Brad's Tropical Paradise

Nighttime lighting in a garden is absolutely magical. I have Malibu® lights, but I'm sure any type of low voltage system will be fine. I have added to my system over the years, and not to sound like a commercial for Malibu®, I find it easy to find the stuff I need at Home Depot. Now I sound like a commercial for Home Depot! Anyway, The Tropical Paradise has two 100-watt transformers to cover the area. One line wraps around the southern edge of the garden, one goes around the north. The lights are 20-watt spotlights and 11-watt path lights. The trick is to get as much "uplighting" as possible, which looks great on palm trees, without creating glare. A 20-watt spotlight blasting into your eyes at night is not pleasant! Here on this corner (pictured), I have extended the garden several feet, but the original light was too close to the wall, which left this corner in the dark. I will be extending the line tomorrow to include the added distance of the garden, and I want ...

The stars of the show at The Tropical Paradise are the plants, of course, but their supporting cast is rocks. If you think that some part of the garden is invisible because you don't care about it, think again. Most of the rocks I have in the garden have been given to me, including the flagstone. I'm no expert on rocks, but I know what they look like. And if you've ever seen fake rocks in the garden, you know what I mean. You don't need a degree in geology to spot a fake, and the best of them always look bad. Here in this tiny area of The Tropical Paradise I have one of two pieces of petrified wood that were given to me by a friend who collected them from The Petrified Forest long before that became illegal. And when my friend visited me today, he was dismayed at how dull it looked! And I realized that after seeing it every day for many years I had lost track of how beautiful its original color was. The problem was a buildup of hard water. This rock had been get...

It's January 29th here at The Tropical Paradise and I've finally finished cleaning up most of the damage to the elephant ears and the canna. I hauled away a lot of damaged foliage, which was kind'a sad, but it needed to be done, anyway. The area by my dining room window seems a little barren, but it's already starting to grow back. In a month or two, the canopy will be growing strong. There is still some damage to the pygmy date palms, but I am going to leave them alone for a little while. When the weather warms up I will trim them back very hard to the green center growth. But it's still a little cool today, and downright cold at night, so it's best to wait. As you can see, the grass is fine. Because, well, it's plastic. Best investment I ever made. I will need to get out there with the blower, but I will wait for the ground to dry off a bit more. We got a little rain last night but the sun has come back out, and it will dry up quickly. Besides, a few...

I like miniatures. Well, look at my dog! In fact, The Tropical Paradise itself is a miniature. Most of the plants are of a tiny scale, including the cycads. The palm trees are pygmies. And I like it a lot. However, there is danger with such tiny plants. That is, while they need to be close enough to see, they really shouldn't be in danger of being stepped on. My most recent upgrade to The Tropical Paradise is creating a clearer delineation between the path and the garden. I really couldn't blame people for accidentally stepping on plants that are only a few inches tall that were planted right along the edge of the path! So I started with the rocks, which form a bit of a "wall" along the edge of the path. I had originally thought that I would need a fairly sizable "buffer zone", but I really don't. Feet stop naturally at the sharp edge. And that protected area, which actually rises up just a bit, turns out to be perfect for miniatures. So here you...

To me, a garden should be wonderful, soft, soothing place. Garish decoration, colorful gnomes, etc. are repellant to my sense of aesthetics. Subtlety is what I like. But there is one place where you don't want to be subtle, and that is where you want to keep feet out of the garden. Telling people where to step by using signs, or, God forbid, telling them is impractical, and downright rude. But telling people where to step with design takes a bit of forcefulness, which I had been neglecting, and am now going to upgrade. If you've ever stepped in something, uh, unpleasant, especially if you own a dog, you know that even the most careful people sometimes fail to watch their step. And if you misstepped, there is a good chance that you were looking elsewhere while you planted your feet. This is how people walk normally. Unless you are inching along the edge of The Grand Canyon, you don't pay that much attention to your feet. You glance, or you see what you need from the co...

It's the morning of January 26th and a gentle rain started last night. For those of you who live in the desert, "rain" is water that falls magically from the sky. And desert rats, like me, walk out and watch the stuff. I am taking a break to write this post, but I will be back watching it again soon. Living in the desert, rain is about the last thing that we think about in our gardens. But I grew up where it rained a lot, so the first time it rained here at The Tropical Paradise, I took my umbrella and walked around my property, making sure that it drained properly. And I've done it regularly several times over the years. A suburban lot like mine is designed to hold a certain amount of rainwater. That is, it shouldn't all run away down the street. There is a gentle slope from north to south and then to west. The artificial turf is perforated, so it allows water to seep in to deep water the roots of the trees. I have a gutter along the edge of my patio that d...

I cut the elephant ears and cannas to the ground (they will grow back!) and realized that I really haven't seen these trees very well for a long time. They are Phoenix roebelenii  (pygmy date) palms. They don't grow multiple heads, so if you see them like this in a pot, it's because there are two plants there. In fact, this was originally a clump of three, but the smallest one died in the big freeze of 2007. I planted these when I bought my house in 1993, and they they came in the tiny one-gallon size pot. I bought them at a K-Mart. They've always done fine here at The Tropical Paradise, and I was shocked to lose one five years ago, as it was already a pretty good size. The cold snap we had here in Phoenix a couple of weeks ago had me worried, too, but I see that they will be fine. You can see a bit of cold damage on the fronds, which will actually begin to look worse over the next couple of weeks. It's raining today, which is glorious, and I will scatter so...

