Anyone else planting a jungle/tropical garden?

[Koulibiak]

I would love to hear ideas for what plants have worked for you, especially big leaves and ground covers.

As for me: I started with my jungle planting last year. I already had a good sized phoenix palm and a huge, if slightly ugly, cordyline with about 6 trunks). I love foliage plants, so decided to carry on with that. I’m in London, sw exposure and mostly sunny (though trying to establish a leafy canopy to add shade).

One year on, there is still so much work to do. On the positive side, some of my bananas and even the Ensete maurelii seem to have survived winter unprotected. I’ve got some Musa basjoo already sending leaves up and at least one has clumped and now has 4-5 shoots (from a plug plant last year). My other palms (3 chusan palms last year and now I’ve added 2 chamaerops humilis in pots) are all still so tiny. I have to remind myself my phoenix was tiddly when I brought it home on foot from Morrisons many years ago!

But overall the garden still looks bare so I’ve been planting lots of ferns, Heuchera, polemonium etc. I’ve also got some cannas, crocosmias, pineapple lillies and Kniphofia, and am trying to grow Colocasia (not very successfully so far - got three types and wondering when to give up 😄) and have now planted ginger lillies and eremurus (which are very weird looking when just bare roots, and probably all wrong for my garden, but I’ve taken a punt as they are so spectacular).

I’ve got a Tetrapanax that barely got through winter, my dog ate most of my Sambucus nigra and aucuba, and I just planted a Schefflera to add to the canopy but it’s about 20cm tall right now so I’m not holding my breath. My Kniphofia are a snail nursery!

Ive found it challenging buying plants in nurseries as they are mostly geared towards cottage style gardens, with a very small selection of jungle/foliage plants. Buying online is a gamble - I’ve had some good experiences and sadly many negative ones with diseased plants.

It would be lovely to hear from other jungle gardeners with plants that have worked for them, and positive experiences with online sellers. Thank you 🙏

TLDR; please give me your tips!

@ungarden fair enough!

I can’t wait to get compost delivered, it’s supposed to arrive tomorrrow and I’ve got loads to do in the garden. I’ve got all my big pots to plant up, various plants need dividing in the borders, I need to mulch, my seedlings need pricking out, it’s chaos in the jungle 😂

I bought two ferns at the weekend, a Cyathea cooperii and a hypolepis dicksonoides. Both are meant to grown tall, fingers crossed! The cyathea will go in a pot - it’s not meant to be hardy, so I will bring it in over winter.

@Koulibiak - decided to do grass after all🥺, your comment about your dog has been playing in my head, we lost our dog last year - the chances are we’ll get another when we’ve stopped grieving for our ddog.
Got our compost delivered last week - hardest job was getting it through a tiny passageway down a ramp (finding a suitable sized ramp was quite a job too!) up another ramp across the garden to the shed. To my surprise spreading the compost was a lovely job, the dark colour brought instant cohesion to my beds - hadn’t time to finish the job because I got distracted at the garden centre and bought more dwarf conifers - which I’m becoming a bit obsessed with!😳 I’m in danger of being kicked off this thread!

My ginger lilies are sprouting though - so there’s that. And I’m trying to shoe horn an ensete in somewhere and I have plans for putting Begonia luxurious in the shaded area of the patio. I need something narrow and shade loving - maybe some bamboo?

@ungarden you are always welcome here with your dwarf conifers! I’m very envious.

I would like to have some black bamboo but I’m too worried of its invasiveness. I have also read that bamboos in general tend not to do well in pots- it grows quickly so needs repotting frequently in ever more massive pots, which of course are not cheap.

We were having drinks with friends on Friday, they bought a house that has bamboo running away and needs eradicating. They’ve been quoted £75,000 plus all their lawn dug out and shed demolished 😮

Maybe some other tall but non invasive grasses would work in your narrow area? Something like miscanthus giganteus but shade-loving?

