I thought I'd start a thread to put some of the things I have growing here in my small city garden. I've got many terraces and a roof to grow things on as well. I used to have more sun in the back garden but the banyan tree on a neighbor's wall and some other trees in the yards around me have grown a lot and now... I have a lot less full sun. I still have areas that get half a day of sun and others that unfortunately get full sun only in the summer. That's something I have not really found a solution for, whether to plant shade loving plants that burn and look awful in the summer or sun loving plants that fade and eventually die in the winter. Having tried to keep the sun lovers alive through 3 winters and not having a lot of success, I'm now starting to plant shade lovers and trying to give them shade in the summer.
Some of the shade is my own doing, I planted some tall bamboo when we moved in to block the view of a hotel on the block behind us. It is almost 40' tall now, it does block the hotel view. I also put 3 fishtail palms in a bed near an old well that we now use for rain runoff. I think the roots have found the well as they have grown really fast and really tall. Here's a pic of that corner of the garden.
I'm pretty sure that the roots from the bamboo have filled the bed to the left of it and that is part of the reason the ginger and heliconia that was in there is so pitiful. Partly it is that they no longer get sun, but since I tried to dig a bit I've discovered that the whole bed is full of fine matted roots, must be the bamboo. I'm getting some young, strong backs in this coming week to dig out those beds, perhaps put some plastic between them and the bamboo and refill it with new dirt.
What is blooming now? The
Pata de Cabra (Bauhinia divaricata), native to this area, is covered in blooms. I dug this one up on my friend's land near Uxmal, I've pruned it so that it is a high arching open bush rather than a shrub. You can see the whole plant below and to the right of the bamboo in the pic above.
I spotted these blooms deep inside the heavy growth of the heliconia the other day.
Today we got in there and cut down most of the heliconia branches. It's something we have to do every year anyway and I like to do it when they are blooming so I can see the blooms. It made a huge pile of long leaves and took quite awhile. The cats all appeared while we were cutting up the pieces, they were a lot of help!
It's a lot more open now, I can see all the blooms.
