All Plants A-Z

This is an 'at a glance' reference to all plants, success and failures that have been experimented with in order to try to create a tropical look.

Plants deemed successful will have some of all of the following characteristics:

• Look good all season.
• Ease of propagation.
• Cheap to replace annually where this is necessary.
• Minimal problems from pests and disease.
• Grow well even in cooler summers.
• Ability to withstand rain.
• Rapid regrowth in the spring.

Unfavourable characteristics include:

• Flopping excessively after rain.
• Ridiculously high minimum temperature requirements, winter or summer.
• Slow annual regrowth resulting in progressively smaller and smaller plants.
• Disease and pest prone.
• High replacement costs.

The success or failure of these plants is of course relative to the growing conditions of the garden featured in this website. Some of the plants that struggle through the winter in this garden can be seen flourishing all year in gardens just a few hundred meters away.

The predominant conditions within the garden are as follows:

• North facing. The garden receives no sun during the winter months except for a few feet at the extreme north end.
• Underlying clay soil.
• The majority of the garden receives a good dose of sun (when available) at some point of the day during the summer months.
• Rainfall can only be described as variable. From very wet to very dry and all the bits along the way.
• Classified as Zone 9 temperature wise.