It has been said that ' you should never consider a plant to be tender until you have personally killed it, and at least twice ' and this is possibly the most sensible thing I have ever read on the subject.

That said, hardiness is an extremely complex interplay of factors mainly dependant on both the inherent hardiness of the plant itself and the conditions available for it to grow in. Most very exotic-looking plants come from warm places and will keel over at the first sign of frost. Some very exotic-looking plants, such as Trachycarpus fortunei and many bamboos, come from very cold regions and will take whatever the British climate can throw at them, no worries.

Whatever your local climate, it should be possible to tinker and twiddle about (slopes, south walls, wind shelter, drainage etc.) to create pockets of protected microclimate that are a few degrees warmer, allowing a range of otherwise tender plants from perhaps a hardiness zone or a half-zone warmer to be grown.

For any given site there will be;

• plants that are reliably hardy in any winter
• those that you hope may be,
• those that are untried but could be
• those that definitely aren't but adorn the garden during the frost-free months.

The proportion of each that you choose depends on your sense of adventure, available greenhouse space or overdraft facility at the bank, but it is wise to include a solid foundation planting of bone-hardy, preferably evergreen trojans to give you something to look at in the hardest of winters and stave off total paranoia.  

Possibly the greatest rewards of exotic gardening come from those plants in the second and third categories above - those you hope may be hardy and those that are untried but could be. The rules here are still being re-written and it is us 'Exoticists' that are doing it ; there are many people I know who would have a garden full of mush and dead twigs if the books were anything to go by - yes, use books as a guideline but let your imagination (and a little common sense) do the rest. 

 I had intended to bang on a bit about this, but there is already plenty of info available that has been more fully researched and anyway this is only a jumped up business advert.  

Meanwhile, there comes a time when you just gotta do it and set off in the unknown.......

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