Tropical Tour Miami

     ​As spring is fast approaching, I am busy planning away and gearing up for another growing season. Before it gets too late, I want to take one last look back at this past winter. It was a quiet winter with many travels to visit friends and celebrations where plenty of imbibing of good food and adult beverages was going on. In January, I attended the annual Digging In: Gathering for Professional Container Garden Designers. This year the yearly conference was held in Miami, Florida. I needed no other excuse to travel from Michigan to south Florida in the middle of winter, but this year’s gathering coincided with Tropical Plant International Expo in Fort Lauderdale. A bonus, indeed! Please read on for photos from my trip. Many of my summer and indoor installations this year will take inspiration from this trip!

Nursery Tour: Princeton, Florida
This area of Florida reminded me of home! Nursery after plant nursery, fields of green around every corner. The only difference is I’m looking at fields of tropical plants instead of ornamental shrubs and perennials.


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​Not every day you see a forest of Fiddle Leaf Fig! Can you believe they grow these out in full sun? They will move to a shady greenhouse to “harden it off” before shipping up north where it will most likely live the rest of it’s life indoors.

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If you own a houseplant, it probably came from Costa Farms. They own almost every tropical plant nursery in south Florida. We enjoyed the rare opportunity to view Costa Farms trial gardens. We got a first-hand look at new plants before they have hit the market. Like this baby:

This is a Salvia! What?

Bullis Bromeliads is the leading grower of Bromeliads in the United States. Recently, through the use of tissue culture, hundreds of new varieties of Bromeliad are available to designers and homeowners. I’ve always been scared to plant these guys, as their water requirements are so unique. I was let in on a couple secrets on how to take care of these guys: Don’t plant them in your containers! Keep the Bromeliad in its plastic pot from the nursery and set the pot in your planter among your other container plantings. Then you can water the Bromeliad only when it needs it, which is hardly ever. You can fill the leaves up with water as long as the Bromeliad is located in sun(morning sun preferably). But, do not allow the water to remain on leaves when grown in shade… it’ll rot

Quite the display garden at Bullis including a huge koi pond!
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TPIE: Tropical Plant International Expo
This place was huge! I met a lot of new pottery vendors here and can’t wait to give them a try. I also got a lot of inspiration from the fun displays. The entire room smelled like leaf shine! Houseplants are back in style with modern planters and displays being the biggest trend this season.
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No shortage of selfie opportunities, but I guess I wasn’t in a selfie mood.
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South Beach:
Miami has no shortage of green space to explore, to the delight of this northerner.
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I had no idea when I entered the Miami Botanic Gardens that I was in for my first time ever sighting of a Rainbow Eucalyptus! This picture is of the bark because that is all that truly matters. This particular tree was completely topped during Hurricane Dorian, but has made a strong recovery back to a very grand tree.
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Another theme from my trip was the “plants on plants” theme. I love how this tree makes a lovely home for this Staghorn Fern nestled in the crotch of it’s branches.
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A little maintenance on the living green wall outside of 1Hotel. Scissor lift required for this garden crew.
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The inside of 1Hotel also has plenty to satisfy the biophilia (innate tendency to make connections with nature). Check out these old TVs made into terrariums. The white, shelf mushrooms were a nice touch!
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And this Moss Wall, wow!
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The Raliegh Hotel is closed for construction, but their sculpture garden is open to the public. It’s a quiet hideaway just steps from the beach.
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