Lawn Turned TROPICAL PARADISE Backyard

Well, down in Florida to speak at the International Aeroid Conference, I visited Laura Robbins' backyard lawn turned tropical paradise. And tropical it was. Now, full disclosure, the humidity was constantly fogging up my lens for over an hour, so you'll need to bear with the ethereal blur now and again. Welcome to my garden, grow paradise. So the garden was basically just grass and three oaks, and I'm lucky that my husband shares my passion, and I bring the plants and I ask him to dig them. That's a lot of hole digging. A lot of hole digging. The ponds are his idea, and he keeps up the fish and the pond, so. So this was all grass? This was all grass, yes. How long did it take to kind of bring this masterpiece? We've been here nine years. But it's been done in stages. We were gone for one winter, and I was worried about my Sirtostaki's renda, and we decided to make this pond just to house it. Oh, there we go. The spirit of sanctity right there. And then my husband loves spiny palms, so we have a lot of horrific spiny palms that I have to take the leaves, and I end up with thorns everywhere. That's Bactris in the back and Aphenis in the front. You have your variegated Christmas palms. Some of your crotons, and this is a metallic palm? Yeah, Metallica. These are great. I really wish that these were a little better at growing indoors. That one seeds all the time. This was a coconut that we found on the street, and I just placed it there. I didn't even plant it. And in nine years, it's grown this big. And, you know, sometimes I wonder if I'm going to get brain damage when those things fall. Absolutely. Wow. Yeah, you have to be definitely careful when you're walking under this. And then this billy, we had a cold spell last December, and all the variegated leaves fell out, and now I'm getting some yellow mint ones. So maybe I have a new hybrid. Who knows? Maybe, who knows? I mean, sometimes, you know, sometimes the variegation could go away completely, depending on the conditions. It's not green, because I have a green one. It's actually more yellow. I think that the platyceriums are very trendy right now, too. And we've had this one for a long time. It's a Hotung Miyai. My husband had the structure made for it, but he might have made it a little too short. We didn't realize it was going to get that big. And then I have my Vanda flowering right now. Pelagodoxa henriana right here that's growing. Oh, that's a first one for me. And this is Osmoxolin linaris. It's quite mature, so it's giant. It's great. Look at the flowers starting, too. That's great. It's beautiful, yeah. I first saw these at Marie Knox's place. Right, she spoke about them. I also have an orange form in the front, but it's still immature. And I know you had a whole episode about these. Yes. So, and that's a Fiji palm, Grand Picharda. Picharda Pacific, I believe. And another one of my platyceriums, Coronarium. It's a cute little one. Yeah. It's just starting out. Yeah. And I love the fern, variegated fern. Yes. And the globa with the yellow flowers. Metanilus. I have two of these. These have a special place in my heart because they were given to me by Steve Knox, Marie's husband. Yeah. So, Citrosperma. These stay redder, but I have some that are very mature in the bog, and they get really big. And how does your husband like these? Because these are also spiny. He loves spiny palms. Yes, yes, it goes with the spiny. Yeah. That's a hydrosteel. That's beautiful too. The old man. I have a large form albo that is starting to grow there, Mostera. I think what's wonderful is that some of the plants, the emotions that come because of who they came from, like Steve or Cookie, who recently died also, you know, it's just, it's wonderful. There's a saying from an architect in Mexico that a garden should be a combination of poetry and mystery, but bring you joy and serenity. And that's Barragan from Mexico. And I think that's what this garden does. It just, through COVID, it was just my sanity. How do you keep up the landscaping? What's the most things that you need to do here? Is it cleaning off dead leaves? Actually, we wake up super early. I come in and I oversee that the plants are in the correct place. I pick up any leaves that have fallen and we just walk around. And that's just, that's better than yoga sometimes. My husband feeds the fish and then we go to do the rest of our day. So you do have to do it early in the morning here in Florida because otherwise you fry. It gets really hot really quickly. That's why we're out here in the morning and it's very humid out here. It's so humid. Yeah. I think this is the one of the worst years. This is beautiful too. Oranga, cucuriana, I believe. Segreses that came from our other house. We, when we moved, we've tried, we tried to bring as many plants as we could. So how do you, how do you get something that big over? It wasn't that big because we remember we've been here nine years. So, you know. And things grow like weeds here. Yeah. So that's a circus peanuts. A true circus peanuts. Yes. Everybody that's millennial tells me to cut it and sell it. I like to enjoy the big size of it. Sure. And this is a liquala peltata. These are beautiful. I love liqualas. Yeah. And a variegated jungle, I believe, beaver. I'm not sure. Jungle. I've not kept up on all the hybrids and cultivars. And this is another hydrosteel. It's beautiful. And when it's not a thousand degrees, we will have people over for dinner here. It's just absolutely beautiful. So hungry. I can't believe when they start jumping out and roiling in the water. Well, my husband hand-feeds them. So cute. So much joy with the koi. So my husband is really the fish and I'm the plant person. So, and this is my family of anthuriums here. I have a magnificent regale. I have chrysalinums. That's Bill's silver. He calls it pink lemonade because it comes out pink. Just the smoggiest board of all different anthuriums there. Tim Anderson block. And I don't know if you saw the anthurium bird nest. It's a little, it's small. Give it time. Give it time. I'm being sarcastic. If it gets any bigger, I think I'm going to have to cut it. Look at, that's one that Steve gave us and there's Steve Knox. So the other sort of this one is more mature and it gets the black influence. And then the last hispinosa was given to me by Steve also. We used to go plant shopping with them when 35 years ago, because my son is 30 and I wasn't even pregnant. And I remember Steve just hanging out