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Let’s Get Tropical!


By Paul James

Yes, you could spend thousands of dollars on a trip to the tropics. But you could also bring the tropics to your backyard for a fraction of the cost. And without long lines, flight delays, lost luggage, and sand in your shorts. Every year I create a tropical oasis on my back porch, and I love the vibe, especially when I’m grooving to Bob Marley, sipping on a Red Stripe, and grilling jerk chicken. And just what are my favorite tropical plants? Well…

Topping the list are palms. For me, they’re the quintessential tropical plant (although there are also desert palms). What they lack in terms of eye-popping flowers they more than make up for with fantastic foliage. And I love reclining on a chaise lounge while my wife fans me with palm fronds (no wait…that was a dream!).

Bananas have a special appeal, whether grown in the ground or in containers, and they’re about as tropical as it gets. I’ve grown bananas that actually flowered — which is a sight to behold –and set fruit, although the little bananas didn’t have time to ripen. So sad. Talk about a cereal killer.

I love ferns of all kinds, and tropical ferns are no exception. I especially like the macho fern because of its enormous — as in three- to four-foot — fronds, and the Australian tree fern, whose lacy fronds and hair-like, scaled-covered trunk make for an attractive and exotic combination. But my favorite is the maidenhair fern, whose much daintier foliage is like that of a Ginkgo, which is sometimes called the maidenhair tree.

My wife always insists on having two Esperanzas (genus Tecoma) in large pots. They’re beautiful, produce flowers all summer long, and require next to nothing in the way of maintenance. Bees and hummingbirds love the flowers. My kind of plant.

Saving the best for last, Bird of Paradise is without question the most impressive of all tropicals, and to me its flower is the most beautiful in the entire plant world. Getting them to flower takes some patience, especially if you grow them indoors exclusively, but the wait is absolutely worth it. And yes, the flowers do resemble its namesake, the fine-feathered Bird-of-Paradise.

Although tropical plants are most often planted in pots on the porch or patio or poolside, and may or may not be overwintered as houseplants, I’d encourage you to stick them in the ground as well. They won’t survive the winter, but then neither do most annual bedding plants. And the looks you can achieve by planting tropicals directly in the garden can be worth more than a trip to the tropics. But to fully appreciate the results, you should put some sand in your shorts.

Happy gardening, ya’ll.