Marianne Willburn - Tropical Plants and How to Love Them: Building a Relationship with Heat-Loving Plants When You Dont Live In The Tropics--Angels Trumpets – Lemongrass – Elephant Ears – Red Bananas – Fiddle

Marianne never fails to inspire, educate, and entertain with her writing. Tropical Plants and How to Love Them is a joy from cover to cover. She speaks from experience, weaving humor and empathy with a love of tropicals while challenging readers to reconsider their relationships with the plants they hold dear.

Dan Scott, Director of Horticulture, American Horticultural Society

This is a book we need today more than ever. Marianne Willburn gives us practical advice on how to grow tropical plants outside and later enjoy inside as houseplants. She writes like a trusted friend giving you helpful dating advice, including how to find the best match and evaluate it for maintenance and long-term possibilities. Like any good dating site, the photos are important and hers are beautiful.

R. William Thomas, Executive Director, Chanticleer Garden, USA

I am really impressed with this book. Its accessible, inspirational, and packed full of excellent advice. I love the idea of categorizing plants in a practical, fun, and relatable way, and admired Mariannes decision to challenge many of the arbitrary divisions often trotted out in gardening books between houseplants and garden plants. Its sparked a renewed excitement about using tropical plants in my own garden and giving my houseplants a summer holiday outside too.

Jane Perrone, garden writer and host of On The Ledge podcast

Marianne has managed to make me fall in love with tropical planting even deeper than ever before. I feel full of inspiration and have so many new ideas for my tropical plantings here in Hunting Brook.

Jimi Blake, Horticulturist, Hunting Brook Gardens, Ireland

A delight to read such a comprehensive guide to my passion. Playfully written with inspirational images and accessible practical advice that will encourage the reader to experiment themselves. I particularly enjoyed the guilt-free Summer Romance plants, mocktrops, and the entertaining plant relationship guidance.

Emma Allen, Garden Manager, Glasshouse and Exotic Garden, RHS Garden Wisley, UK

In Tropical Plants and How to Love Them, Marianne shows temperate gardeners they need not strictly relegate tropical plants to windowsills. Instead, she coaxes us outdoors and demonstrates how to practically use them to grace our garden beds, containers, and water gardens. Whether its a dramatic Canna lily or a colorful coleus, Marianne covers a range of common and not-so-common plants that will undoubtedly give any garden a wow factor.

Summer Rayne Oakes, author of How to Make a Plant Love You and host of Plant One On Me

The more I read, the more I wanted to stop reading and drive immediately to my local garden center! Mariannes passion for these plants is contagious, and her expertise will undoubtedly inspire a new generation of tropical gardeners. Tropical Plants and How to Love Them is full of inspiring plant combinations, gorgeous photographs, and excellent technical advice. Im ready to plant!

Ellen Zachos, author of Tempting Tropicals and co-host of Plantrama podcast

Tropical Plants and How to LoveThem is fantastic! I love the layout, I love the premise, and I love the little stories that each chapter creates.

Dan Benarcik, Horticulturist, Chanticleer Garden, USA

Marianne Willburn

Building a Relationship with Heat-Loving Plants

WHEN YOU DONT LIVE IN THE TROPICS

Tropical plants you fall in love with and enjoy during the growing season, but kiss good-bye when summer ends.

Tropical plants that make your outdoor spaces shine in the summer, and then double as gorgeous houseplants over the winter months.

Tropical plants that dont need a greenhouse, living room, or pampering to overwinter in a dormant state.

Tropical plants that expect a lot. But we do it for them because we love them. For now.

Tropical plants that enhance our gardens while also providing edible or medicinal value.

From patio containers to high-impact beds, experiment!

Its not you. Its me. And yes, it probably is.

Fifteen years ago, I didnt use tropical plants in my gardenat least most of those that you will find within the pages of this book. I didnt particularly care for them. I could appreciate and enjoy the romance of a tropical garden in a tropical setting, but bringing those elements into my own mid-Atlantic garden seemed an expensive, labor-intensive, and incongruous way of gardening when there were excellent plants available fully suited to my climate.

This may have had much to do with the quality and diversity of the plant available at my local garden centers. Thirsty canna lilies too big for their plastic pots and the odd, ragged bird of paradise on summer racks did not make a convincing case for putting tropical accents in my garden.

Neither did the price. I have always watched my pennies carefully and seed-reared most of my own annuals. If I would not spend fifteen bucks on a flat of pretty pansies, I wasnt going to blow it on one, tired-looking tropical plant that would perish at the end of the season.

And then I fell in love.

Its difficult to describe what happened any better.

The month was July. I was visiting friends and their gardens in North Carolina, and the weather was hot and muggy. And in traditional planting schemes featuring old favorites such as Hydrangea and Hosta, there stood an extraordinary burst of chartreuse foliage in the form of an elephant ear cultivar named Lime Zinger (Xanthosoma aurea). It did not dominate the bed, but gave it depth and vigor, and complemented the plants growing nearby.

In another area of the garden Canna Bengal Tiger was performing a similar miracleadding contrast, form, and excitement to the garden without expending a single bloom.