Red Banana Love!

Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' growing in a pot on the terrace

     I wanted to show you this image I recently took of one of the Ensete ventricosum 'Maureliis' I have growing in pots on the terraces at Froggy Bottom.  This is a plant that I got earlier this year from Home Depot for the large sum of ten dollars.  It has grown quite a bit as you can see.  Fertilizer, water, and warm weather will have this effect!  I love how the light glows through the leaves.  As I have said many times, why grow fuschia baskets when you can grow these bananas?
     In the pots in front of the banana is an Ochagavia, which is a hardy bromeliad I got from Sean Hogan, and an Agave geminiflora which I have grown from a small plant to the size you see there.  This is a most unagave -like agave which is one of my favorites.  It is probably not hardy for us, so I have taken it inside every winter I have had it. Behind the banana is Aralia elata 'Aureomarginata', one of my favorite small trees.  I am going to have to find a source for this, because I intend to plant one at my new garden.
     For those of you who might be interested in seeing Froggy Bottom before it is sold, the real estate agent is having an open house on Sunday, Sept. 1, 2013.  Info can be found here.

More Garden Views

Front Gate

West Terrace Looking Toward Lionness

West Terrace Patio With Pond

West Terrace Patio Looking North

Long View of West Terrace Looking From Lionness

South Terrace Looking Towards Blue Wall

Garden View of Lawn Sweeping to Pink Chairs

West Terrace

     As I have alluded to in previous blog entries, I have been very busy this summer and now I will tell you what has been keeping me so busy--we are putting our house on the market.  Indeed, it was listed last week and if you are curious about what the inside of the house looks like, you can see pictures of it here.  So today I have posted pictures of the garden that I took a couple of days ago.
     I have to tell you that it was a monumental task getting the house ready for sale, all the while keeping the garden looking in top notch shape.  But now that task is done, and we can just sit back and wait for the offers to roll in!
     You may want to know why we are selling. Well, we are both (my husband and I) reaching retirement age and we decided that we wanted to downsize.  So we are moving to Port Ludlow, Washington, which is a small, master planned community just over the Hood Canal Bridge on the Olympic Peninsula. It is pretty much out in the woods and seems much more rural than Bainbridge Island. You can read more about it here. Port Ludlow is full of walking trails and on my many walks with my dog I have seen the following wildlife: deer, coyotes, bobcat, bear, racoons, rabbits, and eagles.
     We have bought a smaller house in Port Ludlow that is new construction on a half acre lot. The lot has some awful landscaping on it which I propose to eventually replace with better things.  First, though, I will have to improve the soil which is very sandy and not very nutrient rich. In Port Ludlow there are restrictions on what you can do in the way of landscaping on your lot, but I think I can work with those restrictions.  Chief among them is a prohibition on fencing.
     The climate in Port Ludlow is very similar to that on Bainbridge. It is, after all, only an hour's drive from Bainbridge. It is probably a little bit cooler than Bainbridge and a little bit dryer, since it is in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains.  Supposedly, it only gets 20 some inches of rain a year. In future posts, I will show pictures of the new place, and will have tales of creating a new garden.  Meanwhile, I will still blog about what is going on in the garden at Froggy Bottom until the place is sold.