Steve Silk’s tropicals include: A Jasminum officinalis ‘Fiona Sunrise’; B Colocasia esculenta ‘Illustris’; C Musa acuminate var. sumatrana (syn. M. zebrina); D Cestrum ‘Orange Peel’; E Hibiscus acetosella; F Hedychium ‘Tara’; G Tibouchina urvilleana; H Acalphyla wilkesiana ‘Kona Coast’; I Begonia ‘Fireworks’; J Euphorbia x martinii ‘Ascot Rainbow’; K Impatiens ‘Applause Orange Blaze’; L Alternanthera ficoidea ‘Yellow Fine Leaf’; M Begonia ‘Little Brother Montgomery’; N Passiflora ‘Lady Margaret’; O Anisodontea cv.; P Canna ‘Tropicana’; Q Bulbine frutescens; R Abutilon ‘Voodoo’; S Mandevilla ‘Sun Parasol Crimson’; T Solenostemon scutellarioides ‘Electric Lime’; U Plumbago auriculata.

 

The Victorians loved their equatorial, non-hardy perennials (here), but the era of bedding schemes and giant tropical plants passed. Later, in the first half of the twentieth-century, American gardeners customarily planted summer-flowering corms, tubers, and rhizomes like gladiola, dahlia, and canna. But the idea of digging up and cold-storing the underground parts of the plants seemed too hard and too old-fashioned for postwar suburbanites. By 1960, you were more likely to know someone with a bomb shelter than a root cellar.

Tropical plants for summer gardens became a sensation in the 1990s thanks to nursery owners like Tony Avent, Dan Hinkley, Dennis Schrader, and Kathy Pufahl; garden directors like Marco Stufano, Chris Woods, Robert Wong, and Doug Rurhen; and garden writers like Steve Silk, Rob Proctor, and others. Global warming came to North American gardens before most of us had heard the term.

Canna/banana gardens sprouted up everywhere, with plants some people called “temperennials,” or as we now refer to them, tender perennials. New varieties appeared, for example cannas with striped or stippled foliage, fancy-leafed begonias, Acalypha (chenille plant), tropical euphorbia, flowering maple, gold-leafed jasmine, passion flowers, angel’s trumpets (Brugmansia varieties), night-blooming jasmine, firecracker plants (Cuphea spp.), black sweet potato vines, strange pepper relatives (Solanum spp.), and one hundred varieties of coleus (Solenostemon).

It was a revolution, and the fad became a trend that led to a conventional part of gardening. Late summer and early fall used to be quiet times in the garden with nothing showy until the muffins of fall chrysanthemums turned up in gas station plantings. Now, pretty much everyone includes tropical plants for late-season displays in their garden schemes.

Some of us let the tender plants die—killed by the cold after their long season. Others take cuttings to carry through the winter, and certainly dig up rhizomes to store in a cool corner of the basement, or even in the vegetable crisper of the refrigerator (in a bag marked “do not eat”).

A big banana and bromeliads at Chanticleer in Wayne, Pennsylvania.