind.

Nancy

Also - NO plant can go from being indoors/full shade to being outdoors full sun - they will scorch and die, even cacti, agave, aloe, and all other direct/full sun-loving plants.

You need to acclimate them to the outdoors gradually - first outdoors in shade, then dappled shade, then part sun (preferably AM sun) - and finally to the final sunny spot you'd like them. Then you get to reverse this process if you need to bring them back in for the winter... This process takes about 10-14 days minimum.

Thank you again! BF likes plants ... he used to grow CORN on the balcony ... but I don't want to look like balcony farm. The plants he's shown me at nursery ... they have little flowers, spindly, like weeds. I know they're very good for water and to live here, but I want something that looks more like home.

Condo rules say NO TRELLIS, no anything attached, and BF says freestanding would blow over.

Someone here is sending me passionfruit, maybe it will grow fast I hope, because the fruit is nice and can't find it here. Will try some scarlet runner beans as well, to work into the balcony grate, thank you! Also look for ficus.

For moving outside, since we are up there is no place to put under trees, then light shade ... but maybe sheet would work.

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.

Bougainvillea also do well in

And somebody has already mentioned Brugmansia, which looks the same as

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!

Oh, the datura is beautiful! Googling says it's quite poisonous ... is that the whole plant, or the seeds? I have two cats (brought from Bangkok) who are prone to nibble.

Datura is poisonous (the whole plant, but esp. the seeds). The pics above are Brugmansia. Datura generally have upright flowers on a shrubby base, where brugs have pendulous flowers hanging down from a tree-like canopy.

I wouldn't worry too much about the poison thing though - I've grown datura (not brugs) for many years and never noted anything dead in my backyard from it, LOL. It blooms at night with the most amazing fragrance - YUM!

All part of the plant are poisonous, Cyn. Daturas and Brugmansias are all in the nightshade family of plants. (But so are potatoes and tomatoes!) Locoweed, as it used to be seen in western movies causing horses to go "loco" after eating it, is a species of Datura that grows wild over most of the west. Some species of the daturas and brugmansias are used by (crazy) people as hallucinogenics! (Since you live in Boulder, maybe I shouldnt tell you that! ;-) ) So some species are clearly worse than others, but its not advisable to be chewing on any of them! I believe the seeds have the strongest concentration of the toxins, but all plant parts have some. The main toxins, BTW, are scopolamine, sometimes used for motion sickness among other things, and atropine, also used medicinally to dry your mouth before surgeryand other things. So, like many plants, its good stuff if used in the right way. I know cats chew on a lot of things, and the only way I know of to find out if your kitties would take a liking to it would be to get one and watch for a while.

Handling the plants that are sold as ornamentals is not toxic, but exposure to mucus surfaces isas in chewing! When I was at Paulinos I took my plant in when it got too big (6) for me to care for at home and several times I cut it back to virtually nothing, making 2" cuttings out of all the stems (a couple hundred of them), and I did it all with bare hands and never had any "untoward" reactions! (They still have my original plant, and are still making cuttings from it! Theyve made thousands off if it by now! Maybe I should ask for a cut! ;-) )

They really are beautiful, and the foliage has a pretty strong (not pleasant!) scent when you break off leaves, so its kind of hard for me to imagine a kitty chewing on it, but you dont want your cat "going loco" either! The flowers, by the way, are almost a foot long. And Paulinos does still sell the apricot, evening scented one I had. They carry several other colors too and they used to be (and I think still are) $10 for a start thats 1-2' tall in a one gallon pot. From there youd have to train it up into a "tree form" if thats what you wanted. They grow FAST! Anyway, you know your kitties and what their tastes are, so youll need to decide based on that.

I think the species AbqBob is referring to is Datura inoxia, a night blooming one. We grew that one back in Illinois when I was a kid, called it moonflower, and it was fun to sit out late in the evening and watch it open. But thats different from the ones Im talking about, which are open during the day, and some of which are fragrant (some morning and some eveningand some all day!), and some of which arent fragrant at all (the scents vary with the different species). Each flower is only open for about a day, but there are so many of them that you never even notice that they dont last long.

Let us know what you finally decide to try on your balcony. Post some pics later in the summer! Cant wait to see it!

Skybird

I am at 8220' elevation with some pretty fierce sun. Last year I got a pair of columnar apples in June (too late in the year for me to want to plant them then) I potted them up and they spent until mid fall outside with no ill-effects. The trees only require about 2-3 feet diameter of room each (although you do need two different types for pollination) and work well in pots. They grow straight up (with a little pruning to keep them from expanding out) and end up at 8-12 feet although you can keep them smaller. There are varying reports on the tastiness of the fruit and mine haven't borne fruit yet so I can't say either way but the trees are attractive and can do well containerized so they might be an option for you. Google "columnar apples" for more information on them if you are interested. The types I have that did well are Northpole and Golden Sentinel.

Thralen

Thank you Thralen!

I had a nice chat with a man at Paulino's this weekend, he suggested that a number of things I'd love (like banana) will take the sun if I'm careful to acclimate them. A friend from the mountains just brought me a lovely yellow datura start, and I'm looking forward to seeing that in bloom. She's also checking on a zone 5 clumping bamboo that's not too invasive.

Mr Paulino's also said that they'd have a lot more things in sometime next month, when they'll be safe outside. It's such a nice place, I spent an hour in the tropical section just soaking up a bit of Bangkok.

Cyndi,

When I was reorganizing my seed a couple weeks ago, I found some seed for Datura stramonium 'La Fleur Lilac' that I got at a past swap. This one apparently gets 3-5' tall and has what's described as "sweetly scented" lavendar flowers.

Since you're coming to the swap, if you'd like I'd be glad to bring a few of the seeds along for you to try. I haven't yet gotten around to trying these and have never started Datura from seed--only cuttings--but from what I've found they should be fairly easy to start from seed.

If you'd like to try it, just let me know.

Glad you enjoyed your brief Bangkok interlude at Paulino's,
Skybird

Thank you, that would be very nice!

Glad to put you down on the list for some of the seeds, Cyndi. If you haven't already, go over to the "What do you want" swap thread and post if you want any of the things somebody is bringing. I doesn't matter if you're bringing plants or not--everybody has their choice of the things that are available! And, of course, you'll get to pick what you want on the day of the swap too, but telling us now is the only way to be sure you'll get the things you really want.

Skybird

I realize this is an old post, but just thought I might add my experiences anyway...

I believe that aridity and heat are factors more than altitude when it comes to what plants can tolerate. Full summer sun in Phoenix is much tougher than full sun here at 7,000 in NM. Any plant that likes full sun anywhere is going to be happy with full sun even at elevation, if properly acclimated. In fact, I've found that shade is just as difficult at elevation in my sunny, arid climate than it is at sea level for many plants.

I keep the following outside all summer in full sun at around 7,000 feet elevation:
Guava
Avocado
Jade Plant
CA Fan Palm
Papaya
Mango
Citrus, many types
Ficus
etc...