Welcome to El Arish Tropical Exotics. Based at El Arish near Mission Beach, between Cairns and Townsville, we are a family operated nursery providing landscaping services as well as the largest range of online tropical plants in Australia. We specialise in growing and selling heliconias, gingers, costus, cordylines, brugmansias and bromeliads. This nursery is solely owned and operated by Scott and Ann Cains. It has no association with Terry Mead and never has.

Our location in the Australian Wet Tropics combined with our committment to healthy soil and sustainable growing practices gives us strong, vigorous plants. All of the heliconias, gingers, costus and other species of plants you can buy in our online store are trialled here in our nursery before they make it to our catalogue. You can also buy our plants at the Mission Beach Monster Markets on the last Sunday of every month between Easter and Christmas. We are not open as a retail nursery but if you would like to place an order online and pick it up you may set up an appointment to do so.

In our experience we have found that there is very little good information available for tropical gardeners. Our extensive plant profiles give you detailed information on all of our plants including dimensions, temperature ranges and growing conditions. Our blog contains in-depth articles on how to successfully landscape with tropical plants whilst our landscaping pages detail the landscape gardening work we have performed for various clients.

We hope that sharing our knowledge and plants with you will help to create your own little piece of paradise. If you feel you need a little more help don't hesitate to contact us about your landscaping needs. Alternatively, more information is available through our links page.