Aloe Hill at The Tropical Paradise

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Conditions in your garden can change very rapidly. Technically, they are called "micro-climates", which just means that a plant that does well in one area will not do so well just a few feet away, and vice-versa.

Along the eastern slope of the Tropical Paradise, towards the south, is an area that I have been failing with for many, many seasons. It's because it gets the blast of the afternoon sun as it's along a line of the edge of the house, where the sun penetrates to the side yard. And in the summer, everything that I have planted there has cooked.

This season I am going with agaves and aloes. I am fortunate enough to get advice from the guys at The Arizona Palm and Cycad Association, which is kind'a like having NASA help you with your science homework

So, as of March 7th, this is what I've got. The aloes in bloom are actually from only two plants, which I subdivided. They will grow together, which is why I made sure that there was access from all sides. As they send off new "pups", I will leave some of them there, and the ones on the edges I will remove.

The aloes share their space with some euphorbia (commonly called a pencil cactus), sansevieria, (the one that looks like a rhino's horn), some agave (which are very, very sharp!) a dioon edule var. palma sola cycad (at left), a Phoenix rupicola x reclinata palm tree, and some asparagus fern. The cycad and palm tree are on water lines, everything else will just have to get by with what they can get that trickles down. In the summer I'll do some hand-watering. Once everything is established, it shouldn't need it.

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