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Beautiful Blooms

January 21st, 2015

If you remember I purchased a variety of dwarf tropical plants this summer to add to my houseplants collection. They’ve all done very well so far and I’m pleased with their performance. Since winter is the dry season in the tropics, I let them dry out well between waterings. I noticed this past weekend that the avocado tree is blooming!
Day Avocado tree 1
Day Avocado tree 2
Most likely it will not produce any fruit this go around, from what I have read it needs to be about three feet tall before it will produce fruit. My tiny tree is only about 28 inches tall or so. If you’d like to read up on growing edible houseplants, check out Growing Tasty Tropical Plants in Any Home, Anywhere: (like lemons, limes, citrons, grapefruit, kumquats, sunquats, tahitian oranges, barbados cherries, … black pepper, cinnamon, vanilla, and more), it’s a great resource.
dwarf banana plant
dwarf papaya plant

My dwarf banana is putting off suckers, these will be taken off and gifted to friends. The papaya is also doing very well, it’s putting on lots of new growth. The mango seems to be the slowest growing of them all, but I’m OK with that. They have certainly been a joy to have around this year. Here’s hoping for homegrown tropical fruit here in Maine!

Do you have any tropicals that live in the house?

7 Comments to “Beautiful Blooms”
  1. Nebraska Dave on January 21, 2015 at 9:46 am

    Susy, you continue to amaze me with your gardening endeavors. I am not so bold as to try to raise tropical plants in the cold Nebraska winter weather. It’s truly amazing what you do with plants. I’m just this year going to try to push the spring season limit a little with early inside planting for tomatoes and green peppers. My plans are to be prepared for rain, wind, hail, sleet, floods, or what ever Ma nature throws at me this year. Last year was truly an eye opener as to what to prepare for in the future. I’m ready this year in a true gardener way to survive the stringent extreme weather of 2015. :-)

    Have a great Maine tropical plant day.

    Reply to Nebraska Dave's comment

  2. Mary Z on January 21, 2015 at 10:16 am

    A friend here in Maryland has a banana tree that’s giving him fruit. Pretty thrilling.

    Reply to Mary Z's comment

  3. Lemongrass on January 21, 2015 at 12:30 pm

    Apart from enjoying the fruits from your tropical plants, their leaves have medicinal benefits too. I recently found “Herbal Plants of Jamaica” (Bush Teas, Bush Baths, Flavourings,and Spices) a book written by Monica Warner and published by Macmillan Caribbean Natural History, from my local library. I have been enjoying guava tea here in the Caribbean.
    Enjoy your tropical plants.

    Reply to Lemongrass's comment

  4. Charlie@Seattle Trekker on January 21, 2015 at 5:29 pm

    It will be fun to see your tropical plants flower and set fruit.

    Reply to Charlie@Seattle Trekker's comment

  5. Sarah on January 21, 2015 at 10:57 pm

    I’m impressed with anyone who can grow fruit indoors. Maybe because I don’t have a garage or porch, I’m much better at just growing things outside – inside it’s too dry or too warm in the winter, it seems.

    Reply to Sarah's comment

  6. Alyse on July 15, 2017 at 1:44 pm

    I’m curious did the avocado tree ever produce? I can’t recall you saying.

    Thanks.

    Reply to Alyse's comment

    • Susy on October 23, 2017 at 8:00 pm

      They did not, it got a disease or something and died.

      Reply to Susy's comment

About

This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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