Tips For Tropical Landscaping

Tropical landscaping has become a popular option for many people in the past few years. Tropical plants provide your yard with lots of color and a unique look you can't get with other plants. Tropical plants have more appeal to garden lovers because of their color and unique looks. In addition, tropical landscaping can attract nature friends such as bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. The number and design of the plants you can use is very diverse.

Although you need to consider carefully if tropical landscaping is right for your yard. There are some tropical plants that will need a lot of water while others do fine in lots of heat. Freeze really doesn't work well with tropical plants and most won't survive the winter in many climates. If you live in cooler climates then you may want to include your plants in containers when planning your tropical landscaping so you can move the plants indoors during the cold winter months.

If you want to go with tropical landscaping then you need to follow a few rules to develop a landscaping plan. Sunlight is the biggest and most important issue. Tropical landscaping will need a lot of sunlight. Whether the plants are in containers, raised beds or planted in the ground you will need to plan for each plant to have a lot of direct sunlight. Each plant will need at least a minimum of six hours per day of direct sunlight in order to thrive.

Choosing Plants

For tropical landscaping the one plant you need is the bougainvillea. These plants will respond very well to irregular watering and they are very colorful. You can easily duplicate the natural habitat of bougainvilleas with tropical landscaping, they enjoy periods of rain for weeks at a time and then adapt to long dry periods. A few of these plants in pots can add a wonderful tropical setting to your yard or swimming pool area.

In addition, a bougainvillea can be grown in a variety of ways. You can grow it as a vine up a climbing trellis under the right conditions. Although they also work well when pruned and shaped so they can be formed into pretty much any shape. The one downside to this plant is their barbs or thorns. This means you should keep children and pets away from them. Although if you want a natural fence this will work well for your yard. The colorful display of the bougainvillea also creates a tropical landscape that is difficult to duplicate with any other plants.