Have you ever been on holiday to the tropics and dreamt of filling your garden with the same lush plants and bold colours when you return home? Far from being a fantasy, creating a tropical garden may be easier than you might think.
One of the upsides of climate change is that many plants once considered tender in the UK now have a good chance of survival outdoors. Perhaps you have a penchant for palms, go giddy for gingers or bonkers for bananas? Or maybe you like the idea of an exotic garden but don’t know where to start. Read on for my expert tips.
I am obsessed with tropical gardening. My tiny garden in Broadstairs, on the East Kent coast, is packed with exotic plants, some common, others rare, but each has a wow factor that most traditional garden plants lack. Perhaps it’s a leaf measuring two metres long, a flower so powerfully scented that its perfume greets ten metres away or tendrils that seem to lengthen before our very eyes. Gardening with tropical plants is exciting and fun; rewards can come quickly. I love the challenge of growing a plant that looks like it shouldn’t succeed, one that makes my jaw drop with its dazzling flowers or bold leaves. If you dare to be different, have a strong sense of adventure and enjoy taking risks, gardening with exotic plants could be for you.
As a nation, we’ve been fascinated with exotic plants for centuries, starting with fabulously wealthy aristocrats and royalty who sent ships around the globe to collect rare and usual plants at colossal cost. Plant collecting in the 19th century was expensive, dangerous and hugely competitive. The upper classes vied to secure the rarest plants. They often named them in honour of themselves or to curry favour with someone higher ranking - the immense Amazon waterlily was given the name Victoria regia - literally ‘Victoria queen’ (now Victoria amazonica) to flatter the monarch of the day.
Those plants that survived the long journey to Britain were grown in heated greenhouses and conservatories until their needs had been assessed. Some were found to be hardier than expected, such as camellias, and others have crept out from under cover as our climate has warmed—you certainly wouldn’t have found bananas, cannas, and gingers surviving outside in Victorian Britain year-round.
So, you want to create a jungle garden? Where do you start?
By definition, plants we refer to as ‘tropical’ come from warmer climates than the UK, so you have three choices.
- Create a warm, sheltered environment for your garden where some plants will survive outdoors all year round.
- Be prepared to overwinter some plants indoors, in a garage, shed or conservatory and replace those you can’t keep each spring.
- Choose plants that appear exotic but are frost-hardy in your location.
In practice, many fans of exotic gardening - myself included - mix all three approaches.
You can grow tropical plants in containers, often making life easier if you intend to overwinter them inside. They will need a top-notch growing medium, watering and feeding, but can grow perfectly well in limited space.
You should pay attention to four things in your garden if you want to be successful with tropical plants:
Provide shelter
Imagine a tropical rainforest. Beneath the canopy, it’s warm, humid, and protected from the wind. If you want to grow plants with big leaves, like bananas, cannas, castor oil plants (Ricinus), or Chinese rice paper plants (Tetrapanax), good shelter will save the foliage from harm and the plants from blowing over.
To create shelter in your garden, grow or install permeable boundaries, especially on the windward sides. In a large garden, you might have space to plant a windbreak of trees and shrubs or grow a hedge. In smaller gardens, a hit-and-miss or slatted fence will do the trick. Split cane or willow screening is ideal for a balcony. The secret is to diffuse, not block - solid boundaries create eddies and wind tunnels that might be more damaging than doing nothing.
Increase light and warmth
Although we might wish otherwise, Britain does not share the same climate as Barbados, Borneo, or Brisbane. Raising the temperature in your garden, especially at nighttime, will help tropical plants flourish.
To reflect extra light and warmth into your garden, or a small part, consider painting nearby walls and fences a light colour. Glass can also reflect light. However, some tropical plants will be happier in bright shade or dappled sunlight than in blazing sun.
Dark paving, such as slate or grey porcelain tiles, will absorb heat during the day and release it at night when it’s coolest. This is most useful if you’re attempting to grow genuinely tropical plants that prefer at least 15ºC and a minimum of 10ºC after dark.
If your garden is cold or exposed, it doesn’t mean you can’t create a tropical garden. However, you must move the plants into a garage or conservatory during winter and start your growing season a little later. It’s all about experimenting to see what will grow and provided you don’t mind the odd failure, you will get there in the end.
Supply water
Tropical plants grow fast, taking up a lot of water in the process. This water is readily available in their natural habitat but may be less plentiful during the British summer.
Tropical plants are the opposite of desert plants, demanding high humidity and constant moisture around their roots. To save time and money, you might want to instal an extra water butt or attach drip irrigation or a seeper hose to your mains supply - in the event of a hose pipe ban, you may continue to use all of these watering methods, but check with your water provider if you’re unsure of the rules.