I started as have a north facing garden and thought damp cool conditions… then we had the hottest year plus drought! And I found the garden actually gets so all day.
Palms of all varieties have done well. But I’ve lost quite a lot due to dry conditions that I’ve diversified. My banana sadly did not survive one deep frost. I use clematis to cover the fence and they’ve done really well as has a jasmine.

My attempt at growing colocasia esculenta from taro from the Asian food shop has failed. They started budding, but have all died back. Still time to just buy plants, so was worth a punt. Getting behind on things I need to plant as seeds too, because there is never enough planting time or window sill space! Trying to get all the food plants for the allotment and diversify the lawn with native flowers too.

I am spending a lot of time wanting to plant things out from the greenhouse now, but it's still rather early, and we might get more frost. Got in a euphorbia mellifera and brunnera at the weekend, so making steps.

@mondaytosunday is your banana Musa basjoo? If so it may grow back from the roots - they are root hardy to about -12.

@SprigatitoYouAndIKnow oh no, such a shame about the colocasias. Did you add a bit of peroxide to the water when soaking them before planting? Apparently it keeps them from rotting. I did that with mine and lost only one to rot (out of 15).

Euphorbia melliflera and brunnera are on my wish list.

None of my brugmansia or caladium seeds have germinated yet, but I’ve managed to prick out everything else and the propagators are not sitting empty. Is it too late to start another batch of zinnias? What else could I grow quickly in there? I already have loads of coleus, ipomoea and nicotianas. I don’t have room for edibles unfortunately due to foxes/pigeons/slugs/random cats/DDog.

@Koulibiak bamboo is a bit of a controversial topic on GQT; they were particularly negative about it - maybe excessively so, grown in a container, clumping or non-clumping it was all demonic. Monty Don is more relaxed about the clumping kind. Black bamboo seems risky though - I've noticed a few sites suggesting it's not strictly a clumping bamboo.
I have Fargesia bamboo - planted by previous owners, and it behaves well enough in sunken bottomless containers - I keep my eye on it. Fargesia is supposed to do well in containers too (according to non-GQT sources). But I get people not wanting to take the risk.

I love bamboo, love how it looks and the delicious swishiness of it. But it scares the bejazers out of me so I probably won't be planting any.
I've been longing to get stuck into this thread but I'm waiting to move into our new house with my dream garden (bigger than I've ever had, not massive but certainly big enough for me), south/south east facing. Well kept and neat at the moment and crying out to be jungleified/wilded and generally stuffed full of gorgeous plants.
We sold our house in October, are sojourning in a rental, and hoping to complete in June at which point I'll be hitting the online plant portals and garden centres.

There aren't many pics on the thread? I'd love to see accompanying pics when people are discussing their plants.

I'm going to start with a variegated fatsia and a couple of fig trees. And some grasses.

Love this thread. I bought a bedraggled ensete ventricosum in May last year and by the end of the summer it was absolutely beautiful so I’ve fallen a bit in love with jungly plants. I chopped it back and wrapped it in fleece. It’s survived but looks dreadful at the moment.

I’ve bought three cordylines and ordered a musa basjoo and some cannas. Our garden is mostly acers(in pots) and roses so my plan is to dot them around to give a bit of variety.

Wondering about planting the cordylines and bananas in the ground this year.

@heldinadream welcome to the jungles! I’m hoping to post more photos this year as the garden will hopefully take shape. I started from scratch 2 years ago and first planted trees and shrubs, then mostly shrubs and foliage plants last year, and I’m just starting to add more flowers now.

I would also love to see photos of other posters’ gardens.

@BestIsWest Bananas (Musa basjoo) are hardy in most of the UK although you will lose some height if not giving winter protection. I don’t protect mine and they come back fine. They also produce pups so you end up with a lovely group of three or five growing together. Some of my bananas already have leaves nearly 1m long, so they regrow quickly once established - the first winter is the hardest as they are small and more vulnerable.

Standard plain green cordyline is also very hardy. The fancier, variegated and pink/red varieties, less so. Although they can bounce back - I have a variegated one that I had to chop to the ground two year ago, and it’s come back with lots of heads. But my small pink ones died in their first winter.

