Brad's Tropical Paradise

It's the end of May and it's time to fertilize your cycads, that is, feed them. Cycads only grow in short spurts, once a year, so there is really no point in feeding them any other time. This year I am trying something new - fish fertilizer. One of my cycad experts in San Diego recommended fish fertilizer. He says that some of his cycads which hadn't grown for years suddenly started putting on amazing growth. You might say, "well, he's growing them in San Diego", but they have been in San Diego all along. Yes, I was convinced to go to Home Depot yesterday and get some fish fertilizer. I hope the cycads like it, because I don't. Dang, what a smell! It is actually rotted-down fish made into a thick liquid that you mix with water. I made the mistake yesterday of mixing the first batch in the kitchen. Don't do that, the smell is nauseating, and it lingers. I poured it around my cycads yesterday, and will do more after I finish writing this. Don...

One of the really great things about plants like cannas is that all you really need to plant is the bulb. That is, you don't need to buy a plant with leaves on it, in a pot. This not only makes them much less expensive, but it makes them much easier to plant. This is how you do it. First of all, prepare a place with shade (here in the desert) that can get plenty of water. Dig away the native soil and remove it. Fill the hole with potting soil and sprinkle in some dry plant food. Cannas are really just giant grasses, so technically the bulb is actually a rhizome, but it's all pretty much the same. Plant the bulb, roots down, a couple of inches down. A nice grove of cannas should be about four feet wide and four to six feet tall. Water well. Then water some more. And more water. Did I mention that cannas love water? Give them plenty of room and stand back. Cannas like these Canna Tropicannas can grow to be about six feet tall in a few months, and spread profusely. I've...

Elephant Ears ( colocasia ) love heat, and the desert gives them a lot of that. Unfortunately, they really don't like too much direct sunshine, and they really, really, don't like cold. So where the Elephant Ears have been the most successful here in The Tropical Paradise is along an east-facing wall. I've had these in the ground for several seasons now, and this past January, with the terrible frost, they were frozen right down to the ground. I thought that they were gonners, but they started popping back up this past month. So much so that I have been thinning them. Elephant Ears like this get very big, with leaves a couple of feet across, so this season I am going to try to control them a bit more. As you can see, I have added some stepping stones to make it easier for me to get around them. Any plants that pop up too close to the stepping stones are immediately dug out with a sharp chisel. It does no good to cut them, as they just grow back. So you have to dig dow...

The area south of where the artificial turf ends is a place that I have started calling The Outback. The wall that you are looking at is what is known as a northern exposure, and it is an area that is notoriously difficult to grow plants along. The reason that growing plants on a northern exposure can be seen by looking at the wall. Even this late in the season, there is precious little sunlight. In the winter, it's in deep, cold, shade. I've tried to grow along that wall, but everything there has failed. Luckily, this is the "way off in the background" area of The Tropical Paradise. I've been putting in plants that mostly take care of themselves in The Outback. In the background is a Mediterranean palm, which grows fine as long as you don't mess with it. It's growing in a nice, rounding, clumping form, which fills a space like this nice. This one has a ways to go, but it will get there. I've also planted fountain grass, which needs no maintenanc...

Used correctly, rocks can be a wonderful addition to the garden. In addition to being functional, they give a wonderful sculptural feeling. I have been adding quite a few lately, like the one in the photo that I just put in yesterday. But there are right ways and wrong ways of using rocks in the garden. • Don't create a "rock garden". If you think that a rock garden means a garden made up entirely of rocks, that is. Especially here in the desert. Rocks, like any hard surface, reflects and holds in heat. It gets hot enough here in the desert, you don't need to encourage that much more. Be selective with rocks and hardscaping. A garden should look cool and inviting, not look like a rock quarry. • Get big, pointy rocks. And real ones, too. Fake ones just look awful. Your friends won't tell you, but I will. Are you kidding? And get big, pointy rocks that add character to the garden. And don't use too many or your garden will look like Arlington Cemetery. Th...

One of the most beautiful plants here at The Tropical Paradise is the Dioon edule . It's a type of cycad, similar to a "sago palm", but it's bluer, as you can see, and it does much better here in the desert. But before you rush out and get one, I have a suggestion that you get a particular variety, called a "palma sola". But there is a trick to getting one. Sorry, gotta talk a little Latin here. If you've been gardening for a while, you know that you have to be very specific about what you want when you buy it, and the best way is to learn the Latin name. This is a Dioon edule . And all Dioon edules do fine here in Phoenix, but the palma sola variety has a bit of an edge. First of all, they can sit in the "fires of hell" like this one is, and shrug it off. They are not harmed by frost. And best of all, their new growth is a beautiful light green. The new growth on a regular Dioon edule is an unfortunate bronzy color, which, although it t...

