Sunshine oh my goodness. I would not have thought that you are raising your citrus on the balcony :) Do you have a basement space?

Nope, common underground parking lot under the building, like in any large North American city. The open balcony is my only choice for figs, mulberries and peach tree to keep them dormant.

Sunshine, some ppl do cover their figs for the winter but usually they wrap the whole tree up because the branches can still die from freezing. Some fig varieties do produce decent early breba crops which grow on previous seasons growth so if you want to save the growth from last season then you may want to cover the whole tree. There's some crazy fig overwintering examples that you can find on google images. Some ppl even bend their whole fig trees down to the ground and cover them from there!

Sunshine: When I had an apartment I used to overwinter plants on a porch. This is what I did and worked very well and never lost a plant. Build an insulated box/shelf that is insulated on all sides (including the bottom) except the one facing the house wall. Place the shelf against the wall as snugly as you can. The warmth of the house will help the plants. Put your plants inside that. Once in a while, when it is warm, open it to check for water requirement. I watered about once a month or so on above freezing days or as needed. I had a separate front panel that I can remove for this task. The bottom and top need to have thicker insulation. I used a mix of styrofoam and batt insulation to build this structure. On days when it is above 40F I would leave the box open unless it is very windy. Good luck.

I have some blackberries, blue berries, figs, a vegetable garden that gave me fits this year due to rain and infestation of insects, plumerias, orchids, Christmas cactus, and next year I am going to try making a strawberry tower made from milk crates. I have a passion for roses, but here in the humid South, disease runs rapid so I gave up growing hybrid teas. I hate the heat and humidity so I don't spend as much time as I would like gardening.

Denise, i also hate the humidity so i also dont get to spend a bunch of time in the garden and also get infestations. Stink bugs and slugs were horrendous this year. I usually only go to the garden early morning/late evening.

I forgot this little bush, probably the oldest one.

Denise it sucks you can't keep roses healthy in your area. You prob have a lot of tropical options open to you from that humidity though! How about Oleander flowers? The double flowers have a similar rose look to them.

Kelly, those "sleepy" trees with the purple flowers (not sure what they're called) grow like weeds here in GA. They're everywhere in my backyard, but sell for $50-$100 at Home Depot (?)

My pride and joy is my 3-5 year old Arbequina Olive Tree. I purchased it last year and overwintered inside. Planted it in the ground this spring and it has shot up from 3+ feet to over 6 feet high. Praying it lasts the winter (it survived Irma last month) and hoping for olives next year!

Beautiful olive tree Kelley. It's enormous! Update us on whether it pulls through this winter. It will be so amazing when it grows olives for you!

I realized when my plants have already been watered and cared for, I feel so restless and bored! So I bought a few house plants when I was checking out a couple of nurseries last weekend :) better to love these to death than my lemon

Thanks, Kvet!! I've read so many differing opinions on the hardiness of Arbequinas: some say don't go below freezing, others say zone 8 is perfectly fine. We're projected to have a warm winter, but if the temps dip into the extremes, I will coat it with Christmas lights.

Kvetchlambkin very nice looking plants and your Kitty Cat is soooooo adorable.

Brian

Kelley, can the olive trees be grown as olive "bushes"? It may help keep itself insulated enough to pull through the cold

Thank you Brian! She really is :) She has the face of a grumpy teddy bear sometimes!

May add a couple more of my random collection, don't what flower it is, a friend mowing sale 4 or 5 years ago. Red Jabo fruiting for the third time this year. Should grow a couple more of these.

I also do artificial flowers,change that used to. I like these as well, not easy to do when you do it the oldfashion way. Transom are 92" long made for french entry doors.

Wow bob you're an artist! Did you put together that glass panel yourself? I love that the fruit is on the trunk of that tree. I've seen a similar one in our relative's yard in Taiwan while visiting and the fruit were delicious. Their fruit looked dark purple almost black and tasted like Concord grape juice! For the unknown flowers there is a forum called "Name that plant!" where people can help identify the plants in the photos you post on that forum. They're very helpful and good at it if you want to find out what flower it is

Bob, loove your window. I did some glass work a couple of years too and still have some projects I would like to do. Always something else in the way.

Suz, i only do leadcame, you know that old stuff, very little tiffany style, i was in the business of old restoration. My works is scattered all over the U.S. This dormer design is Tiffany style at my place. Hanging light is somewhat simular.

Kvetch, here is a picture of ripe Jabo's

Bob, I really like your glass creations, wonderful!

