Creating a miniature garden

-
I am really enjoying my latest project at The Tropical Paradise, which I am calling Trilobite Reef. It started with a replica of a trilobite that I got online at Paleoscene.com. I spoke to the owner, Glen, about  my intention to use it as a garden sculpture, and he cast it out of a tougher material which should hold up better outdoors. It gets to over 100 degrees here, so even then I have it in a fairly shady area.

Once I placed in in the area that I am now calling Trilobite Reef, I started to add small plants, and to my surprise, started to get an *ocean floor* tableau look. I have even added seashells and sand. And since it's right up by my patio, I can keep an eye on things, trimming as necessary and making adjustments. This morning I found that the mint was looking pretty bad, so I moved it elsewhere. In a miniature garden, there is no place for anything to look bad.

This is a design project, and requires more than just plants. The star of the show is, of course, the trilobite, and everything else is a supporting cast. The miniature palm trees are, at left Phoenix robellini (dwarf date palm) and Phoenix rupiola x reclinata. The plant just to the left of the light fixture, which gives an amazing look of some strange undersea coral plant, is ordinary English lavender (an herb). The reddish plants are just ordinary begonias. The little cycad is a zamia, sometimes called a coontie. In the foreground is a beautiful piece of petrified wood from here in Arizona. And there are a lot of rocks, some smooth, some pointy.

The green plant just above the petrified wood is a natal plum, boxwood beauty. The little blue green plant at about center is an Aloe Striata. It has a nice shape that compliments the haworthia very nicely. The little green clumps are a very tiny variety of ice plant. In the background are cannas and elephant ears, and you can just barely see the caudex of another cycad, a dioon spinulosum, which has ajuga reptans, a ground cover, growing around it.

This is morning sunlight that you are seeing, as this area will be shaded by the house in a few hours. Even then the morning sun is fierce here in Arizona. Hopefully these plants will be tough enough to take it. They just look delicate!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

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