Brad's Tropical Paradise

What an amazing plant Cape Honeysuckle is - deep green tropical foliage, can be grown to just about any shape or size, and it has beautiful orange flowers during the winter. If you have Cape Honeysuckle, you should be seeing a lot of blooms now, in November, and you will see them throughout the winter. If you are not seeing blooms, uh-oh, did you (or your gardener) trim the plant with a hedge trimmer? There oughta be a law against taking a hedge trimmer, especially a power one, to Cape Honeysuckle! You wouldn't use a hedge trimmer on a rose bush, would you? Treat Cape Honeysuckle like any other flowering shrub and you will be rewarded!

Last summer, to my dismay, I noticed that the big piece of flagstone at the beginning of the walk to Phase II was starting to *teeter-totter*. Now, this part of the garden is not ADA compliant, but still, a path should not wobble, it's just irritating! And now that the weather has cooled down, I am repairing it. In order to do this right, I needed two bags of sand. I lifted up the *teeter-totter* rock and dumped a full bag of sand in for it to lie down flat. I saw that I had used a little sand before, but not enough. This time I was generous! I also lifted the flagstone blocks that touched it in the corner, and brought up their level as close as possible. Today I am starting to put in the grout. What I have learned to do is to is to get the sand out of the cracks between the blocks. The grout will stick to the flagstone, but not to the sand. The sand is under the flagstone, but not in-between. I laid in the grout dry and got it started getting wet with a small spray bottle. Aft...

I settled in the big rock that I moved from the other side of the garden, and decided that I would do a tiny winter garden for my dwarf snapdragons, which I grew from seed - and don't seem to be doing any more growing in their little plastic cells. I like the architectural look of rocks in the garden, but I am reluctant to put one like this, with the flat top, as it encourages people to try to stand on it. I learned a few years ago that if you put in a rock that looks like a stepping-stone, people will step. So I will probably need to move this rock again later. Anyway, this is a dry sunny area where nothing much grows in the summer, so it's been pretty neglected. For the winter months, I am hoping that it will make a nice warm place for the dwarf snapdragons. I will need to keep an eye on them! These seeds are called *Magic Carpet*, so if it works, it should look pretty cool.

It's mid-November here at The Tropical Paradise, and the temperatures are dropping. It's just barely in the mid-sixties (F) and that's about forty degrees too cold for the little dog! Here she has found a nice sunny area underneath the olive tree, but on the southern side, which is getting a lot of sun nowadays. You can see the freesia (just above her nose) is growing well, and with all of this sunshine, I am hopeful for some winter blooms! Behind her is a zamia furfurcea cycad, which grows pretty good here in Arizona, although it likes shade and is sensitive to extreme cold. I lost one last year because I didn't put a frost cloth on it. This year I will!

I just started a new planting area here in The Tropical Paradise that I am calling *The Coleus Garden*. It's where I had a gigantic rock up until this morning. I rolled it away, and will tend to it later, and revealed a nice planting area that gets morning sun and afternoon shade, which should be perfect for my coleus, which I started from seed. Yeah, they're pretty tiny, but they're there! And they will grow fast. Along with the coleus, I have planted several types of leaf lettuce, and along the edge, more alyssum. In addition to adding fresh potting soil, I added some dry slow release plant food (Osmocote®) and some polymer moisture crystals for each planting. I have determined that this is a slug-free zone (I lost my battle with the slugs last month in spite of putting out beer and killing quite a few), and this slope does not get automatic watering (which is why I put a big rock there in the first place) so I will have to hand-water it. I did put a nice decorative p...

I have to admit that it worried me not to see any sprouting from my freesia Sunset Sisters for the past month, but they are finally growing a little. They were planted a month ago, on October 13th, and I got so worried a couple of weeks ago, I dug some up just to be sure that they were OK. They were in the same state that I had planted them, no roots and no sprouts, so I put them back. All of my other bulbs have been happily growing, including the sparaxis, which sprouted after only a few days. Maybe the Sunset Sisters are just shy! I hope that they will get growing now. I gave them a nice drink of Super Thrive® and there was a gentle rain last night, so they have everything they need. All I need to do now is to be patient! Life will find a way!

