Very nicely done. I love your design and beautiful trees. If all of these are just the FRONT, what's growing in the BACK yard? thanks for sharing, happy thanksgiving!

Tim

Thank you Tim. I have one of those odd shaped half corner lots so this is actually most of my yard space. The back yard is smaller. But even so I've crammed in an herb garden, 2 kinds of tropical bamboo and one more banana variety - a veinte cohol=) No pictures of those handy, I'll have to post some later.

Oops! All the ornamental trees in the 'before' photos disappeared :-).

Jeff

Great layout, Sun! Jeff mention something about ornamental trees maybe you can squeeze a Flamboyant somewhere.

Joe

Did I miss something? I thought the ornamental issue was already covered by the Hong Kong orchid

Tim

Wow SW,
I like the layout so much better now, especially since you put in all the fruit trees and underplantings. When your yard matures it will be exceptional.

What a novel concept, to put forethought and planning into your yard before planting the trees. That would've saved me a lot of time digging out and moving things around.

please keep us updated,
-Ethan

Very, very NICE Sun worshiper...you've done a great job. Everything looks so nice and healthy and what a beautiful yard you have! Hoping for a mild winter so we won't have to protect and cover our fruit trees! Thanks for posting!

I think Jeff was referring to the ornamental trees I started with that are no longer there=)

Joe, flamboyant trees are so pretty! But I'm too far north for them. The Hong Kong Orchid is borderline here, but I'm going to try=) There is a good size one at Universal Studios, so I know it is possible.

Thanks Ethan. I'm very excited to watch it all grow in. I had a lot of fun playing landscape designer. I actually designed it all out in 3D software before I started. That way I did all my "digging up" and moving around virtually. The $100 for the design software more than paid for itself. The final design is pretty far from from my starting idea and much, much better. Plus my HOA required submitting a landscape design for approval. I've since heard from other neighbors that their requests to plant fruit trees in their front yards have been denied. My guess is that the 3D rendering of my plan was what made the difference.

Tim, here are some of the other things growing in my back yard. Golden Hawaiian and Black Timor bamboos, Giant Bird of Paradise, Cannas and Elephant ears

And for some further eye candy, here is a close up of my ice cream banana fruiting:
{{gwi:1334666}}

I clipped the blossom a few nights ago and tried cooking with it. Tastes sort of like cabbage with an exotic flavor that is hard to describe. I made essentially a stir fry with shrimp & coconut milk. It was quite tasty.

Now if only the bananas ripen before frost...

See, that looks just as nice. The cannas in contrast with a good mix of cool colors.
Just don't let your giant bird of paradise get too big. The ones growing outside my work building are true giants, taller than the 2-story industrial building itself.
That's good to see the blossom not going to waste. Looks delish!
We cook with it too, especially in the vietnamese sweet & sour shrimp soup. It's used in place of bean sprouts.

Tim

Yep. I thought it was funny, 'cause I did the same thing. The ornamental trees that were here when I bought the house pretty quickly got torn out and replaced with edibles :-). Fantastic design BTW.

Thanks pug. I'm hoping for a warm winter too! But just in case, my project over the 4 day weekend is to build some of those pvc pipe individual tree sized greenhouses=)

That's a great looking dish Tim. Do you have a recipe you can share? Cooking with the banana flower was really my first stab at any form of Asian cooking. I followed this recipe.

I agree, the giant bird of paradise can get out of hand if you let it. I've seen a real mix here of well pruned ones and giant tangles that are wholly impenetrable. It will take a couple of warm winters for mine to get any size though. Last year they were frozen down to stumps.

Thanks Jeff. Got any before and after shots of your ornamental to edible transformation?

Nice simple effective forethought and layout, sunworshipper. Good luck on keeping grass and weeds out of the beds, but you seem like a doting kind of gardener (like me) so I bet that'll be no prob!

The big question I have is will you put any signs or other non-verbal protection up for the mango thieves that will inevitably come once your little corner becomes a fresh fruit market in a few years time? I ask because I just am planting 3 mango's in my front yard within 6 feet of a well traversed side walk and are just wondering how to handle this future situation.....I mean, I know nothing's going to be fool proof, but wondered if you had thought of that.....two-legged....four-legged....etc.

Someday I'll do a little photo tour-de-force like you did. I think it's great to let our group see each others layouts and outdoor plant theaters we walk and see nearly every day.....

thanks, mangodog

sun_worshiper,

If we could grow flamboyans here in Socal you shouldn't have any problems in central florida. I have seen them here in La Habra and also in Santa Ana. In fact, here is a pic of my friends flamboyan in Santa Ana.

