Tropical garden Ideas, tips and photos. Inspiration for your tropical landscaping. Tropical landscape plants, garden ideas and plans.

Tropical gardens evoke a sense of the exotic, a mysterious lush glossy landscape paradise. Often people want to create a tropical garden look and feel after a holiday to a warm climate destination such as Bali or Thailand, and why not create a resort style garden at home! But before you start your tropical landscape plans, here are a few landscape design secrets to achieving a tropical garden design;

Colour

Lots of colour! Colour in a Tropical garden can be achieved through several methods. Foliage colour is most important, think big bold colourful plants such as cordylines, flaxes, gingers, heliconias and crotons. Foliage colour is important because it is permanent, as opposed to tropical flowering plants which come and go. Clump your plants to achieve bold displays of foliage colour.

Colour in the garden can also be highlighted by using various landscaping materials of different forms, textures and colours, such as light coloured pebbles and dark paver stepping stones.

Landscape Design

Ensure that your landscape design is an open, free form style. Avoid ridge straight lines and formal hedges. Try and add contrasting clumps of foliage to create informal blocks of colour. Water is often used in tropical garden designs, a simple pond of water feature can transform a garden space. Winding, flowing pathways and garden rooms add a sense of intrigue to tropical gardens.

Tropical Plants

Tropical gardens need lots of tropical plants! Add layers in your garden design. Nice tall trees, bamboos or palms to give height to the garden and create an intimate canopy overhead, as well as sheltering some of the understory plants and ground covers;

• Hawaiian hibiscus (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis)
• Vireya rhododendron (Vireya cultivars)
• Crab’s claw (Heliconia angusta cultivars)
• Fijian fire plant (Acalypha wilkesiana)
• Giant elephant’s ears/giant taro (Alocasia macrorrhiza)
• Elephant’s ears (Alocasia x amazonica)
• Prayer plant (Maranta leuconeura ‘Kerchoviana’)
• Zebra plant (Calathea zebrina)
• Abyssinian banana (Ensete ventricosum)
• Crotons (Codiaeum variegatum)
• Dancing ladies (Oncidium varicosum)
• Canna lilies (Canna ‘Tropicanna’ and Canna ‘Tricolour’)
• New Guinea impatiens (Impatiens)
• Sago palm (Cycas revoluta)
• Spiral ginger (Costus barbatus)
• Crinum lily (Crinum pedunculatum)
• Sacred Bali bamboo (Schizostachyum brachycladum)
• Variegated shell ginger (Alpinia zerumbet ‘Variegata’)
• Majestic palm (Ravenea rivularis)