Adding Companion Plants for Color

[The Gerg]

This year I have been working on adding color to my palm and cycad garden using tropical companion plants. I am obsessed with ti plants, crotons and most recently, bromeliads. I’ve got one section I am pretty happy with so far so thought I would share.

 

No sunshine.

[iDesign]

Looks amazing! I especially like the layering (with larger plants in the back) and variation in color/texture.

I love the broms (of course) but you also have a nice Ti collection. And the rocks for texture.  Nice job 

[jimmyt]

That is Very nice.  The colors are great

[Tracy]

On 8/3/2022 at 10:49 PM, The Gerg said:

This year I have been working on adding color to my palm and cycad garden using tropical companion plants. I am obsessed with ti plants, crotons and most recently, bromeliads. I’ve got one section I am pretty happy with so far so thought I would share.

Nice color Greg.  I couldn't help thinking that you will havhe to do some thinning though in the not too distant future based on the cycads planted in the areas shown.  What looked like open space will be covered by the cycads in a few years, forcing you to make some choices.

I have the opposite thing going on in my yard with the bromeliads.  Instead of planting new ones, I'm continually losing large clumps.  Those water holding vases provide an aroma that my younger dog still goes after.  Yesterday I noticed he had torn out the flowering cores of some very colorful Neoreglias at the foot of my Dypsis robusta.  Fortunately all my bromeliads were transplanted cuttings from my old garden, but now I'm moving cuttings out into my front yard, where he doesn't wander freely like he can behind the gates.  I'm a bit jealous, but perhaps he will grow out of this eventually, but I'm not certain given that he's now 1 1/2 years old.  He's a good boy otherwise, so it's a small price to pay.  None of my other dogs have been plant eaters other than liking fresh Hibiscus flowers  (tea anyone?).  Most importantly he nor any of my dogs have ever gone after Cycads, as the health consequences would be tragic.

[The Gerg]

48 minutes ago, Tracy said:

Nice color Greg.  I couldn't help thinking that you will havhe to do some thinning though in the not too distant future based on the cycads planted in the areas shown.  What looked like open space will be covered by the cycads in a few years, forcing you to make some choices.

I have the opposite thing going on in my yard with the bromeliads.  Instead of planting new ones, I'm continually losing large clumps.  Those water holding vases provide an aroma that my younger dog still goes after.  Yesterday I noticed he had torn out the flowering cores of some very colorful Neoreglias at the foot of my Dypsis robusta.  Fortunately all my bromeliads were transplanted cuttings from my old garden, but now I'm moving cuttings out into my front yard, where he doesn't wander freely like he can behind the gates.  I'm a bit jealous, but perhaps he will grow out of this eventually, but I'm not certain given that he's now 1 1/2 years old.  He's a good boy otherwise, so it's a small price to pay.  None of my other dogs have been plant eaters other than liking fresh Hibiscus flowers  (tea anyone?).  Most importantly he nor any of my dogs have ever gone after Cycads, as the health consequences would be tragic.

You are absolutely correct. Which btw is going to be the case in several places in my garden just between the palms battling it out. The bromeliads for now have been buried in their pots for that reason.  I have skipped some plants for dog concerns. I knew Sagos were poisonous to dogs. Not aware of what over cycads are. My dogs do chew a bit on some things, but don’t seem to go after the cycads. My two pups are about 2 and 1 1/2 years old. (Covid puppies). We had to put our previous dog down in 2020.

[Tracy]

25 minutes ago, The Gerg said:

Sagos were poisonous to dogs. Not aware of what over cycads are

Unfortunately all Cycads are poisonous and contan neurotoxins (Cycasin, B-methylamino-l-alanine).  It is more concentrated in seeds and cones, so I don't let either completely decay on plants, always removing them (harvesting seeds from females and the sporophylls, or cutting off cones to harvest pollen).  I don't think that the actual leaves, leaflets are very appealing to most dogs, so rarely a problem.  Dogs would definitely be much more curious though about seeds left to drop, so make sure you avoid that.  Cycas genus are more problematic than the other genra because the megasporophylls are so exposed, versus held in cones on the other genra which are much easier to remove intact.

[realarch]

The planting bed looks terrific Greg! Nothing like a couple of colorful ti plants………and Tracy,I had no idea that cycads were poisonous to animals. Luckily our turtles are within a confined area. 

Of all the ti’s in the garden, this one just jumps out and commands attention. It’s one of those ‘wow’ plants.

Tim

[N8ALLRIGHT]

On 8/5/2022 at 3:52 PM, Tracy said:

I don't think that the actual leaves, leaflets are very appealing to most dogs, so rarely a problem.  Dogs would definitely be much more curious though about seeds left to drop, so make sure you avoid that.  

You are correct probably with 99.9% of dogs. So I give you Tillie 

She's a English Staffordshire terrier.

Sweet,loyal,strong, excellent with my kids and dumb as a bag of hammers.

She ate a third of a flush of sago leaves as a pup. To be honest she ate everything,she chewed bat boards off my old house and spindles on the deck. We even had to take her to the emergency vet on a Sunday $$, because she was impacted with rope,mulch,water bottle caps, and a plastic squirt gun  luckily laxatives prevailed! Super glad she grew out of that

 

[Tracy]

This was once a thriving Neoreglia colony that extended out about 3' from the trunk of the Dypsis.  Now very little healthy growth remains.  If I bother to clean up the dead and torn up stuff, then the healthy growth ends up being the only remaining target and gets demolished faster.  I've taken starts of this to the front yard, but expect the original colony to be completely gone before Klaus grows out of eating them.  It used to be a nice contrast, with this down low against the colorful ringed trunk and a larger V. imperialis on the other side of the trunk and a nice blue E princeps in the foreground.... oh well.