The Tropical Paradise preparing for winter visitors

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There's really not a lot that needs to be done here in The Tropical Paradise for my visitors who will arrive this weekend. The artificial turf has been down for five years now and still looks great. You don't need to mow, water, or edge it. All I need to do is hose it down every once in a while. I bought some bulb plant food at K-Mart this morning at 50% off and sprinkled it around the plants, then gently watered it in.

The olives have finally stopped falling and are now part of the garden mulch. Next year I will remember to spray fruit stop in the early spring and that will eliminate the problem of olives falling everywhere. I cut back the Ravenea rivularis (Majesty palm) in the hopes that this will spur some new growth. It has been doing poorly ever since the big freeze of 2007. You can see the Dioon spinulusum cycad much better now. It will grow into that space. Cycads are slow growers but it will probably need to be removed in 100-150 years from now. I'll deal with that then.

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