Tropical Gardens: A jungle setting in your own backyard

Maria Endah Hulupi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The beauty of tropical plants never loses its charms and it is among the most popular concepts brought home to adorn residential gardens.

When adopted for gardens, the tropical concept offers low- maintenance natural attractiveness that highlights its wildness and exoticness, all nicely blended on a piece of land.

"Tropical gardens have particular characteristics, including that they last for years, usually focus on leafy trees and plants, require little pruning but still maintain their beautiful shapes and less hassle for maintenance," said Budi "Tuti" Darmastuti from landscaping contractor Tata Eksotik.

"However, like other plants, tropical plants require basic maintenance, like good watering twice a day, periodical feeding and pesticide application and hoeing the earth near the roots to make the soil less compact," she said.

The firm's director, Edwin Suryadi, explained that there were different kinds of tropical gardens but one of local favorites is the Balinese garden.

He explained that such a tropical garden would not only be suitable for a Balinese-style terrace or house, but with careful planning, such a garden can also be harmonious with those of different designs.

He said that elements of the garden were differentiated into "hard" elements, including those that highlight an ethnic theme, like using statues, lamps, garden benches, pots, stones and other natural stones as materials for the wall, pathway or artificial pond.

"The use of these objects would bring the Bali theme in a tropical garden concept. They usually are installed as the focal point in the garden," he said, adding that placement of these objects should be planned based on the garden and the position of the house.

For optimum results, the terrace need to be furnished with items made with tropical materials like wood or rattan.

For the "soft" elements, or the plants, Edwin added that basically all tropical plants can be used, but certain plants do exert a stronger tropical effect than others.

Among these plants are various kinds of palm trees, banana trees, ferns and bamboo for leafy plants. Lotuses, orchids and soka (or ixora), heliconia are perfect as flowering plants.

Tuti explained that most tropical plants flourish in areas that receive direct or partial sunlights.

For ground cover, especially for areas that receive partial sunlight, instead of using grass that may not survive in such an area, people can use natural stones.

As usual, placement of the plants should be made based on their height. The lowest plants (ground cover) can be planted on the outer area of the plot, followed with medium height shrubs and then tall trees, like palm trees, at the back.

Edwin stressed that each of the plants had a different function, such as for ground cover, border and fence, and they can be strategically placed based on their functions for esthetic reason as well.

He said people can "break the rules" by installing medium sized or tall trees in such a way as to better enhance the wild tropical image.

"This trick is adopted to create an 'unpredictable' accent and at the same time maintain the naturally wild character of a tropical garden," he said.

There is also other considerations for selecting the right kinds of tropical plants, which is the character or condition of the household.

For this purpose, there are some basic questions -- including whether they have a gardener or servant to take good care of the garden, if there are children and do the adult members of the family like gardening -- can help define what kinds of plants are suitable or which placement is best for their gardens.

"For example, a prickly agave plant is not suitable for family with children. If they love the plant, they can install it in an inaccessible area. Families without domestic helper need low maintenance garden," Tuti said.

Apart from proper watering twice daily, other routine maintenance includes protecting the plants against pest attack by using pesticide, feeding the plants with manure every three months and fertilizer every two weeks.

"To avoid harmful effects of pesticide, it is important to read the label carefully and to provide nutrients and favorable soil condition for the plants. It is better to use manure and fertilizer alternately," Tuti said.