These skies are finally blue in my UK tropical style garden and the daytime in even night time temperatures are staying nice and warm. All of those hardy, resilient plants that shrugged off the harsh weather conditions of winter are thriving in these conditions. My euphorbia cross-pastorii is in full bloom and the ants are absolutely loving its sweet nectar. My papaya is in full flower and the hardy bananas are reaching for the skies. However, there is a problem in paradise. I encounter this stress-inducing problem at the same time every single year. My garden is surrounded by boundary walls and boundary fences, limiting the amount of space that I've got available to grow plants in. And I'm sure this isn't something that I suffer alone. So many of us are restricted in our growing space and as spring turns into summer we can really feel those limitations with everything growing away. So how do I overcome these space limitations when growing a tropical style garden here in the UK? Now small gardens don't mean you have to limit yourself as much as you might think. Over the years I found a number of ways to increase the amount of plants that I can grow in a limited space and I'm going to share some of those tricks with you now. So for the first trick we're going to turn to rainforests for inspiration. Rainforests grow in layers and by planting our garden in layers we're going to be able to utilise everything that we can learn from a rainforest. Plants don't all grow at the same heights in the same conditions. They've evolved to thrive in different niches and by understanding that we can really maximize the space that we've got to grow plants in our gardens. So let's break these layers down. We're going to look at ground cover plants, sub shrubs, shrubs and then trees, just like you'd get in a rainforest. So ground cover plants. Plants like hardy impatience or the Saxifragus de la Nifra which has proven hardy in my UK garden, a sarum, europeus and so many more provide good ground cover for what you might think are difficult ground conditions. They stay small and compact so you can squeeze them underneath larger plants. Then we're going to move upper layer to sub shrub plants. Now in this group I would put things like ferns and herbaceous perennials. Anything that's going to grow and fill that void between the ground cover plants and the bottom of your larger shrubs. So in this group in a tropical style garden I would include things like persa-carrier, collocages and ferns. Many of the sub shrub plants have adapted to tolerate partial shade so plants like collocages and ferns will thrive in these conditions and you will have a healthy second layer. Let's move up another layer to find more planting opportunities. We're going to look at shrubs. Now shrubs are usually woody plants that are multi-branched. In a tropical style garden we're looking at things like factiars and sambucus nigra. There is so many plants that you can choose from but these plants will fill the gap between your herbaceous exotic perennials and the canopy of the trees. And that brings us to our next layer, the canopy of trees. Now trees will climb for the skies and you can find trees to suit gardens of all sizes. Many trees tolerate pruning really well so if you stay on top of your job list you can keep those trees the perfect size for your garden no matter what size it is. In my garden I grow the low quattri, I've got a mountain papaya and this beautiful golden leaves can tell perpignon the oides. The common name is the golden ingian beantry and I speak so much about this roost tree that forms the central canopy. They are really easy to grow and really tough. Just watch out for root suckers. This one is actually restricted by an old pond liner. See how many planting opportunities we've got just by breaking down the available space into a number of layers. We have ground cover plants, subshrubs, shrubs and trees and there are thousands of plants to choose from. No matter what style of garden you're growing, I personally love tropical style plants as you can see. My next trick to maximise the amount of plant you can grow in a limited space is to use something that can break free from the restrictions of layers. We're going to plant climbers. Climbers will grow up through the layers and you don't need a wide open space because they will go vertical up whatever support you give them. So things like climatists or jasmine make fantastic climbing plants and jasmine will fragrance your garden when it's in full bloom. Our smells fantastic in the height of summer. And again, there are a wide array of evergreen climbers that you can use so that when the rest of the garden might look a bit tired in winter, you've still got some fantastic foliage to look at. And my final trick, especially for a tropical style garden, is to use epivites. Epivites are plants that grow on larger living plant hosts. So things like my tropical brimelian plants are adapted to survive without soil around the roots. They actually use the roots to attach onto bigger plants. Now there are some that are borderline hardy in the UK but I use a lot of these as summer displays and it just adds so much height in limited space. I'm so pleased that I've used them in this narrow border that flanks the side of the garden path. By utilising available vertical space, it's really helped give that lush, jungly feel. I hope this selection of tips that I use to maximize the growing space in my own small tropical style garden is helped inspire you whether you're growing in a garden or in a balcony or in a courtyard. This will even apply to houseplants. Not all plants need to be grown in their own individual pots. You can combine them to create your own miniature indoor rainforest. Thank you so much for watching and if you found this content valuable, please hit subscribe. It's the easiest way to support the channel and if you've got any questions, create a free account on our social network and forum where there are gardeners and growers from around the world supporting each other and sharing pictures. Thank you and I will see you in the next one.