How to Create a Tropical Garden at Home | Gardening | Great Home Ideas

How pretty is that? Now, that's Gerringong there. I'm on the south coast of New South Wales. To a gardener, this is God's country. It's the perfect climate for growing things. But the gardens kind of match the older style houses. You get formal and cottage, very traditional gardens. But the one we're going to look at is completely different. All that's been pushed to the side and you'd expect to see this in the far north tropics of Australia or even in the humid parts of Asia. No prizes for guessing that this is a tropical garden and yet I'm a long way from the tropics. The man behind the landscape design is Clint Bramston. Clint, how old is this garden? Probably about five years. It's grown up quite a lot in the last probably two years. Most of these plants are all from tropical ages. They're very, very fast growing. It just happens that it grows really, really well here. Whenever we talk about bamboo on the show, they usually run 100 miles an hour away from you because they think it's going to impact the neighbours, it's going to take over. What's the secret? The running stuff gives it a really bad name, but the clumping stuff, if you select the right species and you plant the right thing in the right spot, then generally you'll never have any problem. It will never run. What's your favourite thing about this garden? Oh, really? I just love the tranquilness of it. I love the shade. I love the water moving. Mate, do you mind if I have a sticky beak? It's all yours. It's what it's here for. Now, there's about 30 different varieties of bamboo in this garden alone. If you like the look of them but you're still scared about which one's going to work at your place, here's a great entry-level version. It's called Chinese Dwarf. Now, it's kept to a metre along the side of the house there. There's a little low hedge. It's let go here and it's clipped back about once a year and kept to about two to three. And if you don't touch it at all, it'll max out at four. Pretty common scenario is you've got your dream home, but next door they do the knockdown rebuild and build a great big two-storey mansion looking straight into your place. Well, I'd much prefer to look at a green space than a brick wall with windows. This one here is a perfect choice. It's called Slender Weavers. Now, you can see that it's growing over the concrete and you can see that the concrete doesn't have any breaks or cracks in it, so it's not growing underneath. It's a clumper, so you need to be careful that it doesn't clump on the other side of the fence. You don't want to impact your neighbours. But with a simple barrier, you can get a screen in a tiny little garden bed that'll block out the ugliest house in your neighbourhood. One of the most interesting things about a rainforest garden or a tropical garden like this is layering. Now, here's a vertical garden, but as the way nature intended it. You've got this monstera up here. It grows by scaffold, so it needs something to climb on, which is the bangalow palm. And then you've got these running bromeliads, so you've got layers growing up the trunk of the tree. Sitting here, I could be in any of about 30 countries through Asia. This is just clever garden design. You've got a beautiful pond planted around the edges. It's nice and safe, not too deep. The koi are loving it. Best thing about it, you've got that water spilling out of the wall and these bowls spilling one into the other. I'm about 20 metres away from a pretty busy road, and all I can hear is the serenity. This little garden's really cleverly designed, and it's not that hard to achieve at home.