fantastic flowers

 I just returned home from a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Maui! My husband (with me, below, on a sunset cruise we took there) won the trip as part of some work performance award. Nice, huh?

Well, anyway, of course I had to whip out the camera and snap a pic of every tropical garden and plant I came across. And with such a colorful buffet of tropical foliage and fantastic flowers in front of me, it got me to thinking, "Why can't I have some of that in my Zone 6a garden?" OK, maybe I can't line a whole walkway with it, since it'll die over winter. But on the other hand, why not just put a few of these stunners in a container on the patio, or feature them as colorful, exotic specimen plants? After all, my home is my personal retreat … why can't I have some vacation there, too?

The best way to go about using tropicals in your garden or landscape, I've since learned, is to buy them for use as indoor houseplants during the cold season and then move the container to your landscape or patio in the summer (you can even bury the plant in the pot, to fake the look of an established tropical plant in your garden). And while you're at it, heck — bring all your houseplants outside for the summer for a tropical flair in your beds, borders and containers. Just make sure to look up each plant's particular requirements or ask a local garden center that sells tropicals for advice on how to grow these beauties inside and out in your area. Some tropicals, for instance, will survive in lower light levels indoors during the cold season (perhaps without blooms or as vivid colors, but will nonethless survive), but they need misting and higher temperatures to thrive. Conversely, when taken outdoors, tropicals that grow as understory plants in the rainforest might not be able to handle constant, direct sunlight. Still others are so heat-loving that the chill of cold water direct from the garden hose will make their leaves drop.

Also check out this WONDERFUL  St. Louis Dispatch article on using tropicals in your garden.

 So moving right along, here are some of my tropical plant pics from Maui — along with some ideas on how to use them in your landscape. If you live in a warmer climate and can grow these tropicals year round, take note of where, how and with what other plants the landscape designers have used them. If you're like me and live in a colder climate, you might have to resign yourself to using them as colorful, dramatic accents or treat them as annuals and ditch them at the end of the season.

First, here's some spiky, swordlike phormium (New Zealand flax) in purple-brown, complemented by a green spike of dracena and a ti plant's burgundy and pink tropical foliage. Of course, I think this container combo would look even more dramatic with Tesselaar's darker, glossier, burgundy-black Black Adder™ Phormium, with its elegantly nodding, pendulous tips. 

Another beautiful  tropical plant I saw a lot of was bromeliads. The top image here, of the purple-blue bloom atop lemon-lime, waxy foliage, is aechmea. Below that is a giant, yellowish-orange bromeliad nestled in a bed of tropical fern (I believe it's Phymatosorus grossus, or laua'e (maile-scented fern). Third down is a red-centered bromeliad accented by a green, wavy-leaved tropical fern. Below that is what I like to think of as the 'lollypop planter' of red, orange and yellow flowered bromeliads. Fifth down is that orange-yellow bromeliad as a tall, architectural backdrop for an otherwise common bed of impatiens. Below that you'll see the same bromeliad atop a purple-black groundcover (what a stunning contrast, especially with the companion planting of yellow-green bromeliads. Seventh down shows the view of a bromeliad from above, with its tell-tale pool of water in the center. The bottom shot shows how a mass planting of bromeliads, in different colors, makes a strong, tropical statement.

 Bromeliads, by the way, make some of the best houseplants on earth. For more information on growing bromeliads indoors and out, check out this great eHow article on bromeliad care.

Here's a raised bed with more aechmea, rainbow-leaved croton, and what looks to be either a variegated dracena or carex (could be Tesselaar's own Everest™) and one of my favorite new plants ever — tradescantia (the purple-pink spiky plant down in front). And below that is a close-up shot of the same plants backlit by the morning sun. Awesome!

Here are other images of croton … virtually unmatched in its brilliant colors and many leaf forms (this is one of those plants, however, that can't take chilly water. For more information, check out this great article on croton.

Or, of course, if it's rainbow-colored foliage you crave, and you're not sure how well croton will do in your yard, you can also plant Tesselaar's Tropicanna^® Canna (the bottom picture in this set shows it used along with coleus, Mexican sunflower and caladium in the winning design of Garden Gate magazine's 2009 "Container Challenge" design contest.)

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Well, that's all I could stuff in one post for now. But stay tuned for more tropical plant photos — and videos! — from my trip to Maui. In the meantime, if you want to see more pics from my trip (including the set where Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston and Dave Matthews were shooting their next movie!) check out my Flickr site.