Nice trip to the local garden centre - they were offering 50% off your cheapest plant - so I went to buy one plant...and no surprise I bought 5!
My choices have been too strappy of late, so I haven't felt the texture is rich enough and I've been putting off planting them - I needed some bigger leaves and I'm very happy with today's choices - good price on them too!
Ever Red Musa
Ensete
Canna Cannova
Asplemium sclopendrium fern
Arachniodes aristata variegata - don't normally like much in the way of variegated plants but this one was beautiful.
Plans for the weekend to mark out the grass path and get some plants in the ground.

Poor dp had to put up with the plant home invasion at this time of the year.

Why is there mouldy string in the shower?
It's Spanish moss.
That doesn't really answer the question.

It's going outside after the last frost, you just have to put up with a new bathroom companion for the next few weeks.

Also, no window sill is left unplanted.

I've been so busy in the garden with all this lovely weather we've been having. Trouble is, there never seems to be much to show for all the time I have spent out there.

I am so jealous of your compost deliveries, we live down a narrow lane, so can't have bulk bags or tipper loads delivered. I need to go and get a boot full of bags sometime this week.

I too, would love to see more photos of everyone's gardens. I will post some of mine soon.

@SprigatitoYouAndIKnow I will think of spanish moss as mouldy string for evermore now! That's a nice healthy looking clump you've got there. I need to get some, haven't seen it anywhere local so will have to order some.

@ungarden Another nice plant haul you have there, which colour canna cannova did you get? I love the cannova series, I've got about half a dozen different colours and I would like the whole set.

I've had quite a few plant shopping "accidents" recently at our local B&M. I've worked out when their plant deliveries arrive now and if you get in quick there are some bargains to be had. I nipped in for a garden sieve the other evening and came back with another trachycarpus, a chamerops vulcano, callistemon, bougainvillea and several other plants.
I've also had a few deliveries arrive, tree ferns, tetrapanax, schefflera
taiwaniana, canna cleopatra and an acca sellowiana.

Most of my plants are hardened off and outdoors full time now. Some have been out for two weeks already, the earliest I have ever managed. If we get a cold night I will throw fleece over them. My new dahlias and brugmansias are still coming in for the night as I am scared of a slug/snail attack. I'll leave them out when they are a bit bigger.

I left some dahlias out in a large pot all winter, put a fleece bag over the entire pot, they are coming back stronger than the ones I have started in pots indoors.

Came home from work on Saturday via a different route than usual and saw a magnificent loquat tree. I think I'm going to have to get one. No matter how many plants I buy, the wants list still gets longer!

@PsychedlicSally I think it's a creamy coloured canna - at least I hope it is.
The loquat tree is a wonderful addition - we had one in our holiday house in Madeira - I fell in love with it but I definitely don't have the space. I got a schefflera taiwaniana last year, it was too expensive for what I got and I was underwhelmed - I've seen them at twice the height and half the price at my local garden centre. The plant I got looks too messy, bushy, lots of growth around the bottom and very little height - I was expecting more - I have a feeling I actually wanted a loquat instead!😂
My tree ferns are starting to uncurl their croziers and are back on their automatic watering system for the summer months.
Planted some grass seed up my stepping stones, and it's been a bit of a disaster When I water the ground, the seeds are moving into clumps as the water creates little rivers due to it being on a slight slope and the rather long stepping stones having water run off them. Might try sprinkling more soil on top of them and compacting the soil. The pigeons are having quite a feast too.
If that doesn't work, I'll be trying turf, which I probably should have done to begin with - amateurs! Who'd work with them!

@SprigatitoYouAndIKnow The Spanish Moss looks incredible, where will you place it?

Because I know this gang will appreciate it … my first year with an imperial fritillary! So impressed with her! Everything is loving this warm weather!

@Isthisjustnormal impressive! How big is it?

