Kathy, are you kidding! I am so in zone-denial it's pathetic, not to mention EXPENSIVE! LOL My WHOLE house is filled with tropicals, which are taking over. My passifloras OWN my living room windows as well as my laundry room! Yes, I am a tropical "sick one" too!!

I grow a few banana plants which I bring inside for the winter. I have started experimenting with some Trachycarpus palms and a Wasingtonia I've wrapped heating cable around. I also have a large Tibouchina in a pot which is really a nice looking tropical plant. A lot of tropical plants can be forced into a somewhat dormant stage over the winter if the room to keep them actively growing is not available.

Kay,
How many passifloras do you have? I only grow three different ones at this time, with an eye for a few more.
I'm a nut for scented flowering vines, and have been on a spring buying spree. I am so thankful for my greenhouse, I use to garden under lights and any available window.

Jdnnj,
I have two types of bananas, one is a dwarf, and the other is a super dwarf. They are really putting out growth now that the days are getting long and I have started watering and fertilizing more.
I have ordered a hardy banana that I hope will do well here for me.

One of my Orchid cactuses is blooming with tangerine orange blooms. A few others have buds, but still have a way to go before they flower.

I have also been doing a lot of repotting too, and am expecting quite a few water plants in the mail soon.
I purchased one of those new "pop-up Ponds". It is a 45 gal. pond that I will keep in the greenhouse and winter over my three koi, right now I keep them in a fish tank.

What else are you going to grow or try this year? Anything new?

Kathy >^..^

Try CANADA, for zonal denial! I am in Nova Scotia, with banana plants, palms, hibiscuses, yuccas and bamboo to name a few. some of it stays outside successfully and some comes indoors for the winter. It may be a lot of work, but it's worth it!

At least you are a zone 6! I'm a zone 4b and I'm not happy about it, especially since I moved from a zone 7b 10 years ago. Plus, my growing season is considerably shorter, our last frost date is May 31! No fun! Right now I'm having a case of spring fever, and am buying plants galore! I just got a lotus tuber in the mail today. I'm also expecting a second order from Logee's greenhouse, my first order was a Vigna caracalla (the scented, fall blooming type),to replace one that died last year, and a Tecomanthe dendrophila, a woody vine with large umbels of rose-colored flowers with white tips.

I just LOVE my tropicals!!!!!

Kathy >^..^

I'm up in the corner of WA and I have a plant room full of bananas, gingers, palms, brugs, papayas, hibiscus, gardenia, yucca and an orchid. This will be the second summer outside for many of these plants and I may actually get some blooms this year! So excited!

Sarah

Kathy,
I'm zone 5 with a 4 winter every couple years. We are in zone denial too. I've got bananas, alocasia, colocasias, orchid cacti, brugmansias, euphorbias, dracneacias, walking iris, and tropical ferns among other things which are taking over the...well, entire house. I just got home from a flower show and have more babies to play with :)
We keep it warm, the curtains open, and humidity up. Most of our plants are running amok, and we are now talking about the possiblity of making a greenhouse attatched to the house just for tropicals

qbirdy,
Ooooo, Brugs and Euphorbias, love 'em! I got several new brugs this winter; 'Charles Grimaldi', (to replace the one I killed), 'Sunray', Yellowtail (not a variety name), Golden (not a variety name), 'Sunset' (a variegated), and a triple orange one that I forget the name of.
And Euphorbias!...I went through an addiction to euphorbias a few years back and now have quite a collection. I do that every once in a while with different plant species like Hoyas, Orchids, Citrus, Orchid Cactus, or Bromeliads, and plant catagories like scented plants, vines, herbs, succulents, and water plants. Frankly, I'm a sucker for most any plant.

Kathy >^..^

Me, too, Kathy! I have 'a few of everything'(including Brugs that I overwinter and grow outdoors during the summer)....the house is full of hundreds of plants.

I'm also a Euphorbia collector...I lost a couple of older/larger ones this winter to some kind of dry rot (?) and am hoping to replace my variegated E. ammak.

I'm 'dreaming' of a sunroom/greenhouse....but for now that's *all* I can do....dream!
I won't let it get me down, though!

And to think I was the only poor sap out there doing something like this! I have a room full of tropical fruit trees with only one south facing window and a 1000W metal halide grow lamp. I can barely walk thru the room. A lot of them are seedlings from seeds I brought back from Thailand. Some citrus, mango, lychee, longan, and a mangosteen to arrive in June. Once our Ohio temps stabilize, out they all go to the deck. The zone maps show Columbus as being zone 6 but I think they are on drugs or something...sure acts like zone 5! I'm gearing up to move all to a greenhouse in the next year or two. I'm just freaking out about heating requirements!

Have any of you went up to DC and seen the botanical gardens it is a GAINT GREENHOUSE. They have vanilla vines, papayas, bananas, palms, gingers and tons more.

I'm in Minnesota and have a small collection of passiflowers, bananas and a couple of meyers lemons (it only seems like a HUGE collection when I'm either moving them inside or outside of the house-depending on the season.
They take up the entire living room during the winter--but it's kind of nice, you can almost pretend you are in a tropical paradise and that it's NOT minus 10 degrees outside and snowing like there's no tomorrow!

More and more people are growing tropicals up north, I've sent several gingers up north, since many go dormant in the winter anyway they grow just as well up there if kept in pots and then placed in the basement during the winter. Many go in the ground as far north as zone 7 and we even grow a banana that if kept protected will grow up through zone 2. I may be in central Florida but still have to keep quite a few things like my euphorbias and plumerias, etc. in greenhouses as we get below freezing here too.

Liz