Here’s a random question for you. If you could plant any plant in your garden that exists outside of your zone what would it be and why? The first and only rule with this question is that the plant must not be hardy in your zone. Other than that any plant you can think of is fair game.
With my first choice I would probably pick some citrus trees. Grapefruit and oranges would be great trees to have. We eat them fairly regularly and it would be good to just walk outside and pick something for breakfast. Maybe lemons also since they can be used for so many things. Fresh squeezed lemonade in the summer from trees in our own backyard would be awesome!
Another choice I might make would be Camellia sinensis which is used for making tea. It’s a zone 7-9 plant and would be a borderline plant here. We could possible cheat the zone and plant it outside but the winters would most likely damage it. We’re about as close to zone 7 as you can get without actually being there. It could be planted in a pot indoors then put out for the spring, summer, and part of fall. We drink tea fairly often and it would be nice to have green tea fresh or try to make our own black tea.
What would you plant?
My parents wintered in Florida for several years and my mother loved the Bottle Brush so I would chose that in honor of my mother. One of my daughters lives in Florida and has a couple of orange trees (not sure of the type) and I have been there when they were ripe and the are soooo good I would chose that. Now living in Maine these choices are really stretches. LOL
I am with you Dave and would go for the Orange tree! We probably could grow one here in GA since we are so close to the FL zone but dont think I will plant one though. I would worry myself silly over the thing. It would take over my life!
I think I would go for pineapple. That’s my mom’s favorite, so to be nice to her, that’s what I would choose.
I would plant some evergreen trees which don’t grow here, but grow in my home state of maine. some like balsams and firs.
dave, camelias do grow here. i don’t have camelia sinensis, but the camelia sasanqua. they work great up here on the border of kentucky.
mom and skeeter, nice to see you two over here talking with dave. i hope he is giving you some good ideas!
I’d go for avocados. They are grown commercially further north in New Zealand, but here in Dunedin – no way. Of course, if we could grow those we could also grow citrus and that would be a bonus. But then we wouldn’t be able to grow peonies, so….
Incidentally, I’d love to know which U.S. hardiness zone we equate to here, but I’ve never been able to find out.
Jean,
You could do dwarf citrus in a pot but it wouldn’t be the same as your daughter’s tree. Also the bottle brush would be neat. I looked it up and found it is actually native of Australia! That’s pretty interesting I think. 🙂
Skeeter,
They do take a lot of maintenance to get anything from them. Spider mites are awful. I have two lemon trees and a grapefruit in pots in the garage and they are constantly getting spider mites. I’ve never seen more than the beginning of any fruit.
Sherry,
A pineapple would be interesting. It would be great for Japanese or Hawaiian dishes!
Tina,
Those evergreens would be nice to have. They would probably get hurt by the summer heat. The camellia sasanqua has the same hardiness zone as the camellia sinensis so if that works outdoors year round the camellia sinensis might as well! I may have to give it a try.
Keith,
I forgot all about avocados! We make guacamole on a semi-regular basis and it would be great to have the avocados growing right there in the backyard. I like them plain or in an omelet. I went to Califonia once and they were on the omelet I had. At first I thought it was strange then I ate it and it was great.
What is your yearly temperature high and low? I might be able to make a guess on the hardiness zone.
Those are great choices which I would consider but I really crave the Himalayan Blue Poppy. It is just so beautiful!