We're here in the Big House.
This is one of our display houses for our retail customers, and also, again, a
reservoir for our stock material.
This house was built in 1938, or excuse me, in 1940. It was a salvage from the '38
hurricane. And it got the name 'Big House,' because, at the time, it was one of the largest
greenhouses that the family had put up.
It's a glass greenhouse, and the key to what the Big House does for us, is we
maintain this house very cold. The night temperatures in the wintertime usually
run around 40-42, sometimes into the high 30s. And what that does, is, that
gives us an environment where plants that actually need the cold in order to
flower, and to put them into a sort of semi-dormant state, will work for us, and come into
bloom. So, this is March. We're almost at the first of April, and it's been a warm year, this
year, so things are much farther ahead, mainly because we haven't been able to keep the
cold temperatures as long, so things are a little bit beyond what they normally
would do. But, for the Big House, spring really arrives, usually, the first week or
two of
February, and runs on until the middle of April, and that's when everything comes
into flower. If we walk down here I can show you,
like, we have Camellias that are in flower; those are plants that actually
need a chill in order for them to bloom. This is one of my favorites, right here, which,
really isn't found very often in the trade. This is 'Hermannia verticillata,' or Honeybells,
and it is one of the most fragrant, spring-blooming plants that we grow and
the key to having this flower, is that you have to give it a chill. As long as
temperatures are below 60 degrees at night, on a consistent basis--
we, preferably, like to keep it a little cooler than that, it will never go out of bloom.
And, so, if we have a long, cold spring, it will come into flower. So, the days shorten,
the temperature chills down, bud formation starts, as long as it stays
cool, this plant comes into flower. And it makes a great hanging basket, you see this is
a young one. We also create larger specimens of this-- the key to it; it's the
cold, but it's also high light. So this is not a plant to be grown under diminished
light conditions. You need very strong light for this. This was grown under the full sun
of glass. Not necessarily a great house plant, unless you've got that cold
unheated room or that cold sun room that you can grow it in. This is another spring-bloomer that we've grown for many
years. This is 'Tecomanthe dendrophila,' and it is a climber in the Bignoniaceae
family. And it puts out-- I can show you-- this is unusual to have so many blooms on a
small basket like this; usually it's a pretty heavy climber-- but you can see here,
it puts out these large clusters of flowers; and this is not temperature-sensitive as
much as it's day-length-sensitive, so it always comes into flower for us in the
springtime or in late winter. We also have another large plant of this in the
ground. But, it's an interesting plant, and you can see, that, you get that many
flowers off of that size of the plant. This had been climbing around and it was
wrapped back together, just to contain it.
So, we have-- our scented Geraniums are in here; this is a good house to grow them. You can see
they like it cool, and they like it sunny. And this is our collection. This
is a collection that my mother had a lot of interest in, and put together over the
years-- and we're still adding to it, but basically, the Logee collection is still
with us.
This is an interesting plant, right here. This is
'Michelia figo,' which is the Banana Shrub, and you can see
the flower right there.
This is in the Magnolia family. This plant has been here at least 25 years, or maybe
even longer.
It's one of our original plants of this clone. It's a little different than most
of the Michelia figos that are grown in the trade; it has a broader
leaf to it. Seems to flower better for us in containers, but, it smells like
bananas, and it smells like bananas only when the sun is on it. You know, this is early morning, the
fragrance hasn't come out, yet, but by mid-day, by noon, and into the afternoon,
if the sun is out, this whole area will smell like a banana. Interesting enough, it is a
Magnolia, and the flowers are very short-lived-- one day-- but, you can see the
buds coming on this, so, day after day, as we go through the spring, and into the
summer time, this will be
covered with flowers. And most of the year it blooms; there are periods during the late fall,
and into early winter when there are no flowers on it. But, usually--
the interesting thing about this clone, is it usually you'll be getting flowers, pretty
much, throughout the year.
This is-- in this house, we grow Brugmansias. This is 'Charles Grimaldi.'
We have a fairly extensive collection of-- and some of these-- as you can see, this
is pretty dense right here-- some of these are planted in the ground.
'Charles Grimaldi' has always been a good bloomer for us-- probably not the best, but it does
flower over a long period of time. I don't think there's been a day that this plant
hasn't been in flower, as long as I didn't cut it back, so it's pretty continuous for us.
This is another interesting plant-- this is the 'Calamondin Orange,' which is
a very prolific ornamental orange; you can see the fruit on it, and you can see the flower right here,
it has very high fragrance. It's a kumquat hybrid that is actually sour when you
eat it. You can eat it-- I mean, it's perfectly edible, but there's not much sugar to it.
But, the interesting thing is, you see how much fruit it produces, which goes back
to the kumquat, but, also, the fruit hangs on for a very long time, so it makes a
great container plant; very great potted plant. This is a large tree that's planted in
the back of all this, in the ground. And it's been there as long as I can remember, but it does
make a great indoor plant, for citrus, ornamentally, generally. This is our
'Euryops pectinatus,' which is a daisy-- silver-grey foliage; commonly used
throughout the West as landscaping plants. It takes quite a bit of cold, it can take it
down into the 20s, without much harm. Flowers in the wintertime, so, again,
shortened day-length is what initiates the flowers on it, and it tolerates the cooler temperatures here.
Leptosperumum hedge, and
this is the 'Leptospermum scoparium,' which is the
New Zealand Tea. It is also the
flower that makes the manuka honey, which has high anti-bacterial properties to it, and is,
on the market at very high prices. It's a winter-bloomer for us.
You can see this wall of it right here. and I'll
We shave this back, so that it doesn't come out, so you can walk through this. This plant originally-- when I was in my
late teens-- was in one of the other houses, and my brother and I dug it out
of the bench; it had rooted into the bench. It was probably three or four feet tall, and we
moved in here because it needed more room. Set it down in the pot, and by the time I got back from school
a number of years later, it rooted in and taken hold, so it's been here ever since. But, it makes a great standard. The
key to growing this is to have an acidic soil. It doesn't like lime and it will get really
funky if you do that. And never let go severely dry, because that will take it out. So, you got
to keep-- ease off on the fertilizer, but if you combine those three things
together, it's a very easy plant to grow. And of course, this is used in the West as a hedge. Many
types of Leptospermum are used as hedging.
This particular one has sort of a semi-double flower to it, so it's very ornamental.