With tree ferns and other exotic plants making an impact at Longmeadow, Monty reveals which varieties to combine for a tropical look at the height of summer
In my travels around the world, I have seen gardens in the middle of the Amazon basin, jungles in Mexico and Thailand, and visited spaces in Bali that are simply spilling over with extraordinarily luxuriant planting. When Gardeners’ Worldwas at Berryfields, just outside Stratford-upon-Avon, we had a small ‘jungle’ garden, planted to be as exotic and tropical as the wet, cold Warwickshire winters would allow. This meant compromising botanical and geographical accuracy, and focusing on the effect of lushness and abundance that jungly habitats around the world share, be they the steamy heat of the Amazon or the glorious, cool-green cathedrals of New Zealand’s temperate rainforests. However, we managed to grow a wide range of exotic and dramatic plants, from the tree fern Dicksonia antarctica, to the banana Musa basjooand the Chusan palm Trachycarpus fortunei. The garden was small but worked well and fulfilled, I think, all its promise and potential. But you don’t need to reach for exceptionally exotic plants to create a real sense of the fecundity of tropical gardens.
At Longmeadow, we use a mixture of ‘long-day’ plants that tend to come from locations far north of the Equator and have their growth patterns dictated as much by light as by heat, and ‘short-day’ plants that originate from close to the Equator, and have evolved to grow and flower in response to heat and moisture. So, while long-day performers such as hostas, giant thistles, cardoons and many grasses spurt into growth as the days lengthen in spring, cannas, dahlias and crocosmia really only kick into their full growth stride when the days start getting shorter, and when temperatures – especially at night – are consistently above 12°C. We use this mixture of plants so that while the garden changes its individual elements, it keeps the overall pattern of lush, vibrant growth to match its strong colour scheme.
Hardy stalwarts
My favourite early combination to create an exotic effect with extremely hardy plants is to use the lovely glaucous-blue foliage of Hosta ‘Halcyon’, the giant Scotch thistle and cardoons – all of which have astonishingly vigorous growth in May and June – to contrast with the bright chartreuse-green of new sambucus shoots, the giant elephant ears of Hosta‘Sum and Substance’ and the rampant climbing foliage of golden hop, Humulus lupulus‘Aureus’. At the same time, the
