Turmeric

A giant herbaceous perennial from Southeast Asia and the principal wild ancestor of most cultivated dessert bananas. What looks like a trunk is a 'pseudostem' - tightly rolled leaf sheaths - topped by a fountain of huge, paddle-shaped leaves that can run 6 to 10 feet long, giving an instant tropical effect. In frost-free climates (USDA zones 10a-11b) an established clump produces a drooping flower spike and a hanging bunch of edible fruit, then that pseudostem dies and is replaced by a sucker from the base. It is frost-tender: everywhere colder it is grown as a bold container or greenhouse foliage plant that is overwintered indoors and rarely, if ever, fruits.

A clumping, multi-stemmed evergreen perennial from South Africa, grown for its unmistakable crane-head flowers - a horizontal green-and-pink spathe from which bright orange sepals and vivid blue petals emerge like the crest of an exotic bird. Bold, paddle-shaped blue-green leaves on long stalks form a 3-4 foot fountain of foliage. Winter hardy only in USDA zones 10-12 (frost-free subtropics); everywhere colder it is grown as a houseplant or summered-out container plant. It blooms reliably only from a well-established, somewhat crowded clump, so patience is the key to flowers.

A long-lived clump-forming perennial vegetable grown for its thick, tart leaf stalks (petioles), which range from deep red to pink to green and are used in sauces, jams, and pies. Bold, heart-shaped dark green leaves rise 2 to 3 feet over a wide crown, and tall whitish flower panicles appear from late spring into summer. The leaf blades are NOT edible - they carry toxic levels of oxalic acid - only the stalks are eaten.

A near-indestructible architectural houseplant grown for stiff, upright, sword-shaped, succulent leaves banded in grey-green - yellow-margined in the popular "Laurentii" - and long known as the snake plant or "mother-in-law's tongue". POWO records it as native to tropical West Africa, and its currently accepted botanical name is Dracaena trifasciata (it was reclassified out of Sansevieria), though the nursery trade and most gardeners still know it as Sansevieria. It is famously tough: it tolerates low light, deep shade to bright indirect light, neglect, and irregular watering, which makes it one of the most forgiving plants you can grow indoors. HONESTY: the commonest way to kill it is OVERwatering - soggy soil rots the rhizome - so the real skill is letting the mix dry out between waterings, not watering more. It is toxic to cats and dogs (saponins cause vomiting and diarrhoea if eaten), and the popular "releases oxygen at night and purifies the air" reputation is overstated at realistic room densities. RHS treats it as a tender houseplant (H1B), frost-tender and grown under glass or indoors except in frost-free climates.

The Mediterranean evergreen whose leathery, glossy dark-green leaves are the bay leaf of the kitchen. Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder describes it as a pyramidal, aromatic evergreen tree or large shrub that can reach 60 feet but is usually seen at 10 to 30 feet and is often pruned to 8 feet or less for garden use. Trees are dioecious: small yellowish-green spring flowers on female plants, if pollinated, give way to single-seeded purple-black berries. Winter hardy only to USDA Zone 8, so it is grown as a clipped container houseplant farther north.

Camellia sinensis is the evergreen shrub whose leaves, buds, and stems yield every style of tea - white, green, oolong, and black - and it is native to the monsoon-forest borderlands of SW China, Myanmar, northeast India, and mainland Southeast Asia. In gardens outside zones 7–9 it is too frost-tender to grow unprotected outdoors, and the honest catch is its unyielding demand for reliably moist, acid soil (pH 4.5–6.5): on anything alkaline or prone to summer drought it yellows, stalls, and refuses to thrive no matter how warm the climate.

A frost-free edible palette for humid subtropical and tropical gardens: fruiting canopy, understory crops, edible roots, and container-friendly patio plants.