Brad's Tropical Paradise

Summer has just started here at The Tropical Paradise, and it will be brutal for the next two months. I've lived in the Phoenix area for a very long time, and like most people, always imagine that this year is hotter than it was last year. But every year, we get through it. Here are some suggestions - Increase your watering schedule. I moved my watering up to every two days. I don't have any grass, so if you do, you may have to water more often. But why do you have grass? Leave the garden alone. Other than looking at it in the morning to check for problems, this is no time to get out there and fuss. Yes, many plants, like my cannas, have sunburn. Trimming them back harshly now will just make it harder for the plant to survive. Yes, it's going to be ugly for a couple of months, but you want to look forward to September. Put up some temporary shade over new plantings. Anything will do. I've seen people invest in tomato cages and wrap shade cloth around it. I pl...

I planted Elephant Ears here in The Tropical Paradise back in 2006. They were bulbs taken from the house of a good friend of mine in Los Angeles, and at the time I wasn't really sure what they were, because they were so tiny. In fact, I took about a dozen of them tossed into my suitcase. I just figured that they were some kind of ground cover plant. To my surprise, in a season they had grown to be huge. And after a couple of years they were ridiculously huge. And now, there is a flower. I guess they like it here. The main difference that I can think of that has made them grow better than back where they were originally planted is water. Lots of it. This particular area gets a good blast of water, is mostly shady, except in the morning, and stays pretty wet. I started the bed with plenty of good quality potting soil and fertilizer. I have added coffee grounds, more potting soil, moisture crystals, and more fertilizer. And plenty of Super Thrive!

It's getting into June now and I am surprised to find how much direct sunlight is getting to an area that I had figured to be shady. In a season or two, the palm and the cycad will have grown enough to give shade to this corner, but right now I have an emergency. So I have made some temporary shade cages. I found this plastic mesh in my garage, curved it over the plants, and staked it with some thin bamboo floral stakes. It doesn't really look too bad, at least temporarily. All I gotta do is buy some time.

In your enthusiasm to water your plants, it's very poor garden design to water your sidewalks or paths. Not only is it a waste of water, of course, but water does damage to paths, makes it difficult for people to walk if it's wet and slippery, and just plain looks clumsy. I had a visitor to The Tropical Paradise yesterday who noticed that a fair amount of spray was going onto my flagstone, and while she was only joking when she said, *that's not very green!*, she was absolutely right. It is something that I have overlooked for a long time, and I am in the process of fixing it. This takes some finesse, but isn't that what gardening is all about? There are lots of different sprayer heads. And one that I had forgotten about until recently is the adjustable type. In the narrowest part of the garden, about where Macintosh, the good little wiener dog is looking, is where the adjustable sprayer heads will be installed. Actually, I have already done one, and it worked gre...

I got a visit from the one of the members of the Arizona Palm and Cycad Association yesterday morning and my attention was drawn to a beginning flower stalk on one of my Elephant Ears. This is a first, as these plants have been in the ground for many years. It takes some sharp eyes to catch this, but notice the shape of the *leaf* has a little swelling at the bottom - that's gonna be a flower! Update June 8  - Elephant Ears are grown for their leaves, not their flowers, so this will take away from the vigor of the plant. But I just wanna see what it looks like. If I see more flowers after this, I will cut them off. But in the meantime, here is what the flower pod looks like today - Update June 8. The flower pod is starting to bulge a little more June 8. Viewed from the front Update June 9. The spathe is opening up

When you design your garden, it's important to have access to your plants from both sides. This photo was taken from the back of where my cannas are planted, by the dining room window. The best advice that I ever got was to design everything like a perennial border - with a width of no more than six feet. Six feet is the key number here as it gives you access of three feet on each side (the length of your arms) without ever having to step into the garden bed. The access from the back can be just wide enough to squeeze yourself in, and the access from the front is where your visitors will stand when they walk up to your plants. If you don't provide access, your visitors will have no choice but to walk up into your garden beds, and you will be unable to get in there to do any type of trimming without walking into the garden beds yourself. Like a perennial border, it's wise to have the short plants in front and the tall ones in back. The tall ones, of course, perform the f...

I've lived in Arizona and in California for most of my life and I have always wondered why people treat their backyards as dumps. I can hardly remember ever seeing a backyard view that wasn't just a collection of forgotten junk and piles of dirt and weeds. That is, if I could see the backyard at all, as most places I visited had heavy curtains or blinds closed, or else the windows were so dirty that you really couldn't see out of them if you wanted to. But every once in a while I would see what could be done with some care, some planning, and some beautiful California or Arizona weather. My backyard is my favorite view. Now that the weather is getting too hot to sit outside much, it's important to me to keep an eye on things through the windows. If you would like to do this, here is what I recommend: • Have your backyard on the east side of your house. That way, you can keep the blinds closed to keep out direct sunlight in the early morning, and in late morning an...

It's the first week of June and now is a very good time to trim your palm trees. Their flowering is finished and you can go ahead and trim all of that mess away. What I do is to trim back very hard, leaving only a few leaves. Believe me, they will grow back! Take a look at the spear leaf in the middle. If it's thick and growing strong, your tree is doing great. If there's a white powdery residue, that is also a sign of robust health. I only have miniatures palms here at The Tropical Paradise. The ones in the picture, dwarf date palms ( Phoenix roebellini ) have been here for over fifteen years. I crouched down to take the photo so you could see the leaves against the sky, but the trunks are only about six feet tall. If I had planted full-sized palm trees here when I bought this house, all I would would be seeing would be telephone poles. In another fifteen years, these dwarf date palms could get as tall as twelve feet, but never the 80 to 100 feet of full-sized palms. I...