A-Z of hardy tropical style plants. Part 3.

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Hello, and welcome to our tropical style garden here in the UK.

[00:00:05]This is part three of my new series, the A to Z of hardy tropical plants, and we are on the letter C.

[00:00:14]Usually, I only pick one group of plants per letter, but in this, there was a few different ones that I wanted to cover that have different aspects that can help you in your garden. So, I've gone for three different ones this week. And rather than me just talk about it, let's get on with it.

[00:00:41]The first plant we're going to talk about today beginning with letter C is actually a tree, and this is a catalpa.

[00:00:48]This is catalpa bignonioides 'Aurea'.

[00:00:52]And it is a tree that's deciduous with these beautiful heart-shaped golden leaves. It can grow to about 10 m high, so not necessarily for a small garden, but can be pruned. And by keeping it to the size and shape you want, if you're willing to do that work, you'll probably encourage sort of bigger leaves on this.

[00:01:17]Um the new growth almost comes out of this rusty-looking color.

[00:01:22]Um not quite sure how to explain the color.

[00:01:25]Um but if you want that tropical sort of color higher up where most trees are usually greens and different tones of greens, you can really use this sort of almost lime green color to bring that tropical feel higher up in your garden.

[00:01:44]And if you use these with other plants with a similar color, behind me I have a phormium 'Yellow Wave' that would tie in really well. You can use the sort of more golden-leafed Choisya 'Sundance'.

[00:01:58]Um you could use Euphorbias with the yellow flowers and stuff that would really tie them colors in.

[00:02:05]>> [snorts] >> It's also known as the Indian bean tree.

[00:02:10]Now, right up until recently, I assumed that that was because it was from India, but actually it is from America.

[00:02:18]And the India um bit comes from the native Indians in America. And the seed pods on it look a bit like runner beans, hence why I believe the name is the Indian bean tree.

[00:02:33]There is also another one of the Catalpa that I'd like to talk about, which is also a really, really nice tree and can give you a different color effect higher up.

[00:02:45]And that is, by the power of magic, this one. This one is Catalpa erubescens purpurea. And it is a darker green-leaved variety, grows to the same sort of size. They like free-draining soil, pretty much full sun.

[00:03:03]Um I'd like to say a sheltered spot, but when something can grow as big as 10 m, you know, plus possibly, um that's quite hard to find a sheltered spot.

[00:03:13]But if you was coastal, something like that, I probably wouldn't recommend it cuz I imagine it would get battered around and could look quite tatty, possibly. But this one, purpurea, has dark green leaves, but the new foliage comes out pretty much purple to black. And there's hardly any plants that I can think of that could give you these big heart-shaped shaped um leaves that are that sort of purply black. And when you see a bigger example of this, um they are a glorious tree. Again, don't be too scared by the eventual size that they possibly could grow over many years because they can be pruned. I could keep pruning this down, letting it thicken up, and just keeping it at this height long as I'm willing to put that work in.

[00:04:04]Um like I say, free-draining soil, just make sure it's not waterlogged. It probably wouldn't appreciate that. Um but catalpa really, really is a way of getting sort of some good height into your garden with some tropical-looking color.

[00:04:33]Right, so the next group of plants I'm going to talk about is the cordylines.

[00:04:37]And this one is cordyline australis, which is basically the plain green version, and is about the hardiest we can grow in the UK.

[00:04:48]Cordyline australis was actually the first plant that I brought when I moved into this garden with a tropical-style look or feel, and actually then pushed me on to get more plants and got me into this journey.

[00:05:01]Now, hardiness-wise, it's reported about -10° C. Um hardiness is relevant. It depends on how long it's cold for, you know, if it's prolonged cold. In 2010 in the UK, um we had some severe cold, pretty much the coldest we'd had in about 100 years, I think. Um it wiped these out right over killed them or cut them back to the ground pretty much all over the UK apart from some mild areas, coastal areas, and stuff like that where they got through it, but lots of them took severe damage.

[00:05:39]The result of that was the ones that didn't die or didn't get thrown away or dug up, um they reshooted from the bottom and become multi-stemmed.

