12 Plants I Wish I Could Grow but Can’t

November 26th, 2019

   The grass is always greener on the other side (unless you’re a fertilizer fanatic).

   The same is often true with plants when you travel to other climates and see what those gardeners can grow that you can’t.

   Warmer winters, different soils, and less erratic/extreme weather add up to a lot of amazing and beautiful plants that we just can’t grow in Pennsylvania.

A protea bloom.

   I’ve seen plenty that I wish I could grow but know that I can’t.

  Here are 12 at the top of my list:

Protea

   I saw these giant, other-worldly flowers growing in South Africa, and they’re so big, colorful, and showy that they make even our zinnias and dahlias look measly.

   Proteas’ crown-like, sunflower-sized blooms shout out attention. No wonder florists turn to them when they really want to make a statement.

Bismarck palm

The blue-foliage form of Bismarck palm.

   I love almost all palms, mainly because they’re the poster boys of beachy weather but also because they’re so textural and energetic on a windy day. Add blue sky as a backdrop, and I could look at that for hours.

   My favorite of all, though, is the Bismarck palm with its 10-foot-wide, pinwheel-like fans of steely blue.

Pride of Madeira

   I first saw the vibrant-blue, two-foot-long, pointed plumes of this shrub-like, Zone 9 perennial while leading a garden trip in Monterey, Calif. Everybody raved over them and wanted to know what they were (botanically, Echium candicans).

   If you think lupines are nice, double the size, turn them blue, and you get something close to pride of Madeira. The name is earned.

Blue poppies

   I tried and failed to grow these fickle perennials, which are really poppy-like, baby-blue flowers called Meconopsis rather than true poppies.

   They grow nicely in the moderate climates of the Pacific Northwest and Great Britain, but our summers are too hot and humid for these delicate beauties.

   My wife once bought me seeds and challenged my botanical manhood to grow them. I got a few seeds to germinate, babied one plant to garden planting, and that one died after one season and no bloom.

A ceanothus variety called Dark Star.

Ceanothus

   Nicknamed “California lilac,” this is another true-blue-bloomer, this time nearly covering four- to six-foot, rounded shrubs for weeks each year.

   Ceanothus is another plant that so many people on our trips to California and England pointed out and wondered what it was, then sulked when I had to tell them our winters are too cold for it.

Gunnera

   Giant leaves are the attraction here. Gunnera looks like a plant from dinosaur times, growing in large clumps with rhubarb-like leaves that grow upward on tubular, prickly stems.

   This is another plant that likes the moderate climate of Great Britain, thriving there as a hardy perennial in mostly damp and shaded spots as well as in showoffs’ gardens. If our winters weren’t too cold, this showoff would have a clump or two.

Bougainvillea

   Like palms, bougainvilleas are another icon of toasty climates. These are colorful vines that ramble or climb 20 feet or more and bloom for long periods in a wide range of colors, both pastel and bright.

   We have nothing that approaches that level of performance and variety in our vine arsenal. Clematis is as close as we can get.

Flame of Jamaica, a.k.a. Jamaican poinsettia.

Flame of Jamaica

   Poinsettias, in their native Mexican habitat, grow into small trees and look like they’re blooming red in winter when the bracts peak.

   I’d love to be to grow one of those outside, but maybe even a tad nicer is a Jamaican euphorbia relative called the “flame of Jamaica” and sometimes the “Jamaican poinsettia.” It grows denser to about six feet tall and produces familiar red poinsettia-like bracts with little yellow flowers in the center.

Chinese fringe flower

   We’re about one USDA hardiness zone short of being able to grow this beautiful tall shrub/small tree. It’s a very popular landscape plant from Virginia southward, where gardeners are especially drawn to the newer varieties with dark maroon leaves.

   The prized feature, though, is the heavy bloom of confetti-like flowers that nearly cover fringe flowers (Loropetalum) in spring. A lot of home gardeners chop them into balls (the plants don’t seem to mind), but I’ve seen 20-foot tree forms of them at Clemson University.

Blooms of the powder puff tree.

Powder puff tree

   You might run into this curious tropical tree in conservatories, many of which like to grow specimens for their puffy pink blooms that look either like tennis-ball-sized exploding stars or those round fabric scrubbers that some people use in the shower.

   Either way, the blooms are unusual and unlike anything we can grow in Pennsylvania.

Fruiting bananas

   I ate a ripe-off-the-tree banana for the first time on a trip to St. Lucia, where I bought a bunch at a roadside stand next to a banana grove. They were even sweeter than grocery-store ones.

   I’d love to be able to pick fresh bananas in the back yard. The hefty flag-like foliage of a banana tree would be a nice bonus.

   We can do a few root-hardy, dieback bananas like Musa basjoo, but our climate isn’t even close to support the lengthy warmth that the fruiters need.

Halfmens with their tufts of “hair.”

Halfmens

   These are 10- to 12-foot-tall, columnar, cactus-like plants that have tufts of foliage at the very top. They look like spiny poles with toupees – something straight out of a Dr. Seuss book.

   I saw colonies of them growing in a South African desert, where we were told that they got their name because they looked like half plant and half men.

   They’re not exactly beautiful, but they’re one of the weirdest plants I’ve ever seen.