In the 60's my parents purchased their first house and along with the apple tree, grapefruit tree and roses that lined the driveway to the house there was a pot with the top of pineapple in it. It seemed to be perfectly happy as a plant with green spiky leaves but we never saw a pineapple, however, the grapefruit, which was planted within close range of the kitchen window and surrounded by concrete path was a prolific producer of juicy fruit. As for a Christmas tree in the garden, even though with a quarter acre there was room for one no one had ever planted it after Christmas. Every year Dad would take us out, 2 weeks before Christmas to buy a tree and every year it finished up in the incinerator in the back garden. In later years the artificial tree arrived.