Be careful with the crocosmia, grows like a weed and will take over, I need to move mine to a contained area As for the nasturtiums. I put three packs of seeds in the garden 5 years ago and I'm still pulling them out. I thought insect infestation on them was a good thing ( keeps insects of other plants) The next thing I'll be doing is planting sorrell.

Good qu @ungarden : it’s in a big pot so feels taller: I will measure it tonight!

i tend to plant variegated nasturtiums which seem to come back a bit less: I always get a few volunteer plants but nothing too annoying! And actually the last few years none of my nasturtiums in the garden or the allotment (where they are very much sacrificial planting) have had much in the way of black fly. Wonder why … ??

@PsychedlicSally : all my ‘not precious, leave in the pot/ground’ dahlias have come back too: last year was my first dahlia growing year so was expecting to kill off a few more. I guess it was a mild winter (& I have a very sheltered garden, although all my allotment ones have survived too)
All my cosseted/ started indoor dahlias are out over night this week but anticipating I may be kinder when the temps fall for bank holiday Monday ….

@Beyondburnout so far I haven’t found crocosmia to be invasive, I’ve got Lucifer and it doesn’t seem to have spread much in three years. Famous last words?

I’ve been busy in the garden these last few days, but I’ve finally got on top of my to do list - all the seedlings pricked out, everything hardened off, garden and pots fed and watered, now just waiting for the temperature to come down a bit to plant the last three colocasias and many pots of morning glories. Then it will be the nicotianas and solenostemons when they’re big enough.

My two new ferns arrived and look very healthy (always happy with Big Plant Nursery) and today my neighbour gave me an asparagus fern - bonanza.

My four new Brugmansias also arrived and are a very respectable size. I’ve potted them up until ready for their final spot.

Also - drumroll - I have one brugmansia seedling, out of the 5 seeds I planted. It is minuscule, so it could still all go pear shape, but I will be chuffed if it makes it.

Still no caladium seedlings though. I read they need 25-30C which is way more than I’d given them so far, so I’ve move the propagators outside in the sun.

I spotted cycad (sago palms) in Morrisons today, £12 each which is quite reasonable, in case anyone is interested. I can’t bring myself to buy more as I’m still trying to rescue my two, which got frost damage this winter.

I think my gingers have just sprouted their first leaves - maybe they will finally flower this year…

Managed to put my feet up today and just enjoy the sun. ☀️

Wow looks gorgeous 😍

@Koulibiak love your garden!

@ungarden Oooh, I think that might be the new cannova, I think its called lemon, I don't have that one (yet).
You have convinced me that I need a loquat tree.
I wish my schefflera was bigger too, your local garden centre sounds fab. I've never seen a taiwaniana in any of ours.

@Isthisjustnormal What a magnificent Crown Imperial you have there. It's quite an achievement getting one to flower, my long struggle with them is documented further up thread. Mine have gone over now.
I used to grow dahlias at my old house, in a tiny north facing garden, never protected or lifted them, they always came back. Not had as much luck with them here.

@Koulibiak I've planted lucifer this year but no sign of them yet. I also have the ordinary orange montbretia, which was already here, not particularly invasive here either. I lifted and moved some, must have missed a few so I'm going to transplant them when its cooler.
I've had 4 brugmansias arrive from T&M this week and was pleasantly surprised at their size and vigour. Well done with the seedling.
My caldium tubers are doing nothing.
Your garden looks lovely.

I've been enjoying my go go tulips this week. I tried 5 last year and was surprised how much I liked them, so got 25 more for this year. They're in pots but I think I will transplant them to my new tropical beds for next year, they have quite a tropical vibe.

@PsychedlicSally wow those tulips. I agree they look tropical, I’m taking notes for next year ☺️. I planted lots of parrot tulips in pots last year, they looked nice for a few days but they go over really quickly and then look rather sad.

The only spring bulbs I have in the garden are alliums purple sensation, they look great - I think I might plant more in the autumn.

After a lot of dithering, I finally bit the bullet and started ordering components for an irrigation system. I will try and set the first section up this week, I hope it’s not too much faff.