Outdoor Tropical Plants With Long Broad Leaves

Bananas

• Banana trees create a tropical feel anywhere they are planted. The hardy banana, Musa basjoo, grows 20 feet tall in a season, with multiple trunks, dying to the ground each year in cold climates. Hardy bananas have bright green leaves with a red vein down the center, which grow 6 feet long and 2 feet wide. They prefer sun or part sun and tolerate winter temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit if protected with thick mulch. Tropical bananas (Ensete or Musa spp.) include the widely available Abyssinian red banana, with deep burgundy and green leaves. It’s an annual in all but the warmest parts of the United States, such as U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 9 through 11.

Cannas

• Canna lilies come in a range of leaf patterns and colors, topped by flowers in orange, red, pink and yellow. The long, broad leaves grow about 2 feet long and 1 foot wide, and the plants reach 8 feet tall in full sun. They grow from rhizomes and need regular summer moisture to reach full height. Mulch them in fall in mild climates or dig and store them in USDA zones lower than 7. Canna “Intrigue” has long, narrow purple leaves, and Canna “Stuttgart,” a green-and-white variegated variety, grows in shade.

Elephant Ears

• Alocasia, Calocasia and Xanthosoma species are water-loving plants called elephant ears that grow from large tubers, producing glossy, arrow-shaped leaves atop tall, thin stalks. The most widely grown varieties are the dark purple, near-black ones such as "Black Magic," but the plants also come in green, blue-green and variegated varieties. They grow from 2 feet to 6 feet tall in shady or partly shady locations with plenty of moisture. They are not hardy below USDA zone 8, so dig and store the bulbs in colder climates.

Callas

• The tall, stately white calla lily grows from a rhizome that produces a clump of large, green, arrowhead-shaped leaves on 4-foot stalks. At home in sun or part shade, these moisture-loving plants look exotic but are winter-hardy in USDA zones 7 and above. The leaves reach about 2 feet long by 1 foot wide at the base. Smaller varieties with narrower leaves produce flowers in yellow, purple, pink, dark purple and orange.