“So it might be about testosterone,” Chris Hunter says to me - only half-laughing - about his affection for tropical plants. “Tropical plants just get so huge with even one year of growth - they’re amazing! And those leaves…” he finishes, as if to imply that the leaves on tropical plants are beyond articulation. After all, when you read the word “tropical” what came to your mind? Maybe clean white sand and the wide blue sea, maybe a Piña Colada with pineapple slices and a colorful little umbrella, but if you are a plant person you probably thought of BIG green leaves. Lots of them. Planted together in dense, self-humidifying, dappley-lit configurations a light warm breeze through which results in an mesmerizing shifting shadow play when top lit by a hot sun. Ahhh, that’s tropical. Photo: Banana palm leaves.

Chris Hunter is a fairly young nurseryman but a long-time fan of tropical plants. He and his fiancée Courtney Paulson are co-owners of Magnolia Gift & Garden in Chico and co-gardeners of a home garden that has trialed many tropical plants: some with a sad outcome, others - the ones discussed shortly - with a very happy outcome. “We have used our garden as a botanical science lab and most of the plants we sell we have grown,” Chris assures me. Chris has worked at nurseries in the Bay area as well as here in the North State. More than 6 years ago now he began working at what was then Zamora’s and which subsequently became Chico Creek Gardens, owned by well-known local plantsman Mike Thiede. Courtney began working at Zamora’s more than 8 years ago and early this year, Chris and Courtney bought the nursery and re-named it Magnolia Gift & Garden. Photo: Courtney and Chris near one of the tropical beds at Magnolia Gift & Garden. (more…)