Exotic Plants

Overview

Purpose

Are you a beginner gardener who wants to get into general gardening or do you want to try out the exotic plants? My website will provide you with a storefront to purchase starter plants and seeds to start your own adventure of exotic plant gardening. Along with it, there will be guides on how to care for some exotic plants and links to YouTube videos that will go along with the guides. Use my website to turn your ordinary thumb into an exotic green thumb.

Audience

The audience will consist of people of all ages who are interested in tropical and exotic plants. The audience will contain both genders and those interested in gardening or information about tropical/exotic plants. This website should attract everyone who is interested in learning how to grow and maintain the exotic plants. Botanists and professional gardeners should be attracted to the site as well. In fact, the website should cater to just about everyone interested in anything gardening.

Branding

Website Logo

Style Guide

Color Palette

Palette URL: https://coolors.co/396e94-e7c24f-a43312-381d2a-aabd8c

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Typography

Heading Font: Open Sans

Open Sans would make a great heading font because it is easy to read it looks like both regular and bolded.

Paragraph Font: [Roboto]

Same with roboto, in fact they contrast with each other very well. Roboto, at least for me, feels very smooth on the eyes and I know my readers will feel the same way.

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The best Whitewater Rafting in Colorado, White Water Rafting Company offers rafting on the Colorado and Roaring Fork Rivers in Glenwood Springs. Since 1974, we have been family owned and operated, rafting the Shoshone section of Glenwood Canyon and beyond.

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Trips vary from mild and great for families, to trips exclusively for physically fit and experienced rafters. No matter what type of river adventures you are seeking, White Water Rafting Company can make it happen for you.

Navigation

Site Map

Home

Beginners Page

Plant Directory

Content

Home page

What Are We?

Welcome to our site on exotic plants. This will be your one stop shop for all thing’s exotic plants. Whether it is just general information or to growing your own. We strive to give you the best information possible that we have acquired through the years and from our own experience. This is website is designed to either generate your green thumb or upgrade it beyond your standard plants (broccoli, carrots, onions, potatoes *yawn*, boring, huh?). You will see plants on here that you would have never imagined existed on Earth (ever seen a durian? How about a kiwano?). We hope to provide you with the best information on growing, maintaining and maybe eating these amazing plants.

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Beginner Page

What Are Exotic Plants

Exotic plants are not your standard kind of plant. These could be flowers, fruits or vegetables that you usually do not purchase at grocery. In fact, you may need to go a specialty market for these kinds of plants. You may already be familiar with them, for example you have a standard Gros Michel banana or the most common found in grocery stores, the cavendish. However, there are different varieties of bananas, like the “Truly Tiny” which is a 3-foot banana tree that produces tiny edible bananas, the Musa Basjoo which is cold hearty (we’ll learn more about this later) banana plant that can grow up to 20 feet or more. Or you have everyone’s favorite (or one you are just learning about) the blue java banana which is variety that grows blue bananas before they ripen to yellow. Outside of bananas you have lychees, rambutans, kiwano, guanabana (soursop), papaya, passion fruit, star fruit, bird of paradise, hibiscus and so many more. Most listed are fruiting plants but most bear unbelievable colored flowers. I recommending searching up exotic plants in Google and going crazy. In fact, you may discover a nursery near you that sells these plants. Just make sure you know your hardiness zone (we’ll learn more about that later) so you now how you can grow it in your area.

Hardiness Zones

The USDA has 26 different hardiness zones (1-13a and 1-13b) all across the US and Puerto Rico. However, most of the time on the plants tag it will just list a number between 1-13, so you do not need to worry about a or b. Essentially a hardiness zone is what your minimum temperament is in the area that you live in. For example, up north like North Dakota ranges from 2-4 on the hardiness scale. Meaning the lowest temperature, it will get is between -45 and -25 F (-45.6 and -28.9 C). Then you have areas like Hawaii that between 25-70+ F (-3.9-21.1 C) depending on which island you live on. The USDA Hardiness Zone does not take into account humidity levels and how much light per day each state gets.

Gardening Basics

Taking care of exotic plants is almost similar to every other plants. Some will require lots of water, sunlight and fertilizer and others will need practically none. The very first thing you should always research is your Hardiness Zone and your soil type. This can be done through a simple google search on your zip code hardiness zone and “what plants grow well in my city”? After that, you can start gathering the materials that you will need. The top three is space, light and water. If you do not have access to that you may need to look into ways on obtaining these. If it’s light, you should be able to buy grow lights on Amazon or your nearest nursery. If it’s water, you could stock up on 5-gallon bottles or fill large water drums. Unless you are lucky enough to live in an area where water is abundant through weather, I’m looking at you Florida and Hawaii. Space is usually the hardest to get, but luckily you can grow pretty much anything inside in a raised pot or any kind of pot for this matter. Before purchasing any kind of exotic plant, put as much research as you can on the subject. The internet and books are pretty scattered on this information so I recommend using this site, local nursery and Reddit. In person is usually best because they will give you the best advice. After, you have done your research you can purchase your plant. Depending on what you researched you will learn how important watering is. I don’t mean to scare you but water is both the nectar of plant life and reaper of all exotic plants. In fact, watering will be the hardest part as you will need to determine what is best for your plant. Overwatering can rot your root system and underwatering that shrivel your root system. The general rule of thumb for exotic plants is making sure that the top soil is a little dark and moist to touch. Next thing you will learn about is the kind of soil you’ll need. From what I’ve learned most exotic plants like fast draining soil so your best friend will be cactus or palm soil. But again, go based on your research. As for the space, always go based on how tall your plant could get. 1-2 feet might do fine in a 12-inch pot, 3-4 feet might be best in 24-inch pot and anything above 5 feet would do best inground or in a large pot (24+ inches). You will also learn that some exotic plants love all sun, partial sun (also known as shaded) or completely shaded from the sun. You can learn more about specific plants on this website, feel free to browse.

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