[00:05:50]Um, and now 16 years later, 2026 at the point of making this video, they have now created some beautiful cordylines with five, six or stems. And this example here, this is obviously a single-stemmed cordyline that I've planted last year, and then I've added two of the cordylines to it because I'm trying to make it look like that multi-stemmed version.

[00:06:16]Um, I have a larger one up there, which I'll just show you now. It's probably been in about 10 years. Now, Cordyline australis starts off as a single trunk unless it's damaged and it might grow create shoots from down the bottom, but generally is a single- stemmed cordyline until it gets to the point where it flowers. Once it gets to a age of maturity where it can flower, it then flowers, which is a heavily scented group of flowers, and um, that then causes the single stem to split, and it can then become multi-headed, two or three-headed, and then over the years as it flowers, it will have more and more heads to it, making more of a single stem and then a group of branched off leaves.

[00:07:06]So, Cordyline australis, um, lots of people get them, very available, um, and well worth having in a tropical style garden.

[00:07:18]Right, going to take a walk around the garden now and look at some of the other cordylines I grow. But before we do, I want to mention a cordyline that is quite often missold, and that is Cordyline indivisa.

[00:07:35]I have seen lots of people growing, and I've seen in nurseries, what appears to be exactly the same as this plant or very similar variation of it because lots of them can be grown by seed so you can get a little bit different variation of Cordyline australis and they are sold under the name Cordyline indivisa.

[00:07:55]For anyone that has ever seen or grown a genuine Cordyline indivisa, it is very much a different beast of a plant.

[00:08:05]I will now show you a picture of a beautiful example.

[00:08:09]This was grown by a fellow tropical gardener called Mike in Leicester in the UK successfully for a good few years until it died one winter.

[00:08:20]They are extremely hard to grow. If anyone out there has even tried, they will know that it's one of the fussiest plants ever. You have to get just the right conditions to grow this Cordyline. There is a few in the UK that are growing in certain locations and are growing happily, but it is probably in my opinion my favorite Cordyline. I have had one before as a small plant which like most it died because I couldn't get the conditions right.

[00:08:54]Um so I just wanted to point that out because I think a few of you out there might be growing what you believe is Cordyline indivisa um but is not the genuine thing and is probably just a Cordyline australis um or or a seed grown Cordyline australis.

[00:09:16]Now we're going to go on to this one which most of you will grow as Cordyline Red Star.

[00:09:23]For us that are a bit more old school before they decided to change the name, it used to be Cordyline purpurea.

[00:09:34]These are less hardy than the green version. They still have a fair amount of hardiness to them.

[00:09:41]Probably, I would say, -5°C to -7°C.

[00:09:47]Um I'm not saying they can't take colder. I have a few down my road that have got through a lot of winters. Some with damage and been cut back to the ground.

[00:09:57]But, genuinely, they can take a certain amount of cold, but extreme winters can either kill them or cut them down to the ground.

[00:10:09]This is my variegated cordyline Torbay Dazzler. It is a single stem still, and it is probably about 9 ft tall now.

[00:10:22]It's been in many, many years. In the worst winters, I have tied the top up and then put fleece over it and tried to keep the worst of the weather, which has seemed to work. If I got a really, really bad winter, I might have to do something a little bit more serious. I have another one over near my lawn that did get severely damaged in that cold winter of 2010.

[00:10:50]It's this multi-headed Torbay Dazzler here.

[00:10:54]I bought it in the spring of 2011, and it had been in a nursery during that really cold winter.

[00:11:03]I took it home, and it literally deteriorated very quickly.

[00:11:10]I think I was going to throw it away, and I thought I'd give it a chance. It then did start shooting from the bottom, and I grew it on for a couple of years until I finally planted it. And now, I have this three- to four-headed three stems, and then a couple of different heads on it.

[00:11:31]Multi cordyline Torbay Dazzler.

[00:11:34]And that just resulted from a really cold winter.

[00:11:40]The next cordyline on the list is this one, a very colorful pink and burgundy striped leaf. And this is cordyline Charlie Boy.

[00:11:53]And it is a very tropical looking cordyline.

[00:11:57]Hardy to around about minus seven, I believe. This one for me was out in a pot all last winter. I had minus 4.6° C, and it was totally untouched.

[00:12:10]Whereas some of the other cordylines um were badly damaged or killed that looked like these tropical pink colors. So, cordyline Pink Passion, for instance, died for me in the same sort of temperatures.

