The lush foliage and bold colours of tropical plants are a sight to behold in RHS Garden Wisley's Exotic Garden, pictured below – a good place to visit if you want to see them for yourself before committing to planting a border. Here are some ideas to help you get the look at home.
Leaf it out
Large jungly leaves are key to this look – and luckily there are lots of plants you can grow in the British climate that can provide them. Try cannas, such as these purple-leafed ones, hardy bananas, and windmill palms (Trachycarpus fortunei) which are really cold tolerant and are evergreen so they look great all year round.
Mix it up
Mix brightly-coloured Bedding plants are usually colourful half-hardy, short-lived or annual plants, grown for displays in beds or containers. They may be changed seasonally, with spring, summer and winter bedding displays each using different plants of appropriate hardiness and flowering times.
bedding plants – things like dahlias, cannas and begonias that are planted out for the summer – with permanent plants like hardy palms and phormiums for a vivid display. This garden may be large but it’s full of ideas to take home.
Play with patterns
Use patterned leaves to bring exotic accents to the garden – there are some incredible shapes and patterns out there, from cannas like the one above that look as though they’ve been streaked with paint to Variegated means having leaves or other plant parts with streaks, blotches or patches of different colours. Typically, these would be a combination of two colours, such as green and gold or green and white.
variegated grasses and phormiums. Experiment and find out what works well together for you.
Plant a palm
Nothing says exotic quite like a palm tree. Use palms and palm-like plants (cordylines, yuccas etc) to add an instant tropical touch. These plants vary greatly in hardiness – some such as the windmill palm (Trachycarpus fortunei) are really quite hardy while others like date palms will need a bit of winter protection in most places. Mix foliage shapes – paddle-shaped bananas etc with spiky palms.
Get vibrant
Vibrant colour is an essential part of the bold and exotic look. Leave carefully-coordinated pastel colour schemes behind and search out the brightest flowers you can find. Putting them against a backdrop of purple-leafed plants heightens the effect. Here Fuchsia ‘Professor Henkel’ gives a jolt of scarlet which looks all the brighter against its own bronzy foliage, as well as that of dahlias, cannas and Ricinus (castor oil plant).