It's Cold Outside but Warm in My Tropical Hoop House
Here at my farm temperatures today are expected to be in the low 30s - the beginning of a forecasted stretch of cold, wintry days.
When it is this cold, I am so grateful all my tender tropical plants are safe indoors. I have several sizable hoop houses where I store most of my tropical plants over winter. The structures are all made from steel frames and polyethylene panels. Inside, the temperature and humidity levels are closely monitored and can be adjusted when necessary. And every few days, I like to go into each one to see how the plants are doing.
Enjoy these photos.
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- This is the inside of one of my hoop houses. They work by heating and circulating air to create an artificial tropical environment. The entire structure is built using heavy gauge American made, triple-galvanized steel tubing.
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- The plants inside are all arranged with enough space in between them, so they don’t touch each other. These plants grow a little more each year, so the placement of these specimens will change every time they are stored.
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- The houses are checked a couple times each day to make sure the temperature remains comfortably warm inside. Too cold, plants will freeze – too hot, plants will rot. To simulate the best subtropical environment, we try to keep the temperature in this house between 50 and 85-degrees Fahrenheit with some humidity.
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- The bromeliads in this structure are all blooming. Bromeliads are members of the Bromeliaceae plant family. They feature striking, sword-shaped leaves and a bright, unusual-looking bloom. One of the most well-known bromeliads is the pineapple. These plants are native to tropical North and South America with about half growing in the ground and the remainder as epiphytes, or air plants, that grow on trees or rocks.
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- Most bromeliads grow as stemless rosettes of leaves that may be symmetrical or twisted and curled.
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- The jade plants are also flowering. I have always been a fan of jade plants, those evergreen succulents with attractive shiny, dark green, fleshy leaves. I have quite a few of these popular houseplants in my collection. Jade plants need to be at least four to five years old in order to produce flowers. Jade flowers are clusters of tiny, star-shaped, white or pinkish blooms.
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- I have many agaves, including this giant blue agave with its beautiful gray-blue spiky fleshy leaves. Do you know… tequila is actually distilled from the sap of the blue agave?
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- This is the top of a potted Beaucarnea recurvata, the elephant’s foot or ponytail palm – a species of plant in the family Asparagaceae, native to the states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz and San Luis Potosí in eastern Mexico. Despite its common name, it is not closely related to the true palms. In fact, it is a member of the Agave family and is actually a succulent.
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- It has a bulbous trunk, which is used to store water for its long, hair-like leaves that grow from the top of the trunk like a ponytail, giving the plant its name.
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- This is a Bismarckia palm, Bismarckia nobilis, which grows from a solitary trunk, gray to tan in color, and slightly bulging at the base. The nearly rounded leaves are enormous and are divided to a third its length into 20 or more stiff, once-folded segments.
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- Bismarckia is a monotypic genus of flowering plant in the palm family endemic to western and northern Madagascar, where they grow in open grassland. The genus is named for the first chancellor of the German Empire Otto von Bismarck and the epithet for its only species, Bismarckia nobilis, comes from Latin for ‘noble’.
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- Bismarckia nobilis grows from solitary trunks, which are gray to tan in color and show the old leaf bases.
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- This is the European fan palm. This is a slow-growing, clumping palm that grows eight to 15 feet tall and spreads six to 10 feet wide. This is the only palm native to Europe and is very hardy. The fine-textured fronds make this palm stand out from other plants. The leaf color ranges from lovely light green to silver.
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- I often underplant various pots with small spreading ground cover plants. Carpet sedum is a low maintenance, sun-loving, evergreen succulent that will thrive where other plants do not. It is native to parts of eastern Asia, with its name coming from the Latin word sedeo, meaning to sit, and lineare meaning linear, because of the narrow leaves. Sedums are often referred to as stonecrops because they are often found growing wild in rocky or stony areas.
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- The stephanotis plant, also known as Madagascar jasmine, Stephanotis floribunda, is a vine well loved for its deep green leathery foliage and clusters of fragrant white blossoms.
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- When they bear fruit, it’s a pod packed full of seeds that forms just after flower-bearing.
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- The staghorn fern is an unusual and attractive epiphyte that thrives in the tropics. I adore staghorns and over the years have collected quite a few of these magnificent specimens. Staghorn ferns are called Platyceriums. They are Old World tropicals native to Africa, northern Australia, and Southeast Asia.
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- The staghorn fern leaves are actually called fronds, and staghorn ferns have two types. The first is the “antler” frond – these are the large leaves that shoot out of the center of the plant, and from which staghorn ferns get their names, since they resemble the antlers of deer or moose.
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- The second type of staghorn fern frond is called the shield frond. These are the round, hard plate-like leaves that surround the base of the plant. Their function is to protect the plant roots, and take up water and nutrients.
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- This is another agave – one of many in my collection. It’s always so satisfying to walk into these hoop houses and see all the plants thriving. I am glad all my precious plants can be stored safely indoors during the winter. And of course, I always look forward to when they can come out of hiding again in the spring.
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