What plants do you grow besides orchids?
 

I have collected plants for a long time. Outside are nut and fruit trees, berries, herbs, butterfly plants, and flowers. Indoors, I grow many tropical plants. Here is a partial list:
Cinnamomum zeylanicum
Pimenta officinalis
Theobroma cacao
Jasminum samblac 'Maid of Orleans'
Jasminum nitidum
Stephanotis
Piper nigrum
Camellia sinensis
Coffee arabica
Hibiscus red
Hibiscus pink
Fiscus
Lemon verbena
Rosemary
French lavendar
Plumeria
passion fruit
a few CP's

What, other than orchids do you grow?

Besides orchids, I grow about a dozen varieties of succulents and a few cactus, bromeliads and tillandsia. Some of my other favorites include a Flamingo Anthurium, Passion Flower, Mexican Flame Vine, Deer Foot Fern, miniature Pomagranite, Royal Poinciana, Aristolochia, and a Mango tree. I love growing vegetable and herbs too. Unfortunately I've been too busy to start a garden and settled for a few low maintenance containers of chives and parsley.

I have enjoyed your pictures in the past! I have two little mango trees in a pot, started from seed. I hope they are slow growers. I have an improved myers lemon, an orange tree, calla lily, Norfolk pine...the list goes on. It makes winter in Ohio easier to tolerate, at least for me. My family, however, do not have the same appreciation of the indoor tropics.

I've recently flipped out on improving my vegetable gardens and just built a 16 by 32 shade house specifically for hot peppers.LOL, 22 varieties.
If you can name a vegetable or fruit there's a good chance I'm growing it.
My neighbor calls me 'fligito.(afflicted):rofl:

I love peppers! Would love to see a picture of said shade house. :)

I grow mostly orchids, but also have:
various Tillandsias
a few Bromeliads
rosemary
ficus, bonsai in training
Chinese Elm, bonsai in training
African Violets
honeysuckle, recently given to me from another OS member :)
jasmine
bougainvillea
aloe vera
other plants
various low light tropicals in terrariums

I grow inside a Jade, two Hoyas, and nine plumerias I started from seed. The plumerias are outside for summer break right now. I also have a rubber plant. I have unlimited access to tons of house plants since my Mom grows tons of them. When I was growing up my friends always said I lived in a jungle! My mini Hoya is a cutting from my Nana's plant and my larger Hoya is a cutting from my mothers. Her plant is amazing. It is strung all over the ceiling in her house. It is gorgeous. The blooms hang down from the ceiling like in a jungle canopy. This variety has to be quite large to flower so mine hasn't bloomed yet. I used to have a hibiscus but it died a few years back.

I have a large 15 year old Jade plant
I have four Adenium obesum (desert rose) in different shapes and colors(pink,red and orange)
I have two small red pepper plants that bears fruits all year round and makes a neat xmas tree....
I have two kinds of Joyas
Dischidia platyphylla (see pic)

Thank you. To give you an idea about their rate of growth... My mango was about 3' tall when I bought it 4 years ago. It's about 8' tall now and it's growing in my front yard. Last year it set fruit but the fruit aborted when they were still small. This year the tree had tons of blooms but a brief cold front destroyed all but a few of them. My big harvest was limited to one large delicious mango. :lol:

Thanks Junebug. No chance of planting these guys outside, unfortunately.

I have a hoya (rubra?) that never blooms. Now it is completely neglected. Somehow, it survives.
I had a large aloe with offspring and due to space issues, I now have a couple of tiny offspring.

Try adding a little bone meal to your hoya. I mixed some in with all my succulents the last time I repotted and within a few weeks there was a marked increase in growth and blooms.

Do I add it at any time of the year? I would like to see this bloom someday. Everyone tells me how easy it is to get them to bloom and I'm stuck enjoying the leaves. Thanks for the tip!

I don't really know. I found an article about adding bone meal while I was looking for a recipe for succulent potting mixes. I used 4 cups sand, and 2 cups good quality potting soil that a local nursery bags up. To this mixture I threw in 1 large handfull of peat and 1 large handfull of bone meal. My succulents are grown outdoors, some receive a.m. Eastern exposure and some receive W/NW exposure during late afternoon. My succulents are grown outdoors and with this mixture, during Summer, I thoroughly water about every 3 days.

Leafmite- My Mother grows quite a few of these and the really big one she has didn't bloom at all tell it got really big and tell it got better light. I think they need a lot of light. The smaller variety blooms quite small though. I don't know their names but there are a lot of kinds of Hoyas out there! I have a piece of her big one but it is too small to bloom. It grows well though. I hope you get blooms soon!

Fragrant pelargoniums, Ficus benjamina, different cyperus, some tropical ferns, philodendron, begonias…

"My big harvest was limited to one large delicious mango. :lol:" Congratulations that's Ace!

from seed:

Ficus benghalensis
Ficus religiosa
Ficus cotinifolia
Ficus crocata
Ficus obtusifolia
Ficus rubiginosa
Kumquat
Red Mangrove

Mango (polyembrionic)
Started some Plumeria from seed, Annatto (Bixia)
Opuntia ficus indica

Habanero peppers from Yucatan and Jamaica

then I have not from seed
Ficus virens, Ficus palmeri, Ficus carica
Coffea arabica, Epiphyllum oxipetalum
Pinguiculas, Dorosera
Platycerum veitchii
Monstera deliciosa
Opuntia humifusa
etc

I grow bonsai. Mostly have a decent collection of Japanese Maples of all shapes and sizes.