We get so much sunshine here in the desert that an overcast day is unusual. But it's really not that unusual for the Sonoran Desert, which is where my plants and I are, to get rain in the winter. Winter rains are usually very gentle, as compared to the summer rains, which are usually thunderstorms. Part of the reason that I like it here is because of the blue skies. I lived in Southern California for a few years, and it's nice, but the sky is rarely blue. And I'm not just talking about the smog in LA! Even in Santa Barbara, it's usually cloudy. I grew up in Minnesota, the land of sky-blue waters, which has some awesome sky blue skies, too! For me, I prefer clear skies and no rain, but my plants think otherwise. This is good for them!

The carrots look good here at The Tropical Paradise. I've grown them for the past two seasons more for decorative effect than for food, as I like the ferny leaves. They should be ready to harvest pretty soon, but I will wait as long as possible as I would like them to remain as a ground cover for as long as they look good. If you look carefully between the carrots you will see little baby lettuce seedlings. I lost my fight with the slugs over in the other planting area (killed a lot with beer, but not in time to save the seedlings). There is a distance of six inches between the rows of carrots (or drills, if you prefer), so there is room for the lettuce to grow and they will be protected by the carrots. You actually see a lot of this relationship with native plants here in the desert. A seed will sprout and a small plant will be protected by the surrounding ones. Of all of the plants that I tried to grow from seed this season, the only ones that are really successful are carr...

If you've ever tried to grow tropical plants indoors, you know that plants and humans don't ever agree on what's comfortable. High temperatures and high humidity is what they like, but moderate temperatures and low humidity is what we like. So, while it's gorgeous out there now in November for us humans playing golf, etc., it's already getting miserable for your tropical plants. If you've engaged in athletic events early in the winter mornings in Phoenix, you know that it can get cold. Right now it's 45 degrees (F) at 8 am on November 6th. And this cold, more than the heat of the summer, is what your tropical plants don't like. There is one thing that you can do to help them, which is to reduce the amount of water that they get, starting now. I have adjusted my misting system to come on only once a day, and the watering system is cut back to every two days. Where I have small annuals and bulbs I can hand-water, but they shouldn't need it. The...

It's November 5th and this is what we here in the Sonoran Desert have been waiting for - cooler temperatures! This is the time to sit back and enjoy your tropical paradise. Here I am with Macintosh, the good little wiener dog. She is still keeping a sharp eye out for geckos! On the table is my coffee and next to it is my iPod with my little portable speaker. Here is a blog post from my professional blog on how to use a portable speaker with your iPod . Right now I am listening to an audiobook of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which I downloaded from my local library. I wish that I could even begin to tell you what a glorious day it is here in Arizona, but maybe you can tell from my smile. If you live back east, eat your heart out! If you live here, get out there and enjoy! Life is good.

Today is November 4, and this carrot was planted on August 15th. This is a variety called Danvers, and, no they aren't miniatures, and yes, this is the largest one so far. All I can say is that I hope that they do a lot more growing pretty fast as they are supposed to be full-sized carrots. This one wouldn't really interest a small rabbit, although I ate it, and it was pretty tasty. As you know, when I planted them last summer, I prepared the area by digging out a deep hole and replacing it with sand and potting soil. There is at least a foot of loose-training soil that these carrots should be growing into. I have to admit that I am pretty disappointed in what the harvest will be, and am getting a much clearer picture of how people must have reacted when they felt winter coming on and food was scarce. Luckily, there is a grocery store nearby!

It's November first here in The Tropical Paradise, and the weather has definitely turned. It was real windy this morning, and the wind was cold. It was barely 60 (F) when we got up this morning at about 7:30. It seems like it's been hot here forever, and we have been looking for shade. Now that it's cooling off, the sunshine feels good. As you can see, the plants along the eastern exposure get some nice morning sun. By early afternoon the olive tree, which is in the southern part of the yard, shades everything. So if you want to work on your tan, you have to get out early!