Creating the exotic jungle look......

...in the UK climate can be surprisingly easy if you choose the right plants.

This wide corner is a particular favourite, built up with layers of mixed foliage shapes, to provide contrast of form and colour. Most of the planting is hardy and evergreen so there is plenty left to admire, even in the depths of winter.

Tender plants such as cannas, begonias, dahlias and bananas can be infilled during the summer months to provide a zing of colour and lifted/overwintered just before the first frosts.

Choose large leaved shrubs and palms such as different varieties of fatsia, trachycarpus fortunei and dwarf fan palms mixed with smaller leaved specimens such as bamboo, phormium and cordyline.

Spot in a few deciduous plants such as sambucus, tetrapanax and acers.

Last ingredients used to infill are some grasses and smaller plants such as hosta, ferns and a few exotic looking bulbs such as agapanthus, calla and pineapple lilies and crocosmia.

So there it is... a recipe for an exotic border...you're welcome!