This garden features visual and physical elements of texture interpreted through leaf sizes, leaf shapes, and arrangements of leaves on plants. Visitors will notice variations in texture from extremely coarse to very fine based on the size, length, and width of leaf as well as how the leaves are arranged on plants.
Giant upright elephant ears (Alocasia macrorrhiza), also called giant taro, is used here for leaf size and shape, as well as for the waxy quality of the leaves, which causes rain water to bead up and fall, drop by sparkling drop, onto the ground. Giant taro plants are typically grown throughout the tropics for food and must be cooked to be edible. The best known dish is probably the Hawaiian staple called poi, a paste-like food made from fermented taro roots.
A variety of other regionally adapted plants can be seen that provide inspiration to gardeners for enhancing the diversity of texture.