Urban garden - plants

Really exciting urban gardens need to have a number of plant features. First they need to look good all year round, second the need to have strong architectural shapes and third they need to cope with the special conditions of urban life.

Exotic plants have strong architectural shapes, tend to be evergreen and plenty of them are hardy – even those which are borderline in frost prone climates will survive in an urban garden because the microclimate created by all that exhaust heat and the escaping heat from houses will keep them safe – it’s not all bad news to live in a town!

There are two ways to use them, depending on your budget. If you’re on a shoestring, you can use just a few as punctuation marks in your garden, but if money is no object, you can opt for a major exotic look, creating your own mini jungle.

For the jungle version, consider planting:

• Alocasia cucullata, known as Chinese Taro, Chinese Ape
• Chusquea couleou also called Foxtail Bamboo a lovely plant that provides a bushy tailed effect
• Jacaranda mimosifolia, also known as the Mimosa-Leaved Ebony or Fern Tree a tall impressive tree or shrub with finely cut leaves like a fern
• Alocasia macrorrhizos, the Giant Elephant's Ear – that’s pretty self-explanatory, isn’t it?
• usa "Dwarf Orinoco" alternatively called the Dwarf Bluggoe which is actually a mini green banana!
• Alocasia macrorrhizos the Borneo Giant
• Phoenix sylvestris or East Indian Wine Palm, Toddy Palm – so named because it was claimed you could get drunk on water that stood in the leaves because sugars given off by the palm fermented in the sun. Also called the monkey drunk tree, I wonder why?
• Alocasia odora, or Night Scented Lily - to give a wonderful tropical fragrance to your evenings.
And for the cheaper version, pick just one of these and add cordylines and marigolds to give a tropical impression and about a tenth of the cost!

 

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