CREATE A TROPICAL LOOK ANYWHERE

How would you like to step out the back door of your home into a lush planting that reminds you of your favorite vacation spot?

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Transport your garden to the tropics with these 4 design tips.

Give these tropical garden design ideas a try. With a few simple additions, you can create drama and give an exotic flair to almost any spot. Think dense borders full of large plants and colorful foliage and bold flowers. Sound like something you'd like to see in your garden? Here are four easy-to-try tips.

Botanical Names

Canna Canna spp.
and hybrids
Elephant ear
Colocasia esculent
Hosta
Hosta spp.
and hybrids
Ligularia
Ligularia spp.
and hybrids
Ornamental rhubarb
Rheum palmatum Red Abyssinian banana Ensete maurelii
Tasmanian tree fern Dicksonia antarctica

Choose Large Plants

In a tropical rainforest, plants and foliage grow extra large because they can grow year round, and get plenty of moisture. To replicate this look in your garden, use a few big plants with big leaves. If you can create structure with the exotic-looking Tasmanian tree fern's 3- to 6-foot-long leaves in your garden, wonderful! But this plant, which you see in the garden at left, isn't easy to grow to the impressive size at left anywhere in North America except where it's hardy in zones 9 to 11.