Creating a tropical oasis effect with cycads and miniature palms

To me, there is nothing more soothing than the look and sound of palm trees. They are the first thing that you think of when you imagine an oasis, and just the sight of them seems to cool down a hot day. Here at The Tropical Paradise in Glendale, Arizona (a suburb of Phoenix), I have created my own little oasis in the desert. Like any good oasis, the best ones are mirages, and it takes a few tricks to make this illusion work here in the desert.

The first thing that you have to do is to think small. Whatever you do, you don't want to plant full-size palm trees right next to your patio. Your neighbors a mile away will enjoy the swaying palm leaves, but you will be staring at a telephone pole! So, here is the best trick I learned - when I first started experimenting with tropical plants, I was introduced to cycads. They aren't palm trees, or ferns, but they kind of look like them, they stay small, and they give a wonderful tropical feel to a miniature space. The most common type of cycad is a *sago palm*, which you can get at any nursery, home center, and even at some grocery stores. Yes, they are going to be more expensive than a same sized palm tree, but the point is that they are miniatures. They won't turn into telephone poles in a few years. The cycad that you see in the center of this picture is a little rarer, but they do fine here in Phoenix in a little shade.

There are miniature palm trees, too. I have several dwarf date palms (Phoenix robellini). And there are more, such as the Indian Date Palm (Phoenix rupicola). Whatever you do, don't get a Canary Island Date Palm, or a common Date Palm or a Mexican Fan palm. Those are the common ones that you see around Phoenix that become gigantic. They're cute when they're small, but they don't stay that way.

Don't waste your money on ferns. No matter how much water and humidity you try to give them, they won't make it here. I've experimented with all types of ferns, including tree ferns, and they all died. The *ferns* that I do have here are the cycads!

Large leaf, tropical looking plants can survive here. I've had Elephant ears here in the ground for years, and canna. They are grown from bulbs, and when it gets way too hot or way too cold, they can be cut down to the ground, and they come back. In fact, I have a lot of bulbs - daffodils, freesia, hyacinth, which give nice tropical-looking foliage - and flowers!

In the picture you see a design waiting to happen. The miniature palm tree in the front left, will grow taller than the cycad, which is a dioon spinulosum, by the way, creating a canopy for the oasis in a couple of years. This area has undergone lots of redesigns over the years, and I think that this one will be the best.