Post #808907 by Prikli Pear on Thu, Apr 27, 2023 1:42 PM

Hmm. Again, without knowing the local environment my first thought is if you can acquire the adjacent property it might be worthwhile to maintain it in a habitable state to use as a guest house/short term rental/AirBnB (or the Japanese equivalent, whatever that may be). Even if finances won't allow that now, it doesn't sound like there's much competition. Could be a long-term plan.

If you want more palms, the windmill palm is comparatively small and cold hardy. I'm not a fan of their hairy, fibrous trunk but I've seen them with clean, bare trunks and they're quite fetching. If you're willing to put in the work, that is. If you'd like something more exotic, the pindo palm from South America is the most cold-tolerant of the feather palms. It's relatively small (5 meters, max) and also produces an edible fruit with the most tropical of aromas. Again, don't know their availability in Japan.

Loquats are a nice, tropical-looking fruit tree. That's not too large. They produce tasty fruit as well. Since they're sometimes marketed as Japanese plums in the U.S. I'm guessing they're not hard to come by over there. A wilder option would be to grow pawpaws (asimina triloba). North American native, these small trees are very cold hardy relatives of the tropical cherimoya, sugar apple and soursop of the tropics. Improved varieties are licensed for sale in Japan but I do not know how common they may be. Pawpaws grow readily from seed but you need at least two for pollination if you want the large, tropicalish fruit.

I'm offering lots of suggestions but you'll have to make some hard choices given the lack of infinite garden space!