Tree ferns bring lushness to a garden and are easy to nurse through winter
PHOTO: JASON INGRAM
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’ World was 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 basjoo and 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.
“You don’t need exceptionally exotic plants to create a sense of the tropical”