How to grow tropical plants
Better Homes and Gardens’ resident landscaper, Jason Hodges, shares his top tips to create the perfect tropical garden.
I’ve been lucky enough to find myself in the Sunshine Coast this week for work. The sunshine, waves and laid-back lifestyle have me falling in love with tropical gardens all over again.
Many of us try to take inspiration from our holidays to transform our lives at home but just like that tie-dyed T-shirt that seemed a good idea on the beach in Bali, tropical plants that you love in the tropics fail to work in our cooler climates.
If you’re like me and you want to come home to a garden that reminds you of a trip away, you need to follow some simple rules.
How do you know what you’ve seen on holidays will grow in your area? Keep your eyes open while you’re out and about in your neighbourhood. Most gardeners are happy to share their successes if you ask them. I trust home owners more than the shop assistant in a nursery trying to sell you their plants. Don’t be fooled. Just because you see plants for sale in your local nursery doesn’t mean they are right for your place.
Do your research to make sure the plant doesn’t require a tank of water that will send you broke or a rainforest plant that will grow as tall as a high-rise building and look out of proportion on your suburban block.
Tropical gardens should be planted quite densely. To create a natural, almost jungle-like garden you need to plant en masse. A simple rule of garden design is to plant in multiples of odd numbers: threes, fives, sevens and so on. The reason is our brains don’t count odd numbers as easily as even numbers so straight away it looks more natural to our eyes.
To create a natural planting, you can space the plants in their pots or for a completely random look throw a handful of rocks, tennis balls, lemons, anything over your shoulder. Wherever they land, you plant. That’s 100 per cent natural.
Use the boundaries of your garden like a frame to a painting. Timber and Colorbond fences don’t scream tropics so paint them a dark colour to hide them. The darker the better and then hide them with shrubs like lilly pilly and hibiscus. This will give you height for scale and privacy from your neighbours.
Plants like birds of paradise, hibiscus and bromeliads are easy to establish and need little maintenance. I know most tropical gardens rely on foliage rather than flowers but that doesn’t mean you don’t have colour. In fact, tropical gardens can be some of the most colourful gardens with plants that have their colour in the foliage meaning it’s with you all year ‘round like cordylines, red star and electric pink.
There are heaps of plants whose foliage can give you the colour palette you’re after. Combine them with pillows, lighting and furnishings and you’ll never want to go on holidays again.
To manufacture a micro climate, you may need to buy established palms to give you the canopy or ceiling your garden requires. Or you can plant faster-growing trees as nursery plants to create the same effect until your palms can mature and then they could be removed when no longer required.
Tropical gardens, once established, are some of the easiest to maintain with very little pruning and very few weeds. They’ll help you towards the goal of relaxing in your garden as though you’re on holidays rather than working on it.
Written by Jason Hodges. First appeared on Domain.com.au.
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