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Garden Decor & Landscaping Tips Articles |
Moving From Temperate To Humid: Learning About Tropical LandscapingHowever, living nearer the equator brings new gardening challenges. In humid weather, everything grows so well that tropical landscaping is sometimes more about pruning and pulling instead of fertilizing and nurturing. Selecting Plants For Tropical Landscaping When it is time to set up a tropical yard, a lot of the plants in the local nursery may look like temperate houseplants. That is because in their native tropical habitat, plants like Crotons and aloe flourish outside. It makes temperate houseplants look puny. For example, in tropical landscaping, ivy can never be the vine of choice. Instead, people plant philodendrons - and they grow leaves bigger than sheets of notebook paper. The closer to the equator you are, the easier it is to grow orchids. Tropical landscaping in the most elaborate gardens can include hundreds of pots of orchids. Orchids absorb moisture from the air into their roots. Therefore, they do not like to be planted in soil. Instead, they must be planted in lava rocks so that air can circulate well around the roots. Many of the flowers in the temperate garden simply cannot live in the tropics. Any flower that needs a dormant period, like daisies or lupine, cannot survive long. The best plants for tropical gardens are usually things with thick, waxy leaves. Think bird-of-paradise or canna lily. Some plants that are annual in temperate zones can handle the tropics. Things like bougainvillea can grow to an unimaginable size in a place where it never freezes. Garden foods in the tropics are much different from temperate crops. It is too warm and humid for most carrots, radishes, lettuce and other cool-weather crops. But in return, tropical landscaping makes up with an array of fruit. Bananas, oranges, lemons, mangos, kiwi, and even more exotic species must grow in a hot, humid climate. Stellar Growth Rates The plants that are grown in the tropics grow much faster than temperate plants. Though kudzu may grow a foot in a day, this is nothing unusual in tropical landscaping. Your biggest chores will be pruning away overgrowth and cleaning up dead leaves. |
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