Unlike palm trees, which grow continuously, cycads, like this dioon spinulosum , grow in short spurts, usually only once a year, called "flushes". It's May 20th and this is the first one showing this new growth here at The Tropical Paradise this season. I trimmed off some the leaves because of severe frost damage, but normally you should leave them on as they protect the young leaves, which are soft and easily damaged. Any damage to a leaf is permanent, so be careful. This is no place for soccer practice! During this stage it's typical for cycad collectors to go out and look at the plant obsessively. It grows pretty fast, so you will see a lot of change in just a few days! It's a good time to give it some fertilizer, too. I push in some of those plant food spikes that you get at the dollar store, then water in well. Your cycads will flush according to how much sunlight they get. The ones in deeper shade flush in mid-summer. Still, it's a good idea to g...

I pride myself on keeping an eye on things in The Tropical Paradise, but this area had become a terrible mess before I noticed it. The spaghetti tubing had slipped off of the fitting on the trunkline (I'm suspecting a little dog did it while looking for her geckos!) and instead of delivering water where it should have, it blasted a huge hole here next to the wall. This morning I filled in the area with rocks, sand and concrete. I put the concrete in dry and then wetted it. I will continue to go back throughout the day and keep the area wet. The watering system here at The Tropical Paradise is, for all intents and purposes, above ground. It's buried, but only a few inches, so I can always get to it. To me, that's the secret of success, being able to make sure that the watering system is functioning properly. I think I developed this way of thinking because of interest in aquariums early in life. Whenever you are dealing with water, you have to keep an eye on things. A ...

I have to admit that I am constantly amazed at the tropical effect of these cannas. They're only been here a few seasons, but they quickly becoming the "signature" plant of The Tropical Paradise. There are some tricks to growing them, but I think I'm beginning to figure it out. • They love water and shade. If you have a particularly shady and swampy part of yard, this is where they will thrive. They are practically water plants. If you're one of those gardeners who "kill plants with kindness" by overwatering, your cannas will love you. I deliver the water through a low-pressure drip system, which water the roots without wasting any water. The area that they sit in is wet, the path in front is dry. This takes a little finesse with the sprayer heads, but you don't want water to come on suddenly and spray the person sitting in that chair! • You have to be brave and be able to cut them down viciously. To keep that beautiful young leaf shape, you h...

The Tropical Paradise is watered by a low-pressure "drip" system. The trunkline, as you can see, goes behind the garden, and the sprayer heads are discretely placed next to rocks (look behind the pinkish rock just right of center, you will see a tiny blue spray head). The spray heads connect to the trunk line by "spaghetti tubing" and are set on tiny risers that stand up about a couple of inches at most. Yesterday I was pondering why I had so many spray heads. It was really too much, as one will cover an area about ten feet wide by 6 feet deep. So I took a couple out. I removed the spaghetti tubing where it connects to the trunkline and capped off the hole with a "goof plug". Yep, that's what they call them. While I had it all open, I noticed that there was another piece of spaghetti tubing that I had long forgotten that was watering nothing in particular. So I goof plugged that, too. I will let this area dry out today and then cover the goof plu...

I'm experimenting mostly here at The Tropical Paradise, and one of the great successes has been the cannas and the elephant ears. But getting cycads, which normally prefer to be kept on the dry side, to live with plants that love to have their "feet wet" has been a challenge. Yesterday I moved a  zamia floridana cycad into the space where I had originally planted a dioon spinulosum. The dioon had been struggling in this space for several seasons, and after closer inspection, I found what had originally been a nice mound, that allowed for drainage, had collapsed, creating a much-too-wet environment for the dioon. It's also an area that gets a lot of direct sunshine, even though it's only in the morning. But this is Phoenix, and you can get a sunbird before 9 am! So I moved this little  zamia floridana into the vacant space. And actually, it has been living just a few feet over, and was already outgrowing its space, so it needed to be moved, anyway. I bought ...

The area outside of my bedroom window is part of what I consider "The Outback". It's not a place that I go into often, and it's off-limits to visitors. The best view of it is through the bedroom window, although I usually keep the blinds closed. And it's some premium real estate for tropical plants, so I'm redeveloping it. The first thing I did was to get rid of the old "purple plants". Old-timers called them "wandering jews". They grow like weeds and really don't look much better. Over the years they had really gotten out of control, so I tore them out (you can do that with your hands) and dug up the stumps from the roots. I did some general clean up of the area, and some small repairs to long-neglected watering heads. I also put in some flat rocks, which perform two functions, they show me where it's safe to walk, and they also cover areas where I shouldn't dig, that have wires or tubing buried. To the left you can see s...

