Well I have been off traveling in the eastern part of the US mainland for the past month. I was not expecting to come back with garden photos for the the blog because I figured most gardens would by dying down for the winter at this time of the year. The trees were just starting to get their autumn colors which is always so exotic to us tropics dwellers and I got all excited about seeing walnuts and chestnuts falling from the trees.
However, as you can see from the following pictures, Biltmore Estate gardeners still had things in full show in their containers around Biltmore House. Biltmore is one of the few real grand houses of America and was built over a hundred years ago in Asheville, North Carolina by the fabulously wealthy Vanderbilt family. If you ever get to visit this beautiful house, make sure you visit the Italian and Walled gardens that are at the side of the house. I also really enjoyed the farm area as well.
You will recognize several tropical friends in the following photos that seem to do well in the summer in North Carolina but I expect they get moved into a glass house for the winter. I was surprised to see the variegated Hau (Beach Hibiscus) being used in a container but it really looked quite nice. All the same, I am getting rid of it in my own garden as it has turned into a monster that I do not want to be hard pruning for the rest of my life. Enjoy the following pictures and see how many tropical plants you can find in them. The last photo is not so much for the container but for the fantastic color and leaf combination of tropical plants.
Aloha
PS A very good article about the Biltmore Estate and its food production can be found at:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/article/a-thanksgiving-inspired-by-the-biltmore/ar-BBf8UNC
