The Bali Garden – Create Your Tropical Paradise
Our backyards are a sanctuary, hidden behind the house, a place to relax and create our own design space to achieve this purpose. If a full tropical landscape is not what you desire, many people opt for a smaller solution in the form of a Bali Garden.
These are a small tropical oasis and may be achieved by judicious planting alone adjacent to the house or in a secluded corner of the backyard. They may have a feature such as a pergola, fire pit, spa, fishpond, waterfall or just seating alone.
They are not as expensive to construct as a full tropical makeover of your yard yet add a serene tropical feel as well as adding value to your property. Let’s look at the elements and plantings that go to make a successful Bali Garden.
How to Create Your Layout
Firstly, consider where you are going to locate your Bali Garden. It may be close to the rear of your house and serve as an extension of your house for easy catering and privacy. Some may be located strategically further down the yard to block the direct vision of neighbours for your privacy.
Once a location is chosen, you need to decide if there will be a central feature such as an octagonal pergola, firepit or spa as well as seating. The inclusion of a feature with re-circulating running water provides a serene ambience as well as increasing the humidity for the tropical plants that will form the Bali Garden.
Structural elements, including provision for power and water for irrigation need to be planned and finished first. Solar lights are a good and less expensive option to consider. If possible try not to orientate your Bali Garden with a westerly aspect as the hot afternoon sun may affect the softer tropical species in summer. It is also more pleasant in the afternoon to not be looking into the afternoon sun. Rotate your living aspect so it is not orientated in this direction.
Tropical Plantings
Essential with a Bali Garden is to create a synergistic microclimate so that plants will thrive and require little care as the Bali Garden matures. It may not be possible to achieve this with one initial planting unless a dense planting is created from the outset. Some more mature taller specimens are essential to create the initial canopy to protect the softer leaf varieties that will be planted underneath. Subsequent plantings will fill in areas to create this effect once the canopy is established.
Wider leaf varieties work well as the first understory. We can use Travellers Palms, Abyssinian Bananas or the Standard Bird of Paradise. Cuban Cigar Palms are not a good option as they often die back or even not survive winter in our area. Never use the Giant Bird of Paradise planted in the ground – its roots are too invasive for inground planting unless you have a huge backyard.
Gingers can be included at this stage. There are a variety of plants that do well – even consider Cardamom Ginger as a group planting scattered around the Bali Garden. Costus gingers are an excellent choice, especially with their stunning tropical flowers in summer.
The Bali Garden should be dressed in tropical colour. This is achieved not with flowers but with the large variety of colourful leaf variants present in Crotons, Cordylines and Bromeliads. The only flower I usually incorporate in the Bali Garden is a feature Frangipani with a wide variety of colours and petal shapes to choose from.
Berkie Palms have the stock on site to create your Bali Garden. We focus on this type of tropical planting and have both mature canopy palms as well as colourful in-fills for that instant effect. An investment in a Bali Garden is like adding an outdoor room to your property. The investment adds to the value of your property as well as providing a relaxing peaceful area which may well become the most used “room” of your house!
