Musa Banana

Musa xparadisiaca 'blue java' Ice Cream Banana

Some people refer to bananas as trees or palms, but they are neither a tree nor a palm, but a giant clumping tropical herb. Bananas are fast growing and most sucker freely once the plant is established, which doesn’t take long after planting. The pseudostem blooms once and dies after fruiting, and the trunk should […]

Palms in our Garden

Palms in our Garden

Here is a visual list of most of the palms in our garden. Acoelorrhaphe wrightii (Everglades Palm; Silver Saw Palm; Paurotis Palm) and Ravenea rivularis (Majesty Palm) Adonidia merrillii Formerly known as, “Veitchia merrillii” (Christmas Palm) Arenga engleri Formosa Palm Brahea armata Mexican Blue or Blue Hesper Palm Brahea edulis Guadalupe Palm Butia capitata Pindo […]

Rhapis excelsa Taking the Pups

Rhapis excelsa 'Taiheiden' The "king of the kannonchiku

Lady palms are readily propagated by removing the pups and re-potting them in their own pot. The pups are the new shoots that grow through the stolon from the mother plant. This is a photo essay showing how the process is done, and what to look for while removing these baby plants, to insure a […]

Rhapis excelsa Lady Palms

Rhapis excelsa 'Taiheiden' pup

Rhapis excelsa, from seed, grow painfully slow and are almost impossible to know what variety, form or cultivars one is growing until the plant is mature, even then it can become difficult in identification of these plants unless you know the seed and it’s parentage. Rhapis excelsa can be divided into three groups according to […]

John Anderson Aechmea page one

John Anderson

John lives in Corpus Christi. He loves to build things and to grow things, and he’s very good at both! John has the largest private bromeliad collection in Texas. He won the best of show blue ribbons at the June 2000 International Bromeliad Society show in San Francisco.  He engineered his greenhouses, irrigation systems, ventilation […]

Phoenix roebelenii Pygmy Date Palm

Phoenix roebelenii

Phoenix roebelenii “Pygmy Date Palm” A small (even miniature) feather palm, from Laos and southeast Asia, with a slender trunk that can grow to about 10 feet (3.0m) in height. Fruit are small, about 1/2 inch (1.25cm) long, and range from dark purple to brown/black when fully ripe. In South Texas, palms start to flower […]

The Oregon Garden

Oregon Garden

Between 1991 and 1996 Jana and I completely landscaped our yard in Portland, Oregon. We constructed two ponds, one a Koi pond with two water falls the other a water garden with a fountain, many retaining walls went up, we raised some areas of the garden by 24 inches, added lots of fencing and built […]