[00:12:27]This one seems to have much more hardiness.

[00:12:32]Um you do need free draining soil. If you're in waterlogged sort of conditions, you haven't got much chance, I would say.

[00:12:40]Um you want free draining to help it get through the cold. And then, if so, give it some protection.

[00:12:47]And there's a lovely little story to how this is in the nurseries now.

[00:12:54]Many years ago, a nurseryman in South Lincolnshire, about 40 minutes drive from me, was going through some plain green cordyline seedlings.

[00:13:05]And one of them appeared to be a bit different with these pinky to burgundy striped leaves.

[00:13:12]He then grew it on. And after a few years, it actually got hit by a really harsh winter.

[00:13:20]And he thought he had died.

[00:13:23]And he was even quoted to say, "If it had been a tidy nursery, it probably would have been thrown out. But later that year, it grew three new shoots.

[00:13:35]Those three shoots grew bigger. And then with the aid of another nurseryman, they managed to propagate them three shoots and bring it through over many years of money, time, regulations, and everything else to get it into mass production.

[00:13:57]They named the cordyline after his father, Charlie Boy, and that is why thankfully, to him not throwing it out, it's now sold all over the world.

[00:14:12]Cordyline Charlie Boy.

[00:14:26]Before I end this video, there is one other group of plants beginning with a letter C that I think also deserves a mention, and that is going down to ground level, and that is the carex grasses.

[00:14:41]Here I have three different carex grasses. I would use these all in part shade to shade cuz I think that's where they sort of look at their best.

[00:14:52]They don't have to deal with the scorching summer heat.

[00:14:57]Here I have carex evergold, and this is a green-leafed carex, but with lime margins to the outside. It really does add like a tropical look to shady borders.

[00:15:15]And also, carex everillo, which is pretty much all lime green.

[00:15:23]I this a lot in my garden. I think if you're going for a tropical style garden, lime green is a brilliant color to add to brighten up them darker spots.

[00:15:36]So, we have Carex Everlime and Carex Everillo.

[00:15:41]And I wouldn't use them together, but I would use them in different parts of the garden to sort of tie it in without them looking exactly the same.

[00:15:54]This is another Carex, and I think this one is called Ice Dance, and it's variegated green with these white margins.

[00:16:04]And again, you could use that variegation to brighten up a dark spot of a shady border.

[00:16:13]One of the Carex I really like to use then is the plain green variety. And if you're trying to build a jungle or woodland sort of look, you don't really want the lime greens as much maybe cuz that's a bit more of a tropical look. If you're trying to do something a bit more natural, then the plain green varieties are really good.

[00:16:34]And one that I found that works for me is this one, Carex Irish Green.

[00:16:41]Free draining soil. Don't let them dry out too much though cuz they can make them look a little bit on the ropy side, but generally really easy to look after.

[00:16:53]They'll sort of clump up, get a bit bigger.

[00:16:56]And when you're trying to find different contrasts of foliage, and you put it next to things like ferns and plants like that that like similar conditions, it really does give you a plant that looks good all year round, hardy, evergreen, low maintenance in general.

[00:17:17]They're the kind of plants we need in our garden.

[00:17:20]Right, as my microphone is broken and I can't be in front of the camera, I thought I'd sit down the bottom and you can look at pretty waterfalls instead of me.

[00:17:32]That is the end of the letter C for hardy tropical plants. Next, we've got to move on to the letter D, which is going to be quite a bit more tricky.

[00:17:44]Um any suggestions for the letter D, please leave in the comments.

[00:17:48]Any experience or hardiness things that um you want to say about any of the plants, cordylines, catalpas, anything like that, please put it in the comments so other people can read the comments and see other views over than mine. I don't know everything, I just talk about my experiences and experiences I've learned from other people.

[00:18:12]Right, let's leave it at that and um give it a like if you like the video. It really does help. Um please subscribe.

[00:18:21]I'm slowly slowly getting the subscribers up. It's been a very long long time doing it, but it's really really appreciated. It's free and it just helps YouTube hopefully put my videos out to inspire a few more people to grow these amazing plants.

[00:18:41]We'll leave it at that and I'll see you next time. Thank you.