I also grow coral. I have a reef tank and it allows me to do "under water" gardening :)

And just recently I got bit by the orchid bug! I like to grow beautiful things! :biggrin:

I might try a bonsi growing with an allspice cutting. I will definitely be a newbie with that. : )
Thankyou, everyone, for hoya advice. One of these days....

You really have a great collection. I think your cinnamon will do fine as you grow a wide variety of other exotics and understand how to research and adapt for indoor growing. Theobroma (chocolate) grows well indoors, too. It likes shade, has a small root system....

Where did you get the Cinnamonum? is it C. verum or C. aromaticum?

I bought mine at Logees, located in Ct. They don't always have it so I had to keep checking. I like Logees as the plants always arrive healthy and are packed very carefully for shipping. It should be the Cinnamomum zeylanicum.

Besides orchids, I grow 2 Hoyas, a Medenilla Magnifica, Night blooming Cereus, 2 Staghorn ferns, 1 Anthurium lily, a spider plant, 2 Clivias, 1 desert rose. Used to have more variety but found they kind of languished cos I spend so much time on the 'chids.

Used to have more variety but found they kind of languished cos I spend so much time on the 'chids.[/QUOTE]

I can certainly identify with that.

I have a slightly limited collection of houseplants, because my mother won't let me grow more than six (Yes I know I have seven, before you point it out) houseplants at any one time. I currently have:

1 Pelargonium 'Octavia'
1 orchid noid
1 crazy Amaryllis who has decided to flower in August

1 Fuchsia
1 Ivy
1 Fern
1 Honeysuckle

By the way, Leafmite; my copy of The House Plant Expert says that if buds appear on your Hoya, do not disturb any of the buds, or they will fall off.

In my house I have a Hoya, a Hippeastrum (commonly, but incorrectly, known as amaryllis), a Jade, a Weeping Fig, and something that said 'Dragon Plant' on the tag, not sure what it except that it's taller than me.

I also have several butterworts and a pitcher plant, which were all bought to catch the fungus gnats that like my orchids.

Lots of things in the garden, but I especially love the Fushias (a hardy variety which dies back to nothing in the heavy frost but comes back up every year), the monbretia, lupins, and I seem to have a lot of hebes of various colours and especially love the variegated leaf ones though the solid coloured leaf ones seem to do better in the frosts.

I love 'The House Plant Expert', by Dr. D.G. Hessayon. It is a great book. The only thing the book neglects (for the most part) is soil pH. I also have 'The Hyponex Handbook of House Plants' which is an older one.
Thank you for the hoya tips. Someday....

Thanks tindomul. I wonder if I can find Cinnamomum verum, the true cinnamon.

Cinnamomum zeylanicum seems to be a synonym for Cinniamomum verum but I could be wrong. The common spice sold in stores comes from the Cassia.

Yeah I know about Cassia. you can find true cinnamon too. easier to tell not ground. I like true cinnamon in my coffee. I can't put cassia / chinese cinnamon ( reg. cinnamon in the USA). Many Mexican product stores carry true cinnamon

What a fun thread. Here's what I have going on...

Thanks to a solarium on the house I have:
About seven types of citrus
Roughly 50+ hippeastrum hybrids and species
Several elephant jade trained as bonsai
Hibiscus for my wife because she looooooves Hawaii and those amazingly huge flowers
Clivia miniata...one of my favorites in or out of bloom
A ficus, which is actually twenty or so smaller ficus but bound together to make one larger tree also as bonsai
Several types of succulents and cacti... My favorite being a euphorbia obessa that is the shape of a sphere. It's so odd looking and loves to be neglected.

I grow many other things outside but too many to list but I will say I live high in altitude and it's quite dry here so I've been obsessed with growing a better Eco system on my property. Russian sage has been the key to that new Eco system. We had no life on our property because nothing ever flowered or grew. Just grass and grasshoppers. I began planting loads of Russian sage around he garden to attract bees and low and behold its working. Native plants enjoying the water from the garden are even flowering now too and enjoyed by the bees. It's amazing what a small change to the environment can do. Also Russian sage uses very little water...perfect for high colorado!

Stefpix, here is one link:
Species Information
Logees still had the plant the last time I looked. It grows very well in a soil mixed 50/50 peat and perlite, with the addition of pine bark, sand, and an organic fertilizer for holly and camelias. Very easy to grow. Good luck!

Colorado sounds like a challenge. Glad you found something that worked.

Thanks leafmite. I get the newsletter from Logee's. Their prices seem a bit steep for very small plants. I ordered a Pimenta dioica (allspice) from wellspring for 7.99 + a couple of named varieties of common fig.

Pimenta has a really great smell in the leaves too, even if the seeds are sold as spice. The seeds have short viability and it is hard to propagate by cuttings.

I am really into figs. compared to orchids they offer instant gratification. I got a Hardy Chicago on sale at Lowes and the small rooted cutting is already producing figs. they seem undemanding easy plants.

Same with the tropical Ficus I have been growing from seed. Usually grow as strangler banyan trees.

In the greenhouse: oxalis and rabbit's foot ferns - neither by choice, and an "apostle plant", Neomarica gracilis (below). I would not waste orchid space for much of anything. OK. Basil over the winter.

https://www.firstrays.com/images/pro...a_gracilis.jpg

Here’s my list of flowers I grow in my garden other than orchids:
Sweet pea
Anthurium
Hibiscus
Nasturtium
Marigold
Bromeliads
African Violets

i grew a pumpkin this year! boy am i excited :D