Banana Pepper, Sweet Pepper, Pimento, Bird Pepper, Serrano Pepper, Jalapeno, Thai Chile ...

Chile Pepper Information and Recipes

How to get some free pepper plants?
~ Buy a few ripe peppers from the grocery; take the seeds out and grow it in a flower pot, the seeds will germinate if they are at nearly ripening age.

~Hot peppers can be used as companion planting to repel insects such as ants, mosquitoes, flies in the garden; avoid using bug spray or buying toxic pesticides and insecticides.

Banana Pepper/ Banana Chile/ Sweet Banana Pepper/ Pimento:
Banana-shaped pepper that changes from pale to deep yellow or orange as they mature. Sweet banana peppers are sweet, long, tapered, yellow and banana-shaped, may be fried or sautéed, used raw on relish platters.


Bird Pepper / Thai Bird Chile / Thai Chile / Thai Jalapeno:
Small chile, it packs an incredibly fiery punch. Thai chiles range in color from red to green when fully mature.


Serrano Pepper: Small, rich, waxy green peppers change to orange and red as they mature. They are about 1 ½” long with thin walls and the smaller they are, the more spicy flavor they have. It can be substituted with jalapeno in cooking.

Jalapeno Pepper: Popular chiles with a good amount of heat and rich flavor. Green jalapenos are best in the late summer, while red jalapenos appear in the fall. Canned jalapenos aren't as fiery as fresh.

Berries: Raspberry, Strawberry...

Berry bushes are easy to grow, but they take maintenance to keep producing sweet, delicious berries. Raspberries prefer full sunlight and grow best in well-drained and sandy loam soils. Raspberries needs regular simple pruning to keep bearing large, healthy crops and to prevent them from taking over the garden. If garden space is limited, berries can grow in containers. The crowns and roots of raspberry plants are perennial, but individual canes live two years. First-year canes have green stems, while second-year canes have a thin, brown bark covering them and will produce fruit.
Strawberry plants don't live forever. Renovating of strawberry bed is required in order to keep it producing delicious strawberries as long as possible. Strawberries are shallow-rooted plants, and start to slow in fruit production if they are allowed to dry out. During the winter, dig the strawberries plants out of the urn-shaped pots, place them in plastic pots, and bury it into the ground with their rims at soil level.

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Azalea Braided Bonsai, Rhododendron (the royalty of the garden)

This Azalea bonsai has been carefully cultivated as a gift to capture its height of grace and intrinsic beauty. One of the most sought-after features of this plant is its braided form under full bloom wherein you can see a spectacular array of colors formed from the perfect combination of the leaves and flowers. It is a popular landscape plant, and can also be trimmed to any size. It is a small ornamental flower shrub known for its beautiful foliage and vibrant red pink flowers. This plant blooms once a year and produces large flowers. Heavy blooming happens during spring where the plant appears vividly rich in color with flowers that appear almost fluorescent. The stems can also be pruned into compact shapes. Most azaleas have terminal blooms (one flower per flower stem). However, they have so many stems that during the flowering season they are a solid mass of color. Azaleas are recognized by these flowers blooming all at once, in a showy display for a month or two in spring. It is ideal for use in mixed shrubbery borders and foundations, making it one of the best plants to plant around the garden. With or without the flowers, this ornamental plant still looks beautiful.
Story: "When western botanists first traveled to Tibet, they were amazed by the infinite varieties of azalea they found blooming in the hilly woodlands. Immortalizing this exquisite, natural beauty with the art of bonsai makes a fitting and fabulous gift to celebrate."

LIME TREE, Citrus latifolia

Container-sized Dwarf Lime tree grows to about three feet in height and produce full-size, bright green juicy limes. Miniature tree adds color and fragrance to the patio. Lime fruits have a delicious, tangy taste. The flowers and leaves smell wonderful. It can be used in key-lime pies, in cold drinks or cooking. Some special recipes feature the unique taste of lime (lime juice or lime leaf).

Lime tree needs a humid environment/ misting several times a week, direct sunlight and frequent watering. Day temperature 65-70 degrees F; night temperature 50-55 degrees F. Use an acid-balanced fertilizer throughout the year and add trace elements in spring. Leaves will drop if soil is too wet or too dry. High pH or high soluble salts can cause leaf yellowing. If light is too low, it will not bloom; hand pollinate will improve fruit production.

Spring flowers

The sight of beautiful spring - flowers are blooming, plants are growing...

Dianthus (annual)

New Hybrid Nectarine tree - `Western Pride`

This is a new semi-dwarf 'Western Pride' nectarine tree. The inventors from California, typically hybridize a large number of nectarine and peach seedlings each year, ended up with this new and distinct variety of nectarine tree, which has been denominated varietally as 'Western Pride'.
Prunus persica - distinct variety broadly characterized by a large size, vigorous, self-fertile, productive and regular bearing tree. The fruit is uniformly large in size, acidic and sweet in flavor, globose in shape, freegstone in type, firm in texture, mostly red in skin color, and mature in mid July. The variety was a first generation cross using an unnamed freestone peach as the selected seed parent and `August Red` (U.S. Plant Pat. No.6,363) nectarine as the selected pollen parent.

A new and distinct variety of nectarine tree, substantially as illustrated and described, that is most similar to the `Summer Bright` nectarine, (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 7,049), byproducing yellow flesh nectarines that mature in the latter part of July, that have sweet acidic flavor, and that are mostly red in skin color, but is distinguished therefrom and an improvement thereon by requiring higher chilling, by blooming later, and by producing fruit that matures about 5 days later, is larger in size, and is freestone instead of clingstone.

Tree Size: Large, reaching a height of 12' [3.66 meters] on a 4th leaf graft on Nemaguard rootstock utilizing typical dorman pruning.

Vigor: Vigorous, responding typically to irrigation and fertilization.

Growth: Upright and dense.

Form: Vase formed.

Fertility: Self-fertile.

Production: Very productive, thinning necessary.

Bearing: Regular bearer, with no alternate bearing yet observed.

Enhance outdoor space with fountain and garden decor

Outdoor fountains can enhance the garden; the pleasant sound of the fountain will provide relaxation effect, tranquility/ peace for the garden, and attract wildlife, such as deers and geese :-)

Adding some ceramic flower pots on the patio can add special signature to the garden.
Vintage Stone Planter

Pink Magnolias, Frangipanis, Magnolia Soulangeana, a.k.a. “Magnolia Tulips”

The sight of beautiful spring flowers, these are pink Magnolias, Frangipanis, Magnolia Soulangeana, a.k.a. “Magnolia Tulips” with delicate shading of the petals, they produce a heady scent that is perfume like in small doses. It tolerates heavy clay soils, but is only moderately lime-tolerant.

Spring Pansy Flowers

Pansy opens our hearts and minds to embrace, accept and look for the miraculous and the joyful possibility, it's like miracle flowers in our lives.