Brad's Tropical Paradise

If you live in paradise, like I do, and are fortunate enough to work from home (I'm a web designer), your tropical paradise is a great way to get a little workout in. The first thing that you will need is artificial turf. That way, in addition to having something that requires no maintenance, there is also no mud, or water, to spoil the workout. I have a plain beach towel and an outdoor pillow that I bought at Target. Wrapped around the olive tree is a resistance band, and on the table are some light weights. Next to the pillow are some pushup handles. Outdoors is not the place for a serious workout - it's a place to get away from your computer for a while. Sometimes I go out there are read, and sometimes I do a little stretching and exercise. Luckily, Macintosh, the good little wiener dog, is always there to help! I've lived here in Arizona (and for a few years in California) since I was 19 and am always saddened to see backyards neglected or turned into dumps. Right n...

Today it suddenly got much colder, windy, and rainy. It's not usually like this on the third week of March here in the desert, but we welcome rain. As you can see, it has been raining consistently enough that it is starting to stand in the artificial turf, which normally drains well. The furniture is aluminum from Target®, and intended to stay outside in the rain. The little tables are, of course, plastic, so rain won't hurt them either. The cycads along the east wall need to do a nice new flush this year so I'm hoping this rain will help! Notice the lack of Macintosh, the good little wiener dog. She's in the house. She hates this kind of weather!

Now that the weather is starting to warm up, here in Phoenix people spend more time out after sunset. If your tropical paradise becomes a "black hole" at night, or worse, turns into an over-lit, glaring area that looks like a sports arena, you are wasting a lot of the beauty of your yard. Here at The Tropical Paradise I have low-voltage Malibu Lights, the ordinary ones that you get at Home Depot. Mostly they are spotlights but I have a few footpath lights in important areas. As you can see, it sets a nice mood. There is just something so cool about up-lighting on palm trees - makes me think of vacation resorts! It's good to stack some rocks around your path lights. It helps integrate the light with the garden, covers up the base and some wires, and gives a nice visual as the light plays on the shapes of the rocks. Just to the right of the footpath light is a piece of petrified wood from The Petrified Forest in Arizona, given to me by a friend who collected it many, many...

My Ajuga Reptans (Carpet Bugle) was one of the strong survivors from the terrible frost this winter here in The Tropical Paradise. It's a very strong grower as a ground cover here in the light shade and it just started blooming. The promise of spring! Behind it you can see some of the Canna Tropicannas, which are coming back strong, too! If you are trying to achieve that "Tropical Paradise" feeling, remember that bare ground and dirt spoils the effect, even if you have planted tropical plants. In the tropics, life thrives, everywhere - so cover that ground!

In order to make daffodils re-bloom year after year, you have to leave the leaves alone after the blooms have spent. I cut the bloom stalk all the way to the ground and allow the leaves to die back naturally to put energy into next year's blooms. Here you can see the King Alfred (on the left) and gradifloria varieties have finished blooming for this year and the leaves are beginning to die back. Leaving them alone for a neat gardener, like me, is very difficult. I have made the mistake in the past of immediately trimming daffodils after they bloom, and that is the worst thing that you can do. Just let them die back naturally. It will take a few weeks. When they are all brown, you can cut them off. And, like all bulbs, they multiply in the ground and you will have even more next year. Something to look forward to!

Gardens are meant to be enjoyed. And if people have to walk through mud, or over slippery gravel, or try to step on "stepping stones", you have made a mistake. This path along the far edge of my yard started as just a simple set of stepping stones that allowed me to get the lawn mower out to the yard. It had never been intended as a real walking area, and slowly it evolved into one. This is the lowest part of the yard, where the rainwater collects, as it's supposed to, and has been neglected for years. I started putting in left-over pieces of flagstone and this spring I am finally getting around to doing the grouting. The surface is not flat as there is the slope to take into consideration. After a heavy rain, this area will still flood. The rest of the time it drains well. The goal here was to create as stable a walking path as is possible in this area. It's not as refined as the other areas of the yard, but it still works well. The flagstone is set in sand, and th...

Aloes make great companion plants for palms and cycads. In a small garden, they can add a lot of visual interest. Here is a a Partridge Breast aloe, also known as Tiger Aloe or Aloe Variagata . It's tiny, as you can see by the olives on the ground around it, so it's out front where it can be seen. Even when it's not in bloom, this aloe is beautiful. Aloes like this look best planted between rocks, but you have to be careful in a hot area like Phoenix that they get a little bit of shade. By the way, this isn't the common African Aloe or Aloe Vera, which clumps and spreads out, taking over everything. This is a tiny specimen aloe. Expensive, but worth it. It's a gem.

As all cycad collectors know, cycad plants don't flower. They are in a group of plants that have been here on this earth since before the evolution of flowering plants. So, back in the Jurassic, with dinosaurs walking around, there would have been plenty of cycads, but no flowers. But in my garden I have combined them and it looks pretty cool. There are some things to take into consideration. The most important is sunlight. Flowering plants, like these daffodils, need sunlight to bloom So, if your cycads are in the shade, planting flowering bulbs, like daffodils, will give you leaves, but no blooms. So plant them in a sunny location! Cycads that do well in the sun, even here in the hot desert, are dioon edules, especially the variety which is known as "palma sola". Palma sola is Spanish for "sun palm", and even though cycads aren't palms, you get the idea. They like the sun! Another very important consideration is water. Cycads need very little water, an...