My lIttle flower business means I need to morph my garden into a productive cut flower farm and while that might be something that others considers when designing their garden, for me it wasn’t a priority.
Of course I would choose July to start my business. The only month in the year when tropicals are scarce and when our temperatures can fall to single digit figures. Rarely, sure, but still it does happen.
It’s hard to imagine that eventually I will be overrun with tropical flowers but plants like torch gingers, and heliconias are large plants, indestructible once established and can take over your garden if you let them. Some time in the future me or someone else might have the back breaking job trying to remove them.
Typically I would let my garden do its thing. Maybe trimming here and there, fertilising and reapplying sugar cane mulch, which for me is a continuous process, and really not much else.
Getting the best foliage and flowers means extra fertilising and also sometimes pest control. Which runs against the grain for an organic grower.
My go to killers are generally essential oils, soap, oil and pyrethrum. My best control is observation and this goes hand in hand with the work required to grow plants. Lucky for me winter in the tropics means a few less bugs.
There is also the problem of the lack of sunshine this winter with orchid blooms being few and far between.
It’s not all winter gloom and doom in the sometimes sunshine state, in fact this is really our spring and the most productive time for gardening.
What flowers are growing in your tropical garden?
