Report on companion plants for palms and cycads

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Here at The Tropical Paradise, my goal is to create a tropical feeling in an environment that can be pretty harsh sometimes. This past winter we got a hard frost and I am now seeing what is coming back.

As you can see, the cannas are doing great. These are Canna Tropicannas, which are now readily available just about anywhere (I saw a bunch of them at Home Depot yesterday). They have a nice orange flower, but the real point of having these plants is the incredible foliage. The palm trees in the background, by the way, are dwarf date palms (Phoenix roebellini), which are just starting to flower.

The tiny purple blooms are on ornamental garlic, which gives a nice tropical feel and wasn't harmed at all by the cold, and doesn't mind the heat. Gotta get more of those! The cycad in the lower left is a Dioon Spinulosum, which lost all of its leaves in the freeze but is coming back strong. In front of it is an Amaryllis, which didn't bloom this year, but the leaf shape is nice and tropical. The ground cover behind the dioon, Ajuga Reptans (Carpet Bugle) is growing strong, too. It was also not harmed at all by the freeze. The natal plum (just below Macintosh's left ear) got frozen down to the ground, but is starting to recover. It's a slow grower, so I am left with a lot of open ground. I planted some decorative lettuce by seed last winter. I got it to be decorative, but it is edible, too. It is just barely starting to show.

I also planted some carrots, which have a nice ferny leaf pattern. I have eaten a few, and they're pretty good. I will be harvesting the rest of them pretty soon, which is nice, but the garden will lose the decorative effect. Next year, I will plant more, and plant them spaced a few weeks apart, so that I can harvest and have more growing up afterwards.

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