Yes you read that right, you can grow your own tropical style garden from only 5 packets of seed! So how can we do it? Whether you are new to gardening or an experienced gardener, us gardeners always have an appreciation for fast growing plants that are easy to start from seed.
Fast growing plants can be a really affordable way to stick to a low budget garden with quick impact. You can either grow your whole garden border from seed like I’ll be sharing in this design, or you can use these fast growing plants to fill in gaps an oneI your existing borders. Remember, these garden designs are there to share garden ideas, feel free to add your own unique twist. Growing plants from seed is really rewarding whether you do it on your own as a family or with your friends.
I have designed this tropical style garden using 100% plants that grow from seed to flower in one year. This means they will quickly grow to fill out a garden bed or garden border. By mid-summer your small investment in seeds will be a bold and beautiful tropical style planting scheme. I’ve included large foliage plants to provide that jungle vibe, tall variegated planted for vertical interest, big flowering plants for that tropical effect, unusual exotics to add that tropical feel plus plenty of colourful foliage for colour throughout the gardening season.
Let’s break down this budget tropical garden design, beginning at the front of the border and we’ll work our way backwards through this budget tropical garden design.
Right at the front of the border I have used Coleus plants, now called Solenestemon. These plants have been popular as both garden and houeplants for many many years because of the wide array of colours available. Coleus plants do flower in late summer, but the majority of their colour interest comes from the richly coloured foliage. The great thing about foliage colour is that it lasts so much longer than that of flowers which come and go. Coleus are easy to grow from seed, and you can grow which ever colour is your preference. I’ve used reds and purple as a running colour theme through this design so I have opted for a dark leaved cultivar with bright green leaf edges. Coleus tolerate shade well, so these smaller plants will thrive under the bigger foliage in this tropical garden design.
To sow coleus seeds, surface sow the relatively small seeds into a good seed compost. As the seeds are small I would recommend watering your compost before sowing so that you don’t risk disturbing your seed after sowing. If the tray needs watering again, sit your seed tray in a tray of water and allow it to soak from the bottom upwards. As soon as your seedlings are big enough to handle, prick them out and pot on to grow them in individual pots before planting out.
Next up I have added Amaranthus caudatus to our budget tropical garden design. This plant is sometime commonly called ‘love lies bleeding’ on account if it’s striking pinky/red drooping towers. Amaranthus caudatus is incredibly easy to grow and it’s trailing flowers combine with tropical style planting schemes very well. The colour of those red flowers against the leafy green backdrop will complement our Coleus plants really well. I’ll use 3-5 plants in the design planted behind our Coleus foil at the front of the design.
Amaranthus seeds are small but easy to handle. I would sow them similarly to how I sow Coleus, be sure not to sow too many seeds too close together as this can cause dampening off problems as they germinate. And remember, our design only requires 2-5 plants so don’t feel tempted to sow the entire contents of your seed packet!
So we are only two packets of seeds in and we have already got both foliage and funky flowers. For our next plant I’m going to add a variation on something that I’m sure most of us while have grown before, the sunflower! Fast growing, easy, and massive flowers, sunflowers are deservedly a popular choice for gardeners. These red flowering plants will complement our tropical garden design beautifully, plus they are fantastic for pollinating insects which will help bring wildlife into your garden design. As with the Coleus, feel free to choose a sunflower colour of your choice and tweak this tropical garden design to make it your own.
Sunflower seeds are relatively large in the seed world. The are easy to handle and grow quite quickly. I would recommend sowing two seeds per 9cm pot. When they have germinatined you can selected the strongest seedling and pick out the weaker one. Again, grow on until the are large enough to plant out. Sunflowers often benefit from a support as the grow quickly and the flowers often make the plant top heavy.
Now we need to add some vertical interest into our budget tropical garden design. You night be surprised to see me using sweetcorn! Well not ordinary sweetcorn, this is a variegated form that has beautiful pink and creamy white stripes running through it’s leaves. Corn plants grow rapidly from seed, and as the colour is on it’s foliage we get to enjoy it’s beauty even before it has reached full height. And yes, these will produce a corn on the cob in late summer but these will be a gorgeous maroon colour, not the yellow corn that we are used to. The grass-like texture of the foliage will contrast against all the more traditional foliage in our tropical garden design so far. I love using tall grassy plants as the help add movement to a design as the gently sway and rustle in a summer breeze.
If you have seen sweetcorn then you have seen what a seed for this variegated corn will look like. As with the sunflower, I will sow two per 9cm pot and pick the strongest plant after germination. If this seems a little wasteful you can of course pick out the second plant, pot it on and share it with friends or family. The idea behind sowing two is that if one seed doesn’t germinate at least your pot will still have one viable plant.
Finally, we need to add some large jungle foliage to our budget tropical garden design. For this we are going to use Ricinus communis, the castle oil plant. Ricinus are very fast growing plants that can read up to 2m in one season! Their large lobed leaves have a similar shape to fatsia and tetrapamax leaves. Ricinus plants are available in several ornamental cultivars, some with green leaves, some purple and some with a sikvery blue sheen. For this design I’m sticking to our colour pallaete and using the purple and the green leaved cultivars.
Ricinus seeds are large, as are the seedlings, so sow them just as with the other large seeds in this budget tropical garden design, 2 seeds per small pot. Grow on and plant out when large enough.
And there’s all the plants that we will be using in this design. 5 packets of seeds turned into a beautiful tropical style garden border in one year! Magic ????
A few tips I would add are:
- Use good quality seed compost to improve your plants start in life. Seed compost is specifically formulated to give seedlings the environment they need to thrive.
- Use toilet roll tubes, recycle plastic food containers, anything will help you save money. You don’t have to use plant expensive pots!
- When potting your seedlings on, use a rich multi-purpose compost that will give them plenty of food to thrive and grow healthy.
- When planting out consider enriching your bed I garden border with compost or chicken manure pellets. This will help your plants grow large, healthy and strong.
- During the growing season you can water your bed with an organic fertiliser to encourage the biggest plants possible. Something like liquid seaweed and liquid tomato feed will do the trick wonderfully.
You don’t have to break the bank to have a lush tropical garden, not do you have to wait year’s for it to establish. With a little planning and know how you can save a fortune and enjoy the process of growing an entire border from seed. And remember, this tropical garden design is just a starting point, an idea, please feel free to add your own twist to make your garden uniquely yours.
