Tropical plants for sale for shade and shelter
Tropical plants for sale covering philodendron, neoregelia and vriesea bromeliads, dracaena, cordyline, anthurium, asplenium and large leaved foliage, in container sizes from 6 inch pots up to boxed specimens.
These want more water and less direct sun than the rest of the catalog. They earn their place under a canopy, along a north wall, in a courtyard, or around a pool where light is bright but filtered.
Bromeliads bring colour into shade
Bromeliads are the reason this part of the catalog exists. Neoregelia in particular holds vivid colour year round in light where flowering plants simply will not perform, and it does so with almost no feeding. The colour is in the leaf, so it does not come and go with a bloom cycle.
Feed the beds with garden soils and amendments and mulch with bark rather than rock. For height in the same beds, see palms; for formal evergreen structure, see cycads.
Outdoor tropical plants for shade, courtyards and poolside
Everything on this page is grown as outdoor tropical plants for landscape use rather than as houseplant stock. Growing tropical plants outdoors in Southern California is mostly a question of light and shelter rather than heat. Give them bright filtered light and cover from afternoon sun and wind, and they hold leaf size and colour that no succulent will produce.
The low maintenance outdoor tropical plants in this range are the bromeliads and the tough foliage genera: neoregelia, aechmea, aspidistra, philodendron and dracaena. Once established in amended soil under a canopy they ask for very little beyond water and shade.
Tropical plants care and the winter low
Tropical plants care here has one hard rule that has nothing to do with the tropics: watch the winter low, not the summer high. Most of these are fine through a Southern California summer in shade, and it is a cold night that does the damage. Plant under a canopy or against a warm wall and the microclimate does most of the work for you.
Bromeliad care outdoors is simpler than people expect. Neoregelia and aechmea hold water in the central cup rather than in the soil, so keep the cup topped up, keep the mix free draining, and flush it occasionally so it does not go stagnant. A bromeliad outdoors in shade will colour up harder than the same plant kept inside.
Matching tropical plants names to what you actually want
Tropical plants names get used loosely in the trade, and two plants sold under the same common name can behave very differently, which is why everything above is listed botanically. Neoregelia and vriesea are the bromeliads, for colour in shade. Philodendron and anthurium are the large leaf foliage. Dracaena, cordyline and pleomele give vertical structure. Ravenala and heliconia are the statement plants.
If you are pricing a bromeliad plant for sale by size, each container size carries its own live price on the product page. Compare palms for the same filtered light, or cycads for a slower and more formal shape. The full range is in nursery plants.
