Top 7 Tropical Plants to Add to Your Florida Landscape

This is Florida, so if you’re not filling your yard with spectacular tropical plants, what are you even doing? (Besides staring out at your yard wishing you had spectacular tropical plants.)

Showy flowers bigger than your dog’s head. Huge colorful leaves. Towering trunks. So. Many. Cool. Plants.

How to choose tropical landscape plants for Sarasota FL that will knock your sandals off?

Here you go:

1. Crotons 

Colorful, captivating crotons are like a celebration in your landscaping. They’re like the party guest who shows up in an orange dress when everybody else is wearing black. 

Gardens, as we all know, can be pretty green, especially during those ho-hum windows of time when nothing in the yard seems to be flowering.

Then, spectacular tropical crotons to the rescue, with their vivid yellow, orange and red leaves. 

These tropical Florida plants thrive in the heat, add stunning tropical color, and grow an impressive six feet tall.

Which ones to choose? You might want to sit down for this. There are more than 800 known varieties. They actually ran out of names and just started calling them letters and numbers. 

But don’t worry — there are plenty of cool names. And if you don’t want your front yard to look like everybody else’s, look beyond the super popular varieties of these tropical landscape plants and try a couple that your neighbor probably doesn’t have. 
Everybody tends to use the same ones, like ‘Mammy,’ ‘Petra,’ and ‘Magnificent.’ All amazing. But be as bold as croton foliage and try something new. 

‘King of Siam’ has intriguing leaves that are narrow, twisted and curled with reds, yellows and oranges. 

‘Dreadlocks’ looks like it sounds, with distinctive, twisted foliage that cascades down like an exotic hairdo.
 
‘Pie Crust’ sports pointed foliage with rippled edges of deep red, bronze and orange. 

And there are hundreds more of these perfect tropical landscape plants. Go crazy. 

2. Hibiscus

It’s hard not to be happy when you’re face to face with a hibiscus bloom.
 
Hibiscus flowers can be up to nearly 10 inches in diameter at maturity and come in a wide range of colors, from white to red, pink, yellow, and orange. They’re stunning, and they’re the ultimate tropical paradise flower. 

And, lucky us, these tropical Florida plants offer nearly year-round flowers, as long as they get the right nutrients. 

If yours doesn’t bloom all year, put down those pruning shears. 

Some homeowners and landscape maintenance companies trim these shrubs every month. Big mistake. That cuts off the new buds. 

Tropical Gardens Landscape crews trim hibiscus a foot from the ground in spring and a foot from the ground in fall. 

Get ready for bountiful blooms. 

3. Bougainvillea 

If you can’t pronounce this tropical landscape plant, no biggie. 

Just sit back and enjoy the stunning colors —  pink, magenta, purple, red, orange, white, or yellow.

This pretty plant will bloom all year if it’s in full sun, making it a top pick for winter color.
But its beauty comes with a price — big sharp thorns. So, beware.

4. Ixora 

Meet one of the best tropical plants for Florida landscaping, when it comes  to flowering shrubs. This sun-loving shrub offers clusters of tubular flowers in bright red, orange, yellow, pink, or white.

This compact, densely-branching shrub works great as a hedge, border, screen, or specimen plant. 

‘Maui’ will wow you with vibrant red or yellow flowers, both with an orangey tint.

We love ‘Nora Grant’ for height. It has clusters of tiny pink flowers and is great as a hedge. 

Need something smaller for your Sarasota FL landscaping? Choose one of the ‘Petite’ varieties, which stay at a tidy one or two feet tall. 

One of the best flowering tropical plants for Sarasota, Ixora flowers throughout the year, and each flower cluster can last between six and eight weeks, giving your landscape long-lasting color.

5. Shefflera ‘Dazzle’

This beauty is called “Dazzle” for a reason. Its variegated leaves in yellow and green will wow you. 

If this tropical landscape plant looks familiar, you’ve probably seen its lookalike, the popular Shefflera ‘Trinette.’

But ‘Dazzle’ offers a significant improvement— it doesn’t get leggy at the bottom the way ‘Trinette’ does. 

6. Alcantarea

This tropical beauty is in the bromeliad family, which means it’s automatically cool. Add these tropical landscape plants to your Sarasota yard and it’s easy to imagine a dinosaur might come loping around the corner. 

Most love full sun and thrive in dry conditions.
Here are two great varieties:

‘Imperialis’

Its colors range from green to silver to red, usually with deep red on the underside of the leaves.

It’s a giant beauty. Its leathery leaves can measure up to 6" in width and 5 feet in length. 

If you have plenty of patience, this one’s for you. It lives a l-o-n-g time and after a few decades can sprout a huge red bloom. 

‘Odorata’ 

This tropical Florida plant prefers mottled shade. 

When it’s young the leaves are pale green with silver banding, and as the slender leaves grow mature, they change to a silver– bluish color. 

Showy, fragrant yellow flowers will show up — eventually. It can take 3 – 5 years to flower. 

7. Palms

Of course, the ultimate tropical landscape plants are palms. 

Lounge underneath one on a hammock. Host a dinner party beneath its sheltering fronds. Pretend you’re on an exotic vacation — ALL THE TIME! 

Check out a few of our faves: 

Coconut Palms

Tropical vibes? Check. 

Sore neck? Maybe — if you stare up at them for too long. They can grow to 50 feet tall. Look familiar? You’ve seen these classic tropical Florida plants in a lot of movies and TV shows.

Rich green fronds arch up and out, with coconut clusters showing off underneath. That’s right. You can grow actual coconuts. 

Foxtail Palm

This tropical landscape plant looks like it sounds, with fluffy fronds that look like the bushy tail of a fox. 

Fun bonus: you can find this one with a single, double, or triple trunk

Christmas Palm 

This tropical Florida plant is a nice smaller palm, so it’s great if you have a single story ranch. 

It doesn’t get quite as tall as other palms, so it can make a cool statement without overwhelming your space. 

Bottle Palm

This one’s a beauty, with a trunk shaped like an antique bottle. As it matures, it gets more and more bottle-shaped. 

Perfect for a smaller space, the Bottle Palm is slow growing, and tops out at about 10 feet at maturity. But be patient — that’ll take years. Most hover around 5-7 feet tall. 

Triple trunk? Yes, please. 

Ready for Show stopping Tropical Florida Plants? Talk to Us 

Phew. That’s a lot of tropical plants for your Florida landscaping. 

How to choose? Bougainvillea or bromeliad? Single trunk or triple? So many decisions. 
Feeling stressed? Maybe relax beneath a luxurious tropical palm. 

Oh, you don’t have one? Rats, too bad. 

Chat with one of our landscape designers, who are happy to help you figure it all out.

Give us a call or fill out our form today! Our team of Sarasota designers can’t wait to design the perfect outdoor haven for your backyard or vacation rental property.