I like using things like Iresine, Heucheras, Echeverias, or quick annuals like Browalia, Lobelia, etc for quick filling in. You could also use succulent groundcovers like Sedum makinoi 'Ogon' or Sedum palmeri as filler. Oxalis spiralis cultivars also make excellent year round blooming filler, as does Heterocentron elegans. Selaginella also works well as quick filler, or any of the various Nemesia species/hybrids.

Spitballing here.Without any idea of size, space or exposure here are some things to get the juices flowing. Gingers (small ones should be at the bigbox stores soon), alocasias, cannas, ferns, philodendron, kalanchoe, crotons, justicias, hibiscus, bougainvillea. Something vining on a temorary bamboo trellis (passiflora, clerodendron, mandevilla). Something potted hanging from a temporary bamboo tripod or post. Hypertufa buddha heads, pagodas, tikis. Troughs of sedum or succulents.....and there's always new guinea impatien(t)s.

I've had great luck with Alocasia escuelente (elephant ears) And they are coming up gangbusters right now. I just buy the taro at the Asian grocery store (cheaply) and plant them in good garden soil.

Bananas growing fast,too. But I don't really think of them as "fillers" for between things.

Canna is fast and bulletproof too.

I think of the lime-green aloes as pretty tropicalesque looking too. As well as lime green and varigated Aeonium.

Regards,

Rick Clark

Coleus or Sweet Potato Vine. Rick has a good idea too, just buy a few pounds for the smaller taro roots at Asian stores. You can get more than 3 dozen for less than $5 most places. How about some ornamental grasses?

Great suggestions! You might also consider Japanese Arelia, Bird of Paradise, and Brugmansia.

Other tropical-looking fast-growing things you can plant now (from seed or starts) include the following ornamental vegetables:
'Bright Lights' Swiss chard (sometimes sold as rainbow chard) with tasty, big leaves with veins in hot pink, orange, yellow, purple, or white
Seneca Red Stalker Ornamental Corn (red stalks and leaves)
red giant mustard
'Purple Ruffles' Basil
'Bronze' Fennel

I second the suggestion about sweet potato vine, available in at least 5 color forms.

Cannas grow fast and spread like wildfire. Bulletproof is an understatement, lol.

Cool! Very creative suggestions, I like it. Fortunately, I already have several of the suggestions mentioned (cannas, a giant old bougainvillea, bird of paradise, orange and giant), and they will be in good form come July. But I never would have thought of chard, mustard, basil or fennel. Brilliant!

I stopped at a nursery on the way home yesterday and picked up some pentas and perilla 'magilla', and a Senecio confusas vine. I think I'll go back again with a list from all your posts. I saw a lavender-edged sweet potato vine, but hesitated; must go back. Heterocentron elegans is something I've wanted, just forgot about. This will help a lot!

Thanks, all! I'll be digging a lot this weekend, and I'll try to remember to post pictures in July. : )

Coincidently, I was going to suggest Pentas but it's not in our local nurseries yet. Where did you find it???

I'm looking forward to your pictures in July.

Jen

Kim,

I was going to mention Senecio confusus too. Give it a sunny spot and it will take off. If you start some moonflower seeds (Ipomoea alba) now they will be ready to bloom by then too. Later, you can just rip them out. I just planted a small Combretum grandiflorum. I planted one years ago about this time of season and by mid-summer it had gotten huge! Of course that's something you wont want to rip out and its not that easy to find.

-Ron-