Gardening / Woodworking project - Cutaway Planter

I love how bonsai invokes the feeling of a tree on a miniature level. What is like to do with my gardening + woodworking project is invoke the feeling of a forest or jungle. The idea would be to have one or two "canopy" plants covering smaller plants. Like this for the canopy: And this below it: Think that'd look neat. I'm deciding between having the plants separate on a bench vs. having them all in a trough planter. For aesthetic purposes the trough would really pull things together. Could ...