Great pictures Joe. Flamboyant trees are everywhere down towards Miami, but about an hour north of Miami and they are few and far between. I'm 4 hours north of Miami and last year I had lows of 24 degrees for 12 hours at a time. That's why I plan to keep all of my fruiting trees small, so I can keep them covered in winter=)

mangodog - Mulch is a must for keeping out the weeds! Just keeping the weeds down until the mulch was layed was too much work=) So far, the pine bark fines has been extremely effective as a weed suppressant. As for keeping out unwanted munchers...well we'll see. I'm not sure I have a plan either. One nice thing about having a front yard orchard is that just working out there getting it planted, I now know most of my neighbors. People you know are much less likely to bother your yard than people you don't. I did put a tangerine tree as the one that is most visible from the sidewalk. Citrus of every sort are everywhere here, so people generally leave them alone because they are tired of them. Surprisingly, even just this little way north and many people here have never had a good mango. That works to my advantage, since they are under the delusion that they don't like them. I suspect that critters - squirrels & raccoons will be the biggest issue. I do plan to put up lights that trip on motion sensors. I am also training the trees like the peach, which raccoons love, so that it has at enough trunk before branching so that I can put metal casing around it so that a raccoon can't climb it. As for the squirrels, not sure how to deal with them yet. Do cats deter them?

sun-worshipper do you anticipate the ice cream fruit ripening this season or is it too cold up there? usually you would want to wiat until the rachis between the fruit and flower is 12 inches to prevent the bottom fruit from dying

mango_kush - that's a good question. I'm hoping so! So far the weather is holding. We had an unseasonably hot fall, so that really helped the bananas along. I planted the ice cream this spring, and it is my first fruiting, so I'm not sure how long they take to ripen. The flower emerged on Oct 15, and by Oct 30th all of the hands had emerged. I did leave 12 inches between the last hand and where I cut off the flower. So now it is up to the weather. So far many days are still making it to the low 80's. A lot of times we don't get frost until January, and some years we don't get any, so I'm hoping. I'm not actually sure what the best strategy is when frost threatens. I'm not sure if it is better to try to protect the bunch from frost (xmas lights or the like) or to cut it early and hope they are mature enough to ripen indoors. Anybody have a good rule of thumb for how to make that call?

theyre not ripe enough yet to pick and ripen off the plant, i would wait and keep my fingers crossed for some more unseasonable warmth

thanks mango_kush. That's what I'm doing=) As a matter of interest, what is the minimum amount of time they would need to be able to ripen off the plant? Is there an average ripening time for this cultivar? Or do I just wait for the generic signs of ripening to show themselves?

sun W - regarding those unwanted munchers - I am going to do the same with the metal flange around the trunk of the tree when it gets larger and fruiting to keep away the night marauders. I think they work for squirrels too....but I dont' think cats deter squirrels, at least that's not what I remember in Los Angeles and back east in Upstate NY...

want to know an interesting fact - there are no tree squirrels of any kind here in the desert where I live, only ground squirrels which I don't think eat fruit, but certainly like to burrow. We do get these tree/fruit rats though that live up in the palms and can do some damage, but again, I think the flange would be effective if no other trees were near that gave them (or squirrels in your case) a chance to cross over...

More planned strategy - of the 3 mangos I'm planting in front within 10 feet of a public sidewalk, two of them produce the green colored mangos. As you were saying of the ignorant public, I think most here have only seen the reddish tinged Tommy Atkins ones in the grocery stores (if at all) and thus may simply leave mine alone either by their color or simply not recognizing the "strange fruit" on the trees - lol

any and every angle we can get, eh?????

mangoWoof!

sun_worshipper, the general rule of thumb i use is wait until the first one in the bunch becomes dead ripe. in your scenario i would wait until you think the bunch looks full, no use even worrying about it before then. then montior the temps. if it gets even close to freezing the fruit will crystallize and spoil, so cut it if you think low 40s are imminent.

you cut the bud at the right time, when its far enough from the bunch. by cutting it the fruit will mature faster.

mangodog - how lucky that you don't have tree squirrels. We have loads of them in my neigborhood because the street is lined with oaks. This time of year they are busy burying a million acorns. They seem to forget to eat most of them and in the spring I have to pull up loads of oak seedlings. Sounds like a good strategy with the green mangos. I figure my atemoya is quite safe for the same reason - nobody will recognize it=)

thanks mango_kush. I think I'm going to wrap some of the old fashioned big bulb christmas lights around my banana and hope for the best...

SW- I have a few Ice Cream Banana's, and for me it takes about 5 months from when the flower first emereges to harvest. Once the first banana turns yellow, you can cut the whole stalk and hang inside or just cut hand by hand.

jb

Thanks for the accurate data on ice cream jb. I wasn't actually sure if these turn yellow when ripe or not. Glad to know that they do, as that's a nice indicator. So that means that my estimated ripe date is March 15 if I can protect through the winter...here's hoping=)

Hi SW, sorry for taking so long with your recipe request.

This isn't our recipe but pretty much the same way we make our soup at home.
Though I prefer my shrimps a bit undercooked for better eating & taste.
If you can't find the BAC HA (alocasia odora) mentioned in the blog at some local Asian market, you can sub that with Celery.
Thickness of your diagonal cuts depend if you prefer soft or crisp cooked.
And bean sprouts can be replaced by banana blossom. Or you can do both.

Happy growing & cooking :)

Tim

Here is a link that might be useful: Vietnamese sweet & sour shrimp soup

Thanks Tim! This is very different from anything I've ever cooked. It will be fun to try. I've never seen Bac Ha in a grocery store, but maybe I'll try growing some next year.