and explaining all these scientific names to me. And I would be like, I don't know what you're saying, but we, we bought a lot of plants from them. And it just, I just have a special place in my heart for Steve and Marie. Yeah. Well, they have definitely spread the joy of many plants and have grown many plants and. And I'm lucky that they were in Miami. So I have Bill from Silver Chrome and, and Steve and all these wonderful people. So the robolinis were here before and the oaks. These guys. Yes. Okay. We left them because they were, you know, hanging over and we thought that they would be cool. And then the oaks are the ones that the platycerium. Yeah. The, the oaks are about a hundred years old. We had three, one got struck with lightning over there and it's dead. That's another platycerium. And this was one of the first plants that I bought through COVID. I actually got it from Justin Schumann. So who probably got it from Enid. I have the, this is a hybrid with gloriosum. It's called glorious. I believe glorious. Now, do you prevent things from seeding in here and you try to keep the pathway clean, or I'd imagine some things try to seed. Well, as you can see the macarangas, which are ridiculous, they seed and I have macarangas everywhere. I've been pulling them out for you, but it's a little crazy. So here's another spiny palm, the Versacea splendida. As you can see, my husband is in heaven with all of these. Trying to keep them away, somewhat away from the walk We can cross here and my passion even goes inside. So this is our shower. Oh, that's fantastic. I have way too many plants in here. And I said, well, he is Tarzan, isn't he? Well, this is fantastic. That's a wonderful way to take a shower. So, so like I said, we've been doing it in certain stages. So my last stage was clearing this. You couldn't walk here before and clearing it and putting gravel steps. And please watch out because the steps are super slippery. This is clairvinc, variegated axora. And this is a hybrid It's nice. It's like a peachier color. Yeah. And it, it doesn't need to be in the water because it's not as cold, sensitive as the other one. So here you can appreciate more. Oh yeah. Oh, there's actually an influence. Look. Oh yeah. Look at those are fabulous. There's bigger ones up here. They lose their red when they're that big. And the last hispinosa gets a curly influence. That's just magnificent. I have my baby nono banana, which I hope will grow and not rot in this weather. Yeah. You deal with a lot of humidity for sure. And my aria. Here's my white variegated banana, but actually you're really lucky right now because I'm one of the few people that can grow a sexy pink and it's starting to open right now. And what is so specific about this plant? I don't know of anybody that's been able to grow it in South Florida. So is it because it's just not enough humidity or what, what do you think? They just don't have success. I'm not sure what it is, but they, they're not able to grow it. Well, I love these ferns. These are actually great to grow indoors now. I can't remember the name of them. Dry Naria rigida. That's the name of the fern. I couldn't think of it. The orchids starting to flower. And this is a, this is a green monstera, but you know, as variegation goes, there's two variegated variegated leaves and there's two green leaves. So you never know. Everybody loves this piece. Is this more like a Xanadu or what is? I got it from Michael Leandre and I asked him yesterday because I couldn't remember and we couldn't come up with what exactly it was. So, and then white princess, and then you can usually go down there, but it's so slippery right now that I wouldn't recommend it. To see the anthuriums. This is beautiful. Is this like a, it's an orange marmalade. Wow. These just remind me of ginormous painted ladies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they're pointier, I believe. Yes, and just the leaves are much larger. But everything grows large in my garden because we water with the, the pond is an open system with the aquifer. Yeah. And we water with the pond water. So it's got the fish poop in it. Oh, it's got great fish poop. So everything gets the water from the fish poop. Natural fertilizer. Yeah. I want to show you something. I, you know, all the people that love their ficus laureata, is that how you say it? Yeah, laureata. Please don't plant it because that's what happens. Oh boy. And when it's really happy, it has figs and they come down like tennis balls. So you could be standing here and be get, you know, just be blind by, by one of those. But there you go, boys and girls, that's what it grows up to. If you live in Florida. If you plant it in the soil in New York, you're not going to see it next year. And, and that's where I put the people that try to take my plants. Right in the coffin. We found that, found it in the street. I, I love to walk around in the neighborhood and sometimes we, we find fabulous stuff. This is a jade vine. The trellis. Oh, the strong vine. It's absolutely stunning when it flowers. So, and the heliconias are beautiful too. And we have this because we have a generator. In Florida, you have hurricanes. So we made a wall to cover the generator. I try to make this a living wall with aeroids, but the water situation here in Florida makes everything rust and rot. So I, I stopped putting water and just, I put the bromeliads and I water them once in a while. Yeah. Bromeliads, the ripsalsa. I mean, I think that it makes sense. You try something. If it doesn't really quite work, then you don't necessarily try it again. You, you work with something else that's happier there. Yeah. That's great. It's a great way to screen, like you said, your generator that could be, you know, an eyesore and then you turn it into a living wall. I love this pathway though. Yeah. Definitely has some whimsy. Was this all grass as well behind here? It was just dirt. Oh, wow. Well, thank you. This is such a lovely little tour. Well, thank you for coming. Yeah. And being, so I can share my passion and my garden and I hope everybody enjoys it. Hope you enjoyed the latest Plant One On Me tour. Now, if you like what we produce, consider liking, subscribing, tipping, and hitting the notifications button so you know when the next episodes release. And be sure to check out our online houseplant courses and other offerings over at homesteadbrooklyn.com. And be sure to check out our sister channel over at Flock Finger Lakes. We'll see you in the next episode.