Craving a tropical landscape in your own backyard but seriously limited for space? No problem, whether you are in a tropical climate or a cooler climate you can achieve the tropical look for your small garden. Once you’ve read the design secrets, browse the gallery of photos at the end of the page for small tropical garden ideas. They will get you well on your way to creating your dream tropical-themed garden where you can enjoy sunny days and balmy nights.
Small gardens, courtyards, balconies and side paths present similar design challenges. They are often surrounded by tall structures such as buildings and fences, are dominated by hard surfaces and they can have limited access. These are challenges that can all be overcome with clever design.
Remember our three key garden design elements?
Interaction
Thinking about how people (and animals) will use and interact with the space. This includes how they will move through the space, how they will spend time in the space, and how they will maintain the space. It incorporates accessibility, fragrance, sight, touch, sound, taste, allergy/toxicity and function. The primary reason we create gardens is to create experiences and feelings when we interact with the garden.
Physical space
Understanding the physical space, water and light availability, seasonal temperatures and weather extremes. This includes managing scale, balancing proportion between different elements of the garden. It also includes managing elevation, using changes in level to divide the space.
Integration
Integration is creating harmony between the garden space and the surrounding environment. This includes neighboring buildings and gardens and even distant views. It also includes the balance of hard (non-plant) and soft landscape elements. It’s about making everything look like it belongs. The transition from indoor to outdoor space should be visually and physically balanced. Consider the views when inside looking out when designing the garden space.
Planning your own tropical garden design
Start with interaction and plan how you will use the space and the feelings or experience you want to create. Then note how sunlight moves through the space. Do you need to protect the space from sun, wind or rain? You should be able to start compiling a brief or wish list describing the components required to achieve the functional goal(s) of the space.
Examples include:
- A peaceful space for reading, contemplation or yoga.
- Moving water to hide the sound of passing traffic
- A table that can seat 4 guests and lighting so that it can be used at night
- Plants that will encourage birds to enter the garden
- Herbs growing close to the door so that they are easy to access when cooking
- Storage for two bicycles, some tools and gardening supplies.
Re-create the tropical environment
A tropical theme translates across a range of garden styles. Creating your own small tropical oasis can be a simple or grand as you want it to be, it just needs proper planning and the right plants. Tropical landscape design goes beyond creating an exotic look with showy flowers and bold leaves in vibrant colors. It’s also about creating outdoor living spaces and sunny relaxation spots that you’ll want to spend all your available time in.
Lush green oasis
A rainforest or tropical jungle oasis has much denser planting and a range of tropical plants. It should have an upper canopy (either plant or structural) to provide shade and protection for the lush greenery of the lower growing plants. Small trees or climbers grown over a frame or structure can form a canopy. If your garden is outside tropical areas don’t use a deciduous tree or vine. You will need it to retain foliage in the winter months to help protect the more sensitive plants from cold temperatures.
This image shows a lush green tropical planting in a courtyard. Note:
- Canopy of lush foliage to provide shade and protection
- Climbing plant to provide vertical interest and hide the expanse of wall
- Bright pink pops of color for the feature plants that are placed to encourage the eyes to move across the space and also provide interest from multiple vantage points.
- A water feature to aid humidity, provide a habitat for aquatic plants and add soothing sounds to enhance the sensory experience.
Also note the use of thirds in this space. The top third line is aligned with the tops of the windows and doors, which then sets the height of the lower third to guide the ideal height and proportion of the border plants.
Low maintenance small tropical garden
An easy way to create a beautiful tropical garden that doesn’t need much of your time and attention is to minimize the varieties of plants and maximize the value of hardscaping. In this photograph you will see a newly built Japanese-style tropical garden. The lawn can be replaced with synthetic lawn for the ultimate low-maintenance garden.
- The bamboo screen will thicken in just 2-3 years to cover the fence and provide privacy screening from neighboring buildings.
- A feature plant such as this bonsai can be moved indoors during colder weather if required. A few different potted plants can be used in rotation to maintain visual interest across several different flowering periods. Note that bonsai is not a low maintenance plant.
- The water feature takes up a lot of space but provides just as much interest as a traditional garden bed. By using aquatic plants you still get foliage and flowers but don’t have to worry about watering them.
- Hardscaping in the form of decking and seating area take up a lot of the space in this garden but are ideal for those who want to entertain. Composite decking is a blend of plastic and timber that doesn’t require the regular maintenance that traditional decking timbers need.
Resort-style small tropical garden
The resort look is minimalist style with just a few varieties of plants, the star being one more architectural feature plants. Massed beds and underplanting with just one or two varieties complete the look. Flowers are usually kept to a restricted plant palette, sometimes with only one flower color. Large pots, tubs or planters are used to create visual interest and level changes in resort-style gardens. This garden uses plumeria (frangipani) in large planters as the feature plant, with palms for vertical interest and screening, and underplanting of cycad, cordyline and agave.
Big ideas for your small tropical garden
Create vertical interest
Small gardens lack horizontal space, so look to the vertical space for opportunity to introduce tropical garden plants. Hanging pots and climbers take up next to no room and are ideal for hiding ugly walls. A more expensive but highly impactful option is a vertical garden or green wall filled with exotic plants. These can cost thousands of dollars but you can’t beat them for visual interest in a small space.
