10 Ways to Give Your Hospitality a Tropical Touch

Why settle for everyday hospitality when you can treat your guests to tropical hospitality? Here are some very easy and creative ways to make your guests — not to mention yourself — feel like they're staying at a bed-and-breakfast amid swaying palms and beside a turquoise sea.

1. Put your memories on display. Switch up your displays and bring out a few of your favorite things for a sophisticated game of show and tell. An artful arrangement of tropical souvenirs, postcards or books is sure to get some great conversations started, especially if they tell an interesting story.

To keep your shelves from looking too cluttered, stick to a limited color scheme, or at least pick a color to tie it all together visually. Here I've used a printer's tray that was given to us as a gift by a friend, who happens to be an authority on tropical drift seeds; a few of those seeds are appropriately scattered throughout the display. The deep wood tones are repeated with the shelves and the shadow box, drawing attention to the shells, vase and artwork.


2. Display and serve tropical fruit. Unearthly-looking delights are exciting for guests to admire and devour. Head to a local specialty market, farmer's market or ethnic market and keep a lookout for exotic fruits, like the rambutan and guinep shown here. You'll have a lot of fun tasting something new, and it's sure to be an unforgettable experience for your guests.

Research the fruit so you can make it a safe and enjoyable experience for all. At the very least, it will make you sound smarter. If dragonfruit and snotfruit sound too scary for you, display a pineapple instead. It's the international symbol of hospitality.


3. Use bold leaves as dramatic arrangements. Just a single leaf can be all it takes to make a room say "tropical." Clip a leaf or two off a houseplant such as the parlor palm (Chamaedorea elegans) or kentia palm (Howea fosteriana) to make your room feel like it's shaded by swaying coconut trees. They can be placed in a vase like the one shown here, made into a natural table runner or displayed on a wall, mantel or windowsill. In the absence of palm fronds, the leaves of other leafy tropical plants will do nicely.


4. Incorporate tropical artwork. This painting by my mother, Nancy Asbell, is more than just artwork; it's a window to a cheerful and sunny Florida scene painted by someone who lived life through the strokes of her paintbrush. But maybe I'm biased, because she was my mother, after all. Regardless, the look is made complete with a rattan box and a bright wire candleholder.

You don't need to own an original painting to get this look, though, and affordable alternatives range from a framed and enlarged photograph to a favorite tropical print that's been wrapped around a frame like a painted canvas. You could even roll ink over a palm frond and make a print by stamping it onto a large sheet of quality paper, allowing it to dry and placing it in a mat and frame. You probably have some other neat ideas of your own.


5. Bring the houseplants center stage. Houseplants are all too often overlooked and given the role of supporting actors in the unfolding drama of decor, but a well-situated specimen becomes a sculptural work of art and ties rooms to the world outside the windows. If you don't have a houseplant already, you can get large palms and other architectural specimen plants for roughly the same price as a bouquet of flowers.

This room uses a muted color scheme, tropical wood textures and a fun zebra print for an exotic look that draws attention to the bright green white bird of paradise (Strelitzia nicolai) in the corner. If you're new to houseplants, follow the directions on the label or search online for helpful tips. Generally speaking, just be sure to give it lots of bright (but not direct) light so that it can be easily admired and healthier to boot.

8 Houseplants You Can't Kill


6. Create texture with unusual collections. Sleek and minimalist furnishings can be given warmth and interest with a little bit of natural texture, especially if the pieces tell a story, like the sea beans shown here. (But since they were meant to start a conversation, you'll have to ask about them in the Comments to learn more.)

Even the most mundane objects can dress up a boring table without adding clutter. A flat-woven tray of coffee beans not only looks rich and exotic; it smells great and encourages guests to run their hands through the tablescape while they wait for dinner. While the pinecones or seedpods in your garden might not technically be tropical in origin, they'll still look that way in the right setting.


7. Make the necessary arrangements. If you own a houseplant or have some tropical bulbs in the garden, consider combining them with cut flowers to make your own artistic flower arrangements. Almost any flower would fit right in with the help of big and bold tropical leaves, but most of the flowers (with the exception of the green cymbidium) in this wedding arrangement were clipped from potted tropical plants on my balcony.

If tropical flowers and foliage are hard to find at your local florist, head to the houseplant section of the garden center and start looking for a plant that could handle a light pruning. Peace lilies (Spathiphyllum wallisii), Swiss cheese plants (Monstera deliciosa) and anthuriums (Anthurium andraeanum) are all houseplants that can be clipped and added to flower arrangements.


8. Collect vacation memories. Even a postcard can be made into a work of art with the help of a picture frame, and this spiny lobster seems to blend right into the natural habitat of dark wood and interesting beachcombing finds here.

Shadow boxes and shelves make perfect display spots for found treasures like seashells and souvenirs that would otherwise languish away in a dark closet, but the possibilities are endless. Make your own British colonial curiosity cabinet using whatever treasures you've stowed away. Even decidedly 'untropical' subjects can look exotic and fascinating when treated like a museum's most prized collection. What fun displays can you come up with?


9. Put flower vases in unexpected places. A flower arrangement on the dining room table is nice, but a display livening up a hallway, foyer or bathroom speaks volumes about your thoughtfulness and hospitality. In a pinch you can even purchase (or cut your own) flowers and split them up for two arrangements to spread cheery tropical flavor around the home.

If you have a plant in the garden with fragrant flowers such as the gardenia (Gardenia jasminoides) or moonflower (Ipomoea alba), try floating them in a bowl on the bathroom sink so that they can lend their aroma to a most unaromatic place.


10. Pick some flowers. You certainly don't need an entire flower arrangement to bring the tropics to your tabletops; an iconic hibiscus flower in a coral-patterned vase is all it takes to make you feel like you're vacationing in Polynesia. This flower was plucked from my own garden in Florida, but hibiscus plants and other trademark tropical favorites like heliconias and gingers are often available at the garden center as seasonal container plants. Buy one for yourself and use the flowers and foliage all season long.

You don't need to go overboard with tiki kitsch to make guests feel like they're staying at a resort. An artistically arranged display of well-chosen objects is all it takes to add a touch of exotic excitement to your home, and it doesn't have to cost a dime.

URL: 10 Ways to Give Your Hospitality a Tropical Touch http://www.decor-ideas.org/cases-view-id-18377.html