Brad's Tropical Paradise

My Dioon spinulosum cycad which is just around the corner from my patio started flushing a couple of weeks ago. It looks like the leaves have reached their final length, but they are still a little soft. The flush will be finished when the leaves harden off. Oddly enough, the spinulosum just a few feet away, which is in much more shade, hasn't started to flush at all, and it's the last day of May. If you look closely, you will also see some new leaves on the little zamia cycad just next to it. Zamias are so variable that, unless it's a typical Zamia furfurecea (cardboard palm), I just call them all zamias . In Florida, they are called coonties. The plant in the upper left corner is not a cycad, it's a Phoenix roebellini palm tree (a dwarf date palm), as is the trunk that is leaning in the upper right. These plants really didn't like the cold last winter, but are growing strong now that the temperatures have gone back up. The mulch that you see in the garde...

The last step of planting a palm tree is to add a generous amount of garden soil and be sure to compact it in. Step on it! In addition to the companion plants, there are a lot of bulbs planted at the base of this Phoenix rupicola x canariensis palm tree. Over to the left, I planted a small zamia cycad and then realized that there really wasn't enough light in that particular area, so I added another path light. Next to the path and spot lights I always have a few nice rocks, which help hide the electrical cords, hold them down, and also add a bit of visuals to discourage people from accidentally kicking them as they walk by. I do want the lighting fixtures to seem invisible, but it's OK to see the rocks. The artificial turf, which I had installed in 2006, had a curve in it, for no apparent reason, that I have tried to make look as if the grass were "trimmed" around the base of the new tree. There is a slight slope from the tree, only a few degrees, which I have ...

After planting the tree and firming in the soil around the rootball, it's good to add some companion plants for your palm tree. I am looking for a Tropical Paradise look here, like an oasis in the desert, so I want to add plants that like water. The tiny red spike that you see is a canna, next to that is an amaryllis. You can't see it under the leaves of the Dioon edule, but I have planted some ice plant, too. On the other side is a clump of ornamental garlic. I have stepped on the rootball to force the soil down and eliminate air pockets, and I will continue to water heavily. I will cover the entire area with a nice big bag of potting soil, and force that in also. For design effect, you want the plants to criss-cross a bit. It's OK if they touch, it adds to the tropical feel.

Once the hole is dug, it's important to measure its depth compared with the amount of soil in the container. You really have to get this right - having the plant stick up too high is bad and so is letting it sit too low in the hole. I measured it using a broom and a saw. I stuck the broom handle into the hole and laid the saw against it horizontally and made a small scratch on the broom. Then I compared that distance to to the container. The tree was badly root-bound in the container, so I trimmed a fair amount of roots off of the bottom to make the distance perfect. It's important to put some fresh potting soil on the bottom of the hole, which will encourage root growth there and help smooth out any irregularities in the hole. I added some Osmocote® and some moisture crystals. To get the plant safely out of the container, cut along one side of it and gently tease the plant out by tipping it on its side. Don't try to pull it out by the trunk straight up - it's bad for...

The old saying "dig a $100 hole for a $50 tree" really applies here in Glendale, Arizona. The ground is very, very hard, virtually sterile, and terribly alkaline. Hey, it's the desert, not Hawaii! Native plants can find their way easily into the native soil, but tropicals like this Phoenix rupicola x canariensis can't. So you must dig a nice, wide, deep hole. When the plant gets bigger, its roots will extend into Arizona, but while it establishes, the roots will just be in whatever potting soil is available in the hole. If you have a jackhammer or a backhoe, your process of digging a hole is probably easier than my method. I start with just getting the hole started, then flooding it with water. Once it sinks in, it makes the ground softer, but be careful, it is very, very heavy. Don't expect to dig it all out at one time unless you want to throw your back out! I started this morning with a fairly small hole, went out for coffee and dug out the first layer of ...

My favorite view of my backyard is from the dining room window. This area gets afternoon shade and is a great place for tropical plants like this Dioon spinulosum cycad and the Canna Tropicannas . The sun in the east shining through the fronds of the palms and cycads is especially nice in the morning, it just seems to light them up!

The big freeze here in Glendale, Arizona of the winter of 2010-11 was pretty harsh, even on a cycad as tough as this cycas revoluta (sago palm). But it has made a full recovery now. All of the leaves are from this spring's flush. I cut away the old leaves, which look pretty ratty, applied some general-purpose fertilizer, and made sure it got plenty of water. It sits on a good slope, so the water doesn't pool. Cycads don't like their feet wet! You can see behind it the asparagus fern is coming back, too. I also trimmed that down hard. This is near a wall that faces west, so it gets plenty of sunshine and heat, but this plant can take it. By the way, if yours is planted in shade, the leaves will be longer, in sun, the leaves will be shorter. Either way, it's a beautiful plant.

