Create your own jungle feel!
Even one bold ‘statement’ plant will make enough of a focal point for a great late-summer carnival
‘Few plants wait all year to make an exhibition of themselves, but these autumn drama queens do just that’
It’s at this time of year that parts of the garden here take on a more exotic air. Large leaves take centre stage and vivid colours are in the ascendant. We try to use specific areas for this change of tempo, areas defined by hedges or separated from the wider garden.
Sometimes people imagine that you need an enormous space to grow tropical plants. In fact, you can create your own jungle in the tiniest back garden, or even in a container or two, by choosing plants carefully and putting them together with imagination. It’s tempting to pack in masses of smaller plants, but a more dramatic effect can often be achieved by using fewer plants, but choosing subjects with large leaves and architectural stature.
Tree ferns, huge grasses, cannas and bananas all make a big impact and even one big plant can make enough of a focal point to create the tropical mood. A different trick is to repeat a particular plant several times in one area, perhaps using three together and one or two more interspersed throughout the display. This practice introduces both rhythm and cohesion.
There are few plants that wait all year to make an exhibition of themselves, but these autumn drama queens do just that. Copious amounts of rain have encouraged them to put on an even more spectacular show than ever, and their bold foliage and vivid flowers are beginning to set our gardens ablaze.
Even if it’s too late to incorporate some of these larger than life characters into the garden now (although there are lots of bargains to be had at garden centres and nurseries), it’s
the best time to get out and see how it’s done. Parks often revel in these spectacular displays and gardens open to the public under the National Garden Scheme at this time of year often devote areas to exotic planting.
Bananas, hedychiums and dahlias are some of the leading lights in this late-summer carnival, but cannas are iconic.
They’re accommodating and generous plants, needing only sun and adequate moisture to thrive. Returns on such small investment are enormous. Few subjects can compare with their dramatic presence, although where they’re planted and with what makes a lot of difference. Drama can easily turn to comedy. The scarecrow effect, where lone cannas are dotted through low bedding, is not their best use!
Cannas come from the Caribbean and South America, but in temperate climates they need a little more help. Rhizomes can be started off in pots of good loam-based compost in spring and moved outside, or planted directly from their winter resting place when danger of frost is past. When temperatures fall at the other end of the season and foliage becomes tattered and blackened, they can be cut down, lifted and brought undercover, nestled snugly in old compost and politely ignored, apart from a drop of water.
Some of my favourites have dark leaves to make a bold presence in the border. Canna ‘Black Knight’ has rich, bronze foliage and startling red blooms. Perhaps the most outstanding of all is ‘Australia’, with he-manheight stems, clothed in shiny, almost black, leaves and the bonus of orange-red flowers.
In some cases the flowers are as important as the foliage. A favourite is ‘Panache’ – real strawberries and cream with a touch of apricot.
There are a few show-stopping plants you can grow cheaply from seed. Ricinus communis is one of them and a packet will give you enough plants to play around with. Use liberally, as their crimson, palmate leaves instantly create a sultry atmosphere. Often plants are embellished later in the season with strange red, prickly flowers.
At ground level, Swiss chard makes both an edible and ornamental feast. Try a seed mixture like ‘Bright Lights’ that will give you a diversity of leaf and stem colour from burgundy through red, orange and yellow to white. And the exotic, drooping flowers of amaranthus (love-liesbleeding) can be used for a different downward accent.