Tropical Flower Care

The most important step of tropical flower care is to identify the plant, since it is impossible to provide guidelines for tropical flower care that will suit all the thousands and thousands of tropical flower species, hybrids and cultivars in the world. If you know which plant you keep, you can most likely find specific guidelines by doing online research, consulting a book or asking a more experienced flower keeper for advice. If you do not know exactly which species or hybrid you have obtained, merely knowing the genus or even family will often help a lot since closely related flowers tend to have similar requirements. Do not hesitate to bring your plant or a good photo of it to your local garden centre or garden club and ask for their advice. You can also post photos and descriptions in online garden forums.

Tropical flower care – Natural environment

When it comes to success in tropical plant care, a key factor is to resemble the natural environment for your plant. There are of course exceptions to this rule, and some plants will really appreciate environments highly dissimilar to the harsh conditions found in their native regions. (Such plants frequently turn into pests when introduced to less inhospitable parts of the world.) The general rule is however to mimic the natural environment of your particular plant. Many garden owners unknowingly kill or injure their tropical plants when they try to provide them with “good care”. A plant hailing from arid parts of the tropics may for instance suffer greatly when its well meaning owner drenches it in gallons of water each day. The owner only tries to do the right thing – all plants love water, right? The end result is however rotten roots and a dead tropical plant in the garden. When this happens several times, such plants often get a reputation of being impossible to keep, even though the only thing you really have to do if you want it to thrive is going away on vacation and abandon the plant completely for a few weeks.

How is the general climate in the native region of your plant?
Are there seasonal changes between dry and wet or between warm and cold? Will your plant need some form of resting period?
How about rainfall? Intense thunderstorms once in a while or generally humid conditions? Also keep in mind that plants in clay pots dry our more rapidly than plants in plastic pots, which means that two plants in different pots can require different amounts of water even if they belong to the same species.
Which are the maximum, minimum and average temperatures in the native region of your plant?
How much light are the wild plants receiving? Remember that even though the sun is hot in the tropics, many plants live under the shading canopies of taller trees and are very sensitive to direct exposure to sunlight.
How is the soil? Acidic? Nutrient rich? Soggy? Well draining? Sandy? Does the plant even grow in soil.

Tropical Flower Care

Tropical flower care – Identification

Tropical flower care – Natural environment