Friday, Aug. 29, 2008

Tropics in the desert: Northwest Palms and Landscaping opens in Kennewick

By Ingrid Stegemoeller, Herald staff writer

What Tri-City garden is complete without some sagebrush, lavender and ... a banana tree?

That's right, the tropical plant can grow here in the desert, and Jim Harris is out to prove it.

The Kennewick man has opened Northwest Palms and Landscaping in Kennewick and is selling a variety of cacti, palm trees, yucca and three species of banana trees.

"People have to get over the whole mindset that palm trees only grow in Hawaii," Harris said as he scanned the hundreds of plants in his nursery.

There are several varieties of exotic plants that can grow well in the Mid-Columbia climate, Harris said.

The windmill palm and others that grow at higher elevations as well as several kinds of prickly pear cacti are just a few that Harris grows on his 1 1/2-acre farm in Finley that now are waiting at the nursery for a new home.

One of the more "radical" is a banana tree that grows 12 to 15 feet a year if well cared for, but dies to the ground in the winter.

"You can almost listen to them growing during the growing season," said Harlan Boynton, who planted a couple of banana trees at his Richland home about four years ago.

"Snapping, popping, crackling."

That's one of his favorite parts about the plants, along with the large leaves and lush growth.

The plants cover the front window of Boynton's home during the growing season, "giving a beautiful iridescent green" to the inside of the house.

Harris didn't plant the Boyntons' banana plants, but he did offer a wealth of information, Boynton said.

Harris bought his first palm tree in 1994 and had to wrap it with heat tape and a sleeping bag to keep it alive through the winter.

His technique worked and the tree thrived.

Pretty soon Harris' research turned into a backyard full of palms and he began adding cacti to the mix.

"It got to the point where I would come home and it felt like somewhere else -- resort-y," he said.

Friends liked the look and started asking for help and now Harris has a retail location to help interested customers design tropical looks in their yards.

"(Tropical foliage) evokes feelings of being on a vacation or a holiday or a trip with their sweetheart," he said.

His dad, Jim Harris, became interested in the palm tree business in about 1999 and started Desert Palms Nursery, also known as Cornerstone Flower and Nursery, in Benton City.

He died in 2002 and his wife Nadene Harris now owns the business, which is in the process of expanding to a new building on the corner of East Kennedy Road and Highway 225.

Desert Palms sells a variety of palms, yuccas and other tropical plants, Nadene Harris said.

Northwest Palms is at 6030 W. Clearwater Ave., behind the King & I restaurant. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and by appointment.

For more information, call 948-7256.