Yes! That's exactly what it looked like Bob. Your tree is amazing! What do you do with the fruits? Fresh eating or jam? Love the rose glass windows. I bet a lemon themed one would look great with the sunlight shining through it!

I only have one tree, so i eat them fresh, no problem. occasionally i teach at a local art school. I am not into it anymore, thank goodness, too much work.

Bob you are quite an artist!!! Wow, a musician and the beautiful glass! I love it!

Well after going to the local chapter of the California rare fruit growers plant sale I have now added a “freedom” variety of blackberry and a cherimoya.

My wife added the cherimoya as she doesn’t have to do the hand pollinating and they are about 8 bucks a pound. This is the first time she spend more than me at a plant sale. Hopefully we will have enough space in the front yard! :D

That's a steal with the cherimoya! I didn't know it's so expensive to eat but then again, I've never bought or tried them before. What does it taste like to you?

As for growing other things besides citrus, I've peeked down the rabbit hole of orchids and find myself falling in. I bought myself a few mini Phalaenopsis last week and after doing more research on orchids.. I want so many more orchids than I expected to want. There's so many varieties and shapes and colors that making an orchid collection will end up filling a whole house full of them! I'm trying to hold back and wait to buy other ones besides the common Phalaenopsis I keep seeing in grocery stores but it is so hard to when I see a new color pattern or shape. Here are the ones I've gotten so far

Kvetch: those are some nice orchids! I have killed the last couple orchids we had here in the house. The last one is about a year old and I am hoping it will pull through.

As to the flavor of cherimoya I haven’t tasted it myself because of the price. My wife has and she loves them but doesn’t want to pay the high price at the store and they don’t store well. My wife says it tastes like a smoothie and has a lot of different flavors in it. She gets a lot of strawberry and banana flavors in the ones she has tasted.

wikipedia says the following on them “The ripened flesh is creamy white. When ripe, the skin is green and gives slightly to pressure. Some characterize the fruit flavor as a blend of banana, pineapple, papaya, peach, and strawberry.”

Thanks BaconEater! It seems that the secret to orchids is repotting them to your exact conditions and watering style. Once that's down pat it's supposed to be a breeze with some of the easier ones. I really want to try making some orchids into hanging moss ball plants and have a small collection of those hanging around the windows

Cherimoyas sound like the perfect dessert for the hot summer months. Have it chilled in the fridge and scoop out a premade smoothie out of the fruit! I really want to get my hands on a cherimoya fruit now. How large is the cherimoya tree that you two purchased? You must update us on the progress of your tree. It will be amazing to see it produce fruit for you two and see how you like the fruit!

I agree they do sound like a nice dessert! The tree we purchased is a “seedling” and is about 3ft tall. They are supposed to grow reasonably fast but like all my citrus and my other tropicals i don’t expect much in the near future. I’ll try and grab a photo of it tomorrow morning. If I see fruit at the farmers market I’ll have to try it at some point.

My wife was reading about them and apparently they don’t get shipped out of California that often because they sell well here and they are tough to ship. I hope you can find one at some point!

Ohh that is probably why I haven't really seen a cherimoya around these parts. Thanks for the tip! I planned to look around a farmers market tomorrow so I'll remember to keep an eye out for cherimoyas while I'm there :) I'm sure you'll be able to get some good fruit from both your citrus and cherimoya in the future!

Kvetch: here is a photo of the tree. Don’t mind Ollie the orange or the other plants photobombing. He is always showing off his oranges. :D

I have a Atemoya growing for 3 years now and it resides in my shop for the next 5 months,bummer.

Weird early Christmas decoration in the Ozarks!

Haha I can see why it likes showing off its fruit BaconEater! I love the large leaves of the cherimoya. It'll be a real beauty once it gets to Ollie's size.

Bob your glass work is really so amazing! The colors are so beautiful the birds almost come to life. You also have a lovely persimmon tree! Nothing beats seeing a persimmon tree covered in persimmons in the fall.

Bob: Has the antemoya fruited Or flowered for you? Is it a bit more cold tolerant than other tropicals?

Kvetch: the leaves are kinda unique like the fruit. My wife and I will have to keep scanning the farmers markets here for some cherimoya fruit to try.

Bacone, yes it has flowered and fruited twice this year, only two that matured in august and a new one still on now. It is a Minh variety. According to Adam is a better one to grow here. As a matter of facts it flowered constant till about August. You can grow them in the ground where you at with a ton of different varieties, check with Frank where you are located he has the best ones.

