Article: Topically tropical; Charlie Dimmock shows how to use exotic hardy plants to get that trendy 'jungle' look.

TROPICAL is a very leafy style of garden - chunky, green and luscious, with a few big blobs of flowers to liven it up. And it's terribly trendy, probably because of all the publicity about global warming.

But it's no good using real jungle plants, unless you can keep them in a greenhouse for the winter. Instead, concentrate on hardy plants with big leaves that make them look exotic and plant them permanently outdoors.

Many people have hardy bananas (musa basjoo) - I see lots of them from the train every time I go to London - and even though the temperature dropped drastically for several nights this spring, they've survived without any protection.

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