Focus on fertility
Remember those school lessons where you were taught what happens when rainforests are cut down? The super-rich soil that sustained thousands of species is quickly eroded away. Tropical plants grow where nutrients are plentiful and feed greedily to fuel their rapid growth.
When planting in pots or beds, incorporate lots of organic matter - compost or well-rotted manure - and a generous amount of multi-purpose, organic fertiliser like Blood, Fish & Bone. To containers, I would always add a slow-release fertiliser once in April or May and then supplement it with regular applications of liquid seaweed feed at least once a week. Plants like angels’ trumpets (Brugmansia) would happily be fed every time they’re watered.
Everything’s prepared. Now, what plants should you look out for?
We’ve never had a better choice when it comes to exotic-looking plants—your average garden centre will probably stock tree ferns, hibiscus, cannas, bird of paradise flowers and bananas that would have been beyond the average gardener’s reach and means a century ago. Look a bit harder, and you’ll find specialist growers of hardy exotics and tender plants all around the country, especially in the South, South West and South East. They will supply you with good quality plants and advice on how to grow them successfully.
Many exotics have tall stems, big leaves, bold textures and very bright flowers, so they don’t blend terribly well with the cottage-garden plants we tend to find in traditional gardens. Perhaps that’s why many open gardens have spaces devoted exclusively to jungly plants rather than attempting to mix them in - visit Great Dixter, Wisley, Borde Hill, Coleton Fishacre or East Ruston Old Vicarage in late summer for a showcase of exotic splendour. A few gardens go the whole hog, devoting acres to tropical and subtropical plants, including Abbotsbury Sub-Tropical Garden, Tresco Abbey Gardens and Trebah.
In addition to other larger-than-life attributes, I should mention scent, as many exotic plants, like angels’ trumpets and gingers, have fabulously perfumed flowers. These are often stronger after dark to attract pollinating insects, so be sure to linger outdoors until nightfall and be prepared to be intoxicated!
Starting with the plants that aren’t hardy and will need winter protection in all but the mildest parts of the UK, look out for bananas (Musa and Ensete), Canna, ornamental ginger (Hedychium), castor oil plant (Ricinus), Lantana, angels’ trumpets (Brugmansia), tree ferns (Dicksonia and Cyathea), taro (Colocasia and Alocasia), Gloriosa, papyrus (Cyperus), begonias, coleus (Solenostemon), Persian shield (Strobilanthes), Caladium and Chinese rice paper plant (Tetrapanax). These are only a handful of the exciting, exotic plants available to adventurous gardeners.
If you’re prepared to wait a while, some of these can be grown from seed; the good news is that they grow fast! Taro, yakon, lemongrass, turmeric and culinary ginger can all be grown from tubers or stems bought from the supermarket and started on your kitchen windowsill.
All of these will need protection in situ or, more realistically, moving into a conservatory, greenhouse, or unheated guest room before the first frosts of autumn.
Suppose that all sounds like too much hard work. In that case, there are lots of plants that look exotic but aren’t as troubled by the cold, including Alstroemeria, Agapanthus, Fatsia, Hosta, Indian bean tree (Catalpa), Foxglove tree (Paulownia), large-flowered clematis, star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides), Rodgersia, ornamental rhubarb (Rheum) and waterlilies. Tuberous and bulbous plants such as Amaryllis, Amarine, Dahlia, oriental and trumpet lilies, Gladiolus and Nerine will also provide an eyeful of colour before safely disappearing underground for winter.
Creating a tropical garden is all about mixing and matching bold forms, bright colours and interesting textures to paint a picture of jungly vigour and exuberance. There’s no better way to learn than by getting stuck in.
Once you’ve caught the tropical gardening bug, you’ll be hooked. Consider installing outdoor lighting to get the most enjoyment from your little slice of paradise. Uplighters beneath palms and bananas will create dramatic lighting effects, and why not incorporate coloured bulbs to bring the party atmosphere after dark? Many tropical flowers are scented only after nightfall, so make somewhere to sit and enjoy them in the evening or plant them close to your house so that the scent can waft gently through the windows while you drift off to sleep.
Once nighttime temperatures are regularly between 10ºC and 15ºC —often as late in the year as July—you can also give your houseplants a little holiday outside. They’ll love the fresh air, humidity, and rainwater. Avoid placing them in direct sunlight, as this could burn their foliage.
If you can make a space for a greenhouse and, better still, afford to heat it, your options could expand further to orchids, bromeliads, air plants and tropical ferns. It's a slippery slope! I manage perfectly well with a very old, unheated greenhouse and garage, proving you don’t need fancy facilities to go totally tropical.
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