Although mostly people talk about how hot it gets in Phoenix (and it does!), it can get very cold. It did a couple of weeks ago, getting down below freezing for several nights in a row. The ability of a plant to stand cold is its "hardiness", which is as important here in Phoenix as its ability to stand the heat. These extremes of temperature are what makes it more challenging to grow tropicals here than in Hawaii, or Southern California. To evaluate the damage on your palm trees, first you have to know what kind of palm trees you have on your property. If you have Washingtonia robusta (Mexican Fan Palms), you have no concern. And, as a general rule, if your palm trees are essentially "telephone poles", the cold won't hurt them. The miniatures are the ones you need to be concerned about, specifically those beautiful dwarf date palms, Phoenix robellini . Phoenix robellini  only grow, at the most, to about twelve feet tall. I planted my oldest ones when I b...

Unlike most plants, cycads are easy to transplant. If you need to move one, or, as in my case, rescue one, you can. Here's how you do it. • First, cut off all of the leaves. Well, leave a couple for looks. I left three. Dig around and under the trunk as much as you can and then cleanly cut the plant at the roots. The deeper you can go, and more roots you can get, the better, but you don't need to get them all, and you don't need any of the dirt. By the way, the little "bulbs" that you see on the sides, if the cycad is fairly big, like the one I dug out yesterday, are "pups", so save them. Each one of them will make another plant. • Place the plant in a cool, dry place. It's January, and it's in my garage right now, which is perfect. The ends of the roots will heal better if you put a little rooting hormone powder on them, but it isn't absolutely necessary. If you're worried about water, don't be. This plant can live like this,...

Yes, you can grow Elephant Ears in the Phoenix, Arizona area. I'm in Glendale and I have had them here for many years now. Like most of what I've planted here in The Tropical Paradise, I've just hoped for the best and waited to see how it worked. The Elephants Ears I have now all came from a friend's yard in Los Angeles in 2005. I have learned a few things in the meantime, and here they are: • Elephant Ears love water. If you have a particularly boggy part of your yard, that's where they will thrive. They are practically a water plant. They dry out quickly, so plant them where it's wet and stays wet. • Elephant Ears sunburn easily. Like many tropical plants here in the Phoenix, Arizona area, they love the heat, but too much direct sunlight can burn them. Plant them where they can get morning sun and afternoon shade. • Elephant Ears love plant food. Be generous with the Miracle Grow. I use household plant spikes, Osmocote, and also do foliar feeding with...

There is nothing like the smell of the desert after a rain. The smell, if you truly live in a desert area, is a plant called creosote. If you don't want to wait for it to rain, just squeeze a bit of it between your fingers and smell. I've lived in the Sonoran Desert since I was twenty, and am very familiar with that wonderful smell. And, as you can tell, I am interested in plants. Although my preference is for tropical plants, over the years I've met quite a few people who really like the desert stuff. And the one question that keeps coming up is "can you plant creosote?" Sorry, the answer is no. In spite of hearing many claims to the contrary, creosote is something that you can't put in your garden. If you already have some on your property, that's the only way you are going to get any. David Attenborough in the 1984 documentary "The Living Earth", explains

It's January 9th here at The Tropical Paradise and these grandiflora daffodils are blooming again. They were Dollar Store bulbs that I planted all over the garden. Most, of course, are gone and forgotten, but these come back year after year and are the earliest bloomers. They will bloom through February. The hardest thing to do with daffodils is to leave them alone after they have bloomed. If you cut back the leaves right away, you will discourage next year's bloom. So these daffodils will be beautiful for a couple of months, and then they will start to look kind'a rough as summer starts.

If you're just starting out on your Tropical Paradise, please learn from my fail. There are a few tricks I've learned over the years, and if I could go back twenty years and do everything right, I would. But luckily, many of the things that I did right happened by accident. So here would be how I would do it if I could start from scratch. • Plant a mesquite tree.  No, not along the edge of your property, where I mistakenly planted a tree, which got too close to the wall, etc., but in the center of the property. And, no, not a nasty thorny one like a palo brea, a beautiful mesquite. Every time I visit somewhere that has a nice mesquite that has been cared for, I see the kind of perfect dappled sunlight that protects tropical plants and still allows the sunlight in. And they never are harmed by heat or cold here. If you're tempted to plant a ficus, go look at the frost of '07 and see how many died, and the ones that lived were practically stripped bare of leaves. • ...

The weather in the Phoenix area can be hard on tropical plants, on both extremes - heat and cold. If you're looking at a sago palm that looks a little sad, or tense, you may be seeing normal struggling of the plant through extreme temperatures, or you may be seeing the beginning of the end. The good news is that I've never seen a cycas revoluta here at The Tropical Paradise die from either heat or cold. They can look a little rough when it gets to be over 100 degrees, or below freezing, but hey, wouldn't you? The only way that I've managed to successfully kill a cycas revoluta here at The Tropical Paradise is over-watering, especially in the winter. If your plant is dying, the sooner you pull it out and get rid of it the better. It's just depressing to see a normally beautiful plant like a sago palm looking so bad. But wait! There are some tests you can take before you go to that awful extreme. Here they are: • Squeeze the caudex (the trunk on big ones, th...