Bob: I’ll probably have to look at grafting as I am officially out of space. :D I see a few videos online about grafting antemoya onto a cherimoya so that will probably be my best bet. Now to join the California rare fruit growers in January for varieties to graft.

I tried growing cherimoya but managed to kill it. Got the seeds when travelling in Hawaii. In India it is quite popular and abundant. My favourite used to be cherimoya milk shakes or in cereals. Awesome fruit. Hard to find here in Pittsburgh. Here in US I miss the sheer variety of tropical fruits and vegetables. We even had banana with seeds - very tasty but hard to eat.

Besides some citrus here I have a mango - never fruits, grown from seed and we use the leaves in soups for flavour and to make tea. Same with a banana - no fruits but we mainly use it for the leaves for steaming fish. Pomegranate (angel red) - did not fruit this year. Olive - it is a small bonsai like plant and produces a whopping 4-olive harvest every year. Curry leaf plant - obviously for curries. Several types of figs too. Black pepper that produces about a handful every year.

Amongst non-edibles I have many ornamentals and flowering plants mostly representing what I grew up with in India.

You could still contact Frank at the Tropical fruit growers forum, get sionwood from him. If you contact him you can stop at his place. I would deal with him before anybody else. I got budwood from him this last spring and bark grafted a couple new variety's, works good, cleft works probably good also, so is veneer graft.

These Moya's need heavy pruning, new shoots can be 8' long, they flower on new ones anyway. So you can add a couple more tree's, go for it. What you see there is all new growth.

Bob: will certainly keep him in mind! It’s going to be a bit before I try grafting. We need to rearrange things in the front yard and do a fair amount of work with digging and drip lines. I plan to have this tree planted by early spring at the latest.

I might not have a lot of citrus but this will make-up for it. Uh got a stomach...pain. Got twice as much still on the tree's.

Bob, those look yummy! Is it possible to have a low branching parsimons. I have seen parsimon trees which were loaded whith fruit, but very tall trees.

I enjoy growing ginger in a raised planter along with the tangerine tree I built the raised bed for. The soil is sandy and with lots of organic material from a variety of sources. Mint, aloe, basil, and ginger all do great here under the tangerine

That's a great way of using that space! I've been wanting to do that with root type vegetables but my tree isn't large enough to have enough space under its canopy. How far do you plant them under your tangerines?

Well, I like the variety but some could correctly point out I'm adding plants that may compete with my tangerine tree for space and nutrients. I think you have to consider what space your citrus needs and how much you may disturb its roots harvesting something else you may plant there. Ginger probably isn't a great choice since I will ultimately dig or pull up the ginger roots. I plant it on the north side of the tangerine so the ginger has plenty of shade....but it is very close to the tangerine's drip line. It's another very fun crop though so I think it's worth missing out on a few tangerines for the added ginger crop. The peppermint actually helps keep other weeds from germinating and growing in the planter...just by shading them out. It competes for nutrients too but I also love peppermint so no harm done!

Once I get a large enough collection of citrus trees, I probably wouldn't mind letting a plant compete with nutrients. I'd have too much fruit to know what to do with! I like the idea of planting fragrant herbs underneath the tree :)

In ground I have a granny smith apple, plum, peach and nectarine tree. All the rest are in containers

7 blueberry varieties

5 raspberry varieties

6 strawberry varieties

2 dwarf mulberry varieties

7 different avocado trees

2 different varieties of white dwarf peaches

8 different herbs

several rose varieties

100 plus different varieties of cactus and succulents

And to many perennials to mention around the pond and in containers. I also grow anywhere between 50-75 varieties of hot peppers.

I was just catching up on this thread last night and I am so impressed by everyone. I wish I had the know how to grow such variety. I’ve only had pants for about a year and a half and one summer garden. It’s bevame a passion of mine, but I lack the experience. I really need a mentors because the internet is overwhelming with info and not all of it is helpful.

Jinnylea- your garden is my dream come true. Please share your secrets. I’ve struggled so much with growing anything from seed.

I've really enjoyed looking at every bit of this thread and seeing all the plants/gardens everyone has. There are some good gardeners here!

I grow mostly edibles, fruits, veggies and herbs. The usual ones, and some unusual ones. We try to have at least one thing on the dinner plate that we grew. I like to try exotic edibles just to see what they taste like and if they would do well here. For example, have some cocona, goji and moringa starts under grow lights at the moment.

My Japanese maples are finely changing colours so are my persimmons.