It's the tropical Summers that do it , plus the daily watering and fertilizer twice a week
, lucky to be a Stay at home Dad and have the time for the Garden.
Kev , the plan is to re-deck the Deck and build an Arbor off the front of that with a Pond below front , Planters on the corners of the Pond . And then in front of that do a Patio area with a Firepit. Once I get the giant tree down I can plant out Fruit trees and veg beds with a screen of Timber Bamboo at the Back. The sides of the Garden will be large Bamboo also. The Sun passes almost directly over the garden so there are few shadows, this is latitude related, but it's a plus. The back of the House is South facing. I have the side bed next to the Deck for the Albiza and a few seasonal plants. I'll over Winter the Tropical Water Lilies in the Furnace room , I did this two Winters ago and managed to propagate a few plants even without extra heat or light. The Thalia will more than likely die off unless I can collect some small divisions. I'll get seed again but I've no idea how to greminate them, perhaps you guys could help with that. James says they take there time, sometimes a couple of years. I'll try and file the seeds like one does with Lotus and see if that helps. I should have more seed to send over if anyone wants it. I'm not sure what to do with some of the bigger Musa , I guess I could try dry storing them wrapped up as some of the guys here do.
To be honest I'm pretty fedup with the annual giants in and out business. I think I'll just keep cutting back on giant tender plants. I'll be storing tubers rather than trying to get growing plants trough the Winter.
Ewen the pots are mailorder/online , they are not hard to get and not too expensive even with postage. Perhaps they are available online for you too.
I did get a few pots from Landscape guys and this is a good source if you can track down prople who do larger Trees.
The 25 gallon are very hard to move , I use a me and a Handtruck or four guys which ever is to hand
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The 10 or i5 gallon pots are good for Bamboos, but I only use them for a season or two as Bamboos need there space. Ten or 15 gallon pots I pickup with one hand and move them , this is just shameless showingoff
I'm making another planting Box for a Timber Bamboo it will be 4ft by 8ft by 2ft, this should hold the Bamboo for a couple of years. With the Boxes being 2 ft tall I should get few escaping rhizomes, infact at the moment all the new rhizomes are on the surface so I've just added another layer of Manure and Bark Mulch.