My Dioon spinulosum cycad has made a full recovery after being hit by the terrible frost of last winter. And, as you can see, it is enjoying the company of its good friends, the Canna Tropicannas, which were also frozen to the ground and are bouncing back. The ground cover is Ajuga Reptans (Carpet Bugle) which is growing like a weed, and was not hurt at all by the frost. Just in front of the spinulosum is a tiny zamia  cycad that I transplanted a couple of days ago as it was already getting too hot where it was - and it isn't even summer yet. The tiny purple and bright green plants are lettuce that I grew from seed, just to see how they would look. They taste good, too! By the way, I rarely see a  Dioon spinulosum for sale here in Arizona, but they are common, and inexpensive, in Home Depots and ordinary plant nurseries in Los Angeles.

My favorite cycad for here in the desert is the  Dioon edule, var. palma sola . I have found them to be tough in cold and in heat, but you have to be sure that the variety that you are getting is the palma sola, not the ordinary edule. The easiest way to be sure that it is a palma sola is to look at the new flush of leaves. New leaves on a palma sola are bright green (as you see in the picture), new leaves on a regular edule are brown. After the leaves mature, both plants are a nice bluish green. But I prefer the palma sola! By the way, if your Dioon edule is flushing and the leaves are brown, that is perfectly normal, they will become green as the flush matures. If you thought that it was a palma sola, though, it isn't.

This isn't at The Tropical Paradise, this is at the home of a fellow member of   The Arizona Palm and Cycad Association . After 4 1/2 years of waiting for this cycad to flush, this extreme technique is being tried. The idea is to simulate a brushfire, which is common in habitat for this type of cycad and will hopefully encourage new growth. Don't attempt this on your cycads! I will follow up in a few months to show the new flush. Right now it just looks like this -

Here is a view along the eastern edge of The Tropical Paradise. On the far left, near Macintosh, the good little wiener dog, are two cycads, Dioon edule var. palma sola. They were totally unaffected by the terrible freeze last winter. The palm tree off to the right of them is a Chamearopos humilis (Mediterranean Fan Palm), which was also unaffected by the cold. In front of it, down by the spot light, is a zamia that was taken from a clump by a fellow member of the Arizona Palm and Cycad Association . It was growing strong when the big freeze hit, and it had to be cut down to the ground, but as you can see, it is coming back. The palm in the center of the photos is my new Phoenix reclinata x rupicola cross, which I just planted yesterday. Even though it isn't a very big palm, it will give some height to this area. The fuzzy green plants in the background are asparagus ferns, which you can get for cheap at Home Depot or Walmart. The small cycad just behind the rupicola x reclin...

Here is the newest palm tree at The Tropical Paradise. It's a cross between a Phoenix rupicola (Indian Date Palm) and a Phoenix reclinata (Senegal Date Palm). This is a five gallon that I bought from the grower here in Phoenix. He gave it a patent name, but I forgot it, so I will ask him again and post it here. The advantages of this cross is to give the Phoenix rupicola (which is a small palm tree) a little more gusto from the reclinta, which is a fairly large palm tree. If you've ever been to The Huntington Gardens is California, the palm trees along the wall of the library that faces the entrance are Phoenix reclinatas .  And conversely, the rupicola has a greener, more tropical-looking leaf and is a smaller tree than the reclinta , and does not sucker so much. The one I just planted is actually two trees that were planted in the same pot. On the left side of the photo is a cycas revoluta (Sago palm). These cycads are very common and you can buy them at Home Depot o...

I am now harvesting my carrots. My intention was just to create a nice, ferny ground cover, which I did, and the harvest is a bonus. I planted miniature carrots, because, well, I like miniatures. They did surprisingly well and are delicious, probably even more so because I grew them in my backyard. This is my first season for carrots, and I will definitely do it again. I planted them in the cool of the late winter months and am harvesting them now in the spring. I figure that I will plant more seeds come September or October. By the way, the plants in the background are Canna Tropicannas and ornamental garlic (Allium) . To the right is Canis lupis familaris , var. dachshund.

Here at The Tropical Paradise, my goal is to create a tropical feeling in an environment that can be pretty harsh sometimes. This past winter we got a hard frost and I am now seeing what is coming back. As you can see, the cannas are doing great. These are Canna Tropicannas , which are now readily available just about anywhere (I saw a bunch of them at Home Depot yesterday). They have a nice orange flower, but the real point of having these plants is the incredible foliage. The palm trees in the background, by the way, are dwarf date palms ( Phoenix roebellini) , which are just starting to flower. The tiny purple blooms are on ornamental garlic, which gives a nice tropical feel and wasn't harmed at all by the cold, and doesn't mind the heat. Gotta get more of those! The cycad in the lower left is a Dioon Spinulosum , which lost all of its leaves in the freeze but is coming back strong. In front of it is an Amaryllis, which didn't bloom this year, but the leaf shape is n...