The secret to growing tropical plants in Arizona

-
Growing tropical plants in the Phoenix, Arizona, area is possible, as you can see by how well my cannas are doing this October. But there is a lot going on behind the scenes! Just buying Canna Tropicannas at Home Depot and plopping them in the ground won't give this effect. They will live, but they will struggle. If your cannas don't have the same lush foliage that these do, here are some tricks.

• Plant them in a lot of good potting soil. I use Miracle Grow Moisture Control®, which has both fertilizer and polymer moisture crystals in it. Then I add more fertilizer and more moisture crystals. If you have already planted yours, dig them up, dig a nice deep hole filled with lots of potting soil, and replant them. They will grow back like wildfire so don't feel bad about cutting all of the leaves off to the base.

• Give them a LOT of water. They can even have their *feet wet*. Behind this stand of cannas there are several water sprayers, that come on every day at 2:30 pm for twenty minutes.

• Feed them. Be generous with the plant food. I don't really even keep track - I just give them a lot, all of the time. I use both dry plant food and and Miracle Grow through a hose-end sprayer. I also stick Jobes® indoor plant food spikes in the ground at the base.

• Trim them back hard. I snoop around, looking for leaves that look a little frayed, and then cut them as close to the ground as I can. And as soon as the flowers have finished, I cut the stalk to the ground.

You really can't over-water or over-feed tropical plants here. Give them what they need!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to tell if your cycad (sago palm) is alive or dead

-
Image
Cycads are strange plants. They're beautiful, and look like small palm trees, or large ferns. They grow very slowly, and can be very expensive, even common ones like "sago palms". But sago palms, in spite of their common name, aren't palms at all. They belong to a group of plants called cycads. They are wonderfully weird, and grow in strange ways. And sometimes they lose all of their leaves. Of course, if it were a palm tree that lost all of its leaves, you would know that the plant was dead. But it's not true of cycads. So don't dig that cycad up and throw it away! Not yet. If you've recently transplanted a cycad, and the leaves have all faded away, hang on. Take a look at the top center of the plant, at what I call "the pucker". There you will see some stubby, soft fronds, no more than an half-inch or so. At least that's what you should see. That means that the plant is still alive, and has dropped its leaves to focus on building r...
Read more

Rooting sago palm pups for more plants

-
Image
Once a sago palm ( cycas revoluta ) reaches a certain level of maturity, it starts to create pups. Like agaves, these are little plants that are exactly the same as the parent plant, only smaller. And yes, you can trim them off and grow them into new plants. This is how to do it. Cut them off from the parent plant with a sharp knife. If there are any roots at the bottom, try to save them, but chances are there won't be any. That's not a problem. The next step is rooting them. Douse the cut part and the bottom of the plant with some garden sulfur and some rooting hormone powder. Rooting hormone powder is pretty easy to find at your local Home Depot. I had to go to a real nursery to get garden sulfur. Anyway, the idea is to keep the little plant from rotting while giving it time to grow its own roots. Sago palm pups being rooted Bury them fairly deep in some free-draining mix. It should include volcanic pumice, if you can find it, and if not, you can use perlite. I ...
Read more

Growing sunflowers from Pennsylvania in Arizona

-
Image
It's October 21st, and I just received some sunflower seeds from a friend in Pennsylvania. Their season is ending and the season for planting here in Arizona is just beginning, and I'm kinda wondering if the seeds are wondering what's going on? It's spring again already? If you're new to the Phoenix, Arizona area, and are from back east it must seem kinda strange that fall and winter is our flower season, but it is. By springtime it will start to get so hot here that the flowers will die, and of course back east the season is just beginning.  Sunflowers growing in Peoria, Arizona, about a mile from where I live I've seen sunflowers blooming around my neighborhood of Glendale, which is a suburb of Phoenix, in the winter, and although I've never grown them I understand that they're easy to grow. I guess I'll find out - I learn best by doing! The seeds arrived safely, and it's my understanding that they were still connected to the spent flower (I do...
Read more