Tropical Zone Gardening: Building a new tropical (orchid) Garden : Getting Ideas, 2 by larskurth

larskurth wrote:
Hi,

I recently bought a property on the Pacific Coast in Costa Rica (near Quepos) in the tropical hills at an elevation of around 100m. The climate data is at [HYPERLINK@weatherspark.com]

I attached a panorama view of the hill that I want to build the garden on: its about 40m wide and 40m at each edge on a slope of around 40-50%. I wanted to terrace the hill with gabons (see other pics) whose front are lava rocks to allow growing orchids on these and add trees (mostly small, bit with some larger growing ones as well), palms, tree ferns, cycads, large bromeliads for understory growth. Some palms, such as Licuala grandis are ideal to grow orchids on. I was also thinking about growing some crweeping ferns, such as Humata tyermanii, Pyrrosia, etc. on tree trunks and gabons to create microclimates that allow orchids to also thrive on su ch trees.

Now to you: I am looking for ideas for some plants and also ideas of gardens on tropical slopes. I started doing some research, but it\'s quite hard to figure out what grows where in the tropics and there seem to be not many resources around in general.

Looking for unusual ideas, and trees that flower. I was for example thinking of planting some Eucalyptus deglupta, but not sure they wouldn\'t cause a problem on such a slope. Also I was thinking of Brachychiton acerifolius, but not sure whether it would work.

Also looking for websites, books, etc.

I also like a lot of NZ species (they have very small leaves and the light filters very differently through the trees, but not sure whether any of those would actually grow (and whether I can get them).

Any help, suggestions, etc. would be highly appreciated

Best Regards
Lars