All hanging pots and vertical gardens need frequent watering, in the case of green walls it may be several times per day. Setting up a dripper or misting system on a timer is well worth the trouble as it gives the water time to soak in to the growing medium rather than passing straight through.
Design for privacy
Hide fences, structures or create a privacy screen by planting tall fast growing plants such as bamboo. This can even be turned into a feature of your garden by planting a colored variety, such as tropical black bamboo, golden hedge bamboo or tropical blue bamboo.
As shown in this photograph, A bamboo screen can grow in a space as narrow as 2 ft / 60 cm. It can even be grown in troughs or planters to provide screening where there are hard surfaces.
Tall narrow plants for screening and privacy in a small space include palm trees, elephant ears (Alocasia), banana trees, bird of paradise (Strelitzia), and bamboo. Bamboo is the hardiest of these options, Strelitzia and some varieties of palm trees are also suitable in a colder climates. If you are really pressed for space try using a climber, such as jasmine, clematis, bougainvillea or creeping fig. Any of these will give you a tropical vibe in a range of climates.
Define the space
Break up the expanse of hard surfaces visually with plants, using garden beds or pots. Hiding corners is particularly effective.
Paving, decking and even rugs are a simple way to define different zones in your garden. Use the slider on the image below to see the effect of defining the space.
Find a hero
Draw the eye away from areas you’d rather hide with a focal point. Place a sculpture, water feature or hero plant in a location that will distract from the eyesore.Ideal hero plants are those with architectural interest, bold foliage or bright vibrant flowers.
Hero items don’t need to be large and dominate the space, they can be small if they have enough visual interest to capture your attention. Create a treasure hunt using a collection of small sculptures such as this tiny couple shown below. This can be a great idea for incorporating personality and humor into your garden design.
A water feature that double as a fish pond is an ideal garden centerpiece. It creates year-round interest, helps to maintain humidity in the environment and will attract birds and other small wildlife into your garden. Create foliage texture contrasts with tropical-looking plants for a lush look. Natural materials such as river rock and old logs can help the water feature blend into the landscape.
Make your space appear larger
Use plants with large foliage. Big leaves make a small space appear larger and are low maintenance because they make less mess and need less pruning. If you are using tall plants with particularly large leaves, like banana plants or elephant ears, they may need protection from strong winds.
Try not to use too many different plants. It can make the space visually overwhelming and make it appear smaller than it is. Exercise restraint with your color scheme, especially when it comes to flowers. Too many colors will compete for your attention.
If your space is particularly small you can make it appear larger by using a feature plant with large leaves and underplant it with a lower-growing plants or a groundcover that has small leaves.
This can be repeated in a row along a fence or path. As shown in this image, the small size of the leaves in the underplanting make the leaves of the main plant appear larger. This helps to anchor the space and make the immediate area appear larger than it actually is.
Appeal to all your senses
This entrance uses two levels of plantings to create a visual focus point. By using fragrant plants and a water feature the soothing and relaxing impact of the space could be tripled. This is particularly relevant at entrances to spaces where you want to create an instant impression. Our brains filter out sounds and smells when they have been around them for a period of time so they gradually have less impact. In high traffic areas and entrances sounds and smells have more impact as they make an impression on us as we move past them.
Comfort is key
You won’t spend time in a place if you aren’t comfortable. Plan seating around the sun and shade at the times that you are most likely to be using the space. You might like a sunny spot to enjoy breakfast and a shady space to laze away your afternoons.
Outdoor lighting and heating allow you to make the most of your outdoor space year round. A fire pit is a growing trend that creates visual interest as well as comfort. A hot tub is a great idea in colder regions and as an alternative to a swimming pool in a small back yard.
Integrating it all into a small space – universal design principles
Now you can start planning placement of different functional zones within the space. This is where we start to work with scale and proportion. There are universal design principles such as the Golden Ratio that can help you here. The Golden Ratio is repeated throughout nature, the classic example being a spiralled sea shell. The Golden Ratio can be used to balance the proportion of zones and spaces.
Start with the largest or most important space and then work down into smaller spaces for other functions.
Once you know the dimensions of the primary space you can calculate the relative dimensions of secondary and tertiary spaces. This informs the size of each space (and corresponding structures) that will appear balanced and proportional to the primary space. They don’t need to be arranged in a spiral like the image, this just helps you to visualize the relative sizes of the spaces. The spaces don’t have to be square either, they can be round, triangle or rectangle as shown below.
On the landscape plan below you will see two primary spaces, the pool area and a grassed area. The secondary spaces are the corner seating area and the unfinished space that could be for play equipment, a vegetable garden, or a pet enclosure. The smallest areas make ideal utility areas, such as a small garden shed, clothesline or a barbecue.
Rule of thirds
Another universal design principle is the Rule of Thirds, which is used in visual design. This principle is about aligning horizontal and vertical elements along invisible thirds, with focal points placed at one of the four points that the thirds intersect.
This creates more interest for the viewer and can be used when you are planning how your garden or space will look from different vantage points. It will help you decide the height and placement of the most visually interesting or important elements of your design.
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