Favourite exotics are semi-tropicals

The first bamboo I ever planted, phyllostachis aurea.(1)

A couple of bananas early in the year. (2) is nearly ready for outside and (3) is just emerging from dormancy. The spiky things are puyas but I think I lost them, despite the greenhouse, in the big freeze Dec. 2010.

One of my main loves is dark leaved plants. This is an ophiopogon, a slow growing grass. (4)

The pandorea jasminoides or Bower of Beauty is an Australian perennial that will grow easily here but it doesn't do brilliantly after germination. In this neck of the woods it has to be grown as an annual but it does produce loads of seed. (5)

And the cycad is not as hardy as the sellers tell you. I rescued this one in time and now grow it as a house plant. (6)

My baby Flamingo willow bought for 50p as dead at Wilko's. They don't do that sort of thing anymore. (7)

A hardy (I hope) yucca which came into flower summer 2009. All the experts told me it would die after flowering so I dead-headed it before it could seed and it still seems OK. (8 & 9)

A phoenix palm. If you are in the U.K. the only way to deal with these is to put them under glass in winter. Again, the sellers are economical with the truth. (10)

My total favourite. A ricinus communis. Not as poison as they say. (11)

A sauromatum that I haven't got a picture of in flower, or even in leaf. (12)
And continued............... (10, 11 & 12)
...........and continued. I was sorry in a way to see the old rustic, tree-trunk fencing go, in a way, but it was totally rotten and just a great home for wood-lice. (13, 14, 15 &16)

And eventually I started to get the plants ready to go into the borders (17 & 18) and think about the new soft-fruit area in front of the greenhouse (16). Picture to follow, this summer (2011).