The area south of the olive tree, where the artificial turf ends, has been a neglected area in The Tropical Paradise for years. And it is a tricky area to deal with. It's not an area that is traveled much, except by Macintosh, the good little wiener dog, and it needs to be able to pretty much take care of itself most of the time. I call this area "The Outback". As you can see, the mulch is created by the leaves of the olive tree. I blow them off of the artificial turf and up into the garden, where they not only look good, they help hold in moisture, as any mulch will do, and eventually rot down, which is good for all plants, including the tree itself. It's May 12th and I am still seeing some of the damage from the severe frost of January 2013. Right above Macintosh's head is a frond of a Macrozamia Moorei cycad that took a bad hit from the cold, but is still hanging one. Am waiting for a new flush of leaves before I trim off the old damaged ones. To the l...

Flowers need two things, lots of sun and lots water. Getting that combination to work in the desert is a challenge, but it can be done. Normally here in The Tropical Paradise I look for shade. Most of my plants prefer it, and so does my dog! But flowering plants need sunshine to bloom. Unfortunately, sunny areas in the desert dry out very quickly. In the photo you can see what I am working on right now to solve that problem. Take a look at the slope, and also at the rocks, because that is what is making this area work. This area is facing west, so it gets a lot of sun. The shadow you see back there is gone by late morning (it's now about 10 am) and this area gets many hours of sunshine. Personally, I like bulbs, such as the amaryllis you see there in flower, and the iris in the foreground. But this type of environment is what all flowers need, including annuals. Generous water and lots of sunshine. Of course, my main concern is my cycads (that's the plant up on top of t...

One of the reasons that so many people fail with their garden is because of the secret "behind the scenes" stuff. Of course, in a beautiful garden, these things are supposed to be hidden, but just because you can't see them doesn't mean that aren't critical. And the most important thing, especially here in the desert, is water. The Tropical Paradise uses very little water. The water is delivered through a low-pressure "drip" system, which you can get very inexpensively at your local Home Depot. That's the system on the right. To make this work, you need a timer (I like this one made by Orbit, as my eyes aren't as young as they used to be, and besides, who wants to struggle trying to figure out how to set the timer), a pressure reducer, which brings the household water pressure down to an appropriate level for the drip system, a filter, a connector, a 1/2" trunkline (that is buried very shallowly all around the garden) and 1/4" ...

I suppose that technically elephant ear "pups", or offshoots, should be called "calves", I guess. And one of the good things, and bad things, about successfully growing elephant ears is that, like any plant that grows from a bulb, they reproduce by offsets. Quite a lot, in fact! It's a good thing from the point of view of having a garden that fills in nicely, it's a bad thing when the crowding gets to be so bad that none of the plants really have a good chance to grow. I was noticing a fair amount of crowding this past month so I decided it was time to do some thinning. You know, like when you're planting carrots. But it pained me to throw the little plants away. So a friend of mine gave me a lot of little pots, I got some potting soil, and started the "elephant ear rescue". Since these plants love water, I found some little plastic trays to put the pots in. I am keeping my eye on the water level, as they should never go dry. They will ...

The best place for tropical plants in Phoenix is where they will get afternoon shade. That is, along a wall that faces east. This is area is the "prime real estate" for these types of plants, as it gets morning sun, but good shade starting at about noon. You are looking at morning sun in the photo. It's 8 a.m. Still, this is the desert, and there are some considerations. Even morning sun in the summer can be brutal, so you have to watch the shadows. I have re-developed this area many times in the past twenty years and waiting for some new growth on the dioon edule cycad which you see towards the foreground. Closer to you are some more drought-tolerant plants, only because the watering system doesn't reach that far. The watering system is designed to not go to areas where people use, so the garden is available for enjoyment 24/7, 365 days a year. No running away from sprinklers here just as you've sat down to read a book or begin quaffing a beer! I bought th...

I've planted a lot of bulbs here at The Tropical Paradise. My motto has always been "I'm experimenting, mostly". Like most of the experiments here I'm sure that most of the bulbs I've planted have failed, but I have a wonderfully poor memory, so it hasn't bothered me. The amaryllis are doing great this year. I've had these bulbs in the ground for many seasons and they usually put out some leaves, but don't bloom. This year I am getting some great blooms. I wish I could say why? If I could, I would write it here. All I can say is to keep experimenting. I'm pretty sure that these were just bulbs from Target purchased many years ago at a discount as it was past Christmas. Most people want amaryllis to bloom at Christmastime, so these were bulbs intended for "forcing". Here in the garden they are blooming in late April and early March. I am giving them plenty of water and plant food (I use the houseplant spikes from the Dollar Store...

A dioon edule cycad is similar to a common sago palm. Although they are not sold widely here in the Phoenix area, they do well here. Part of the secret to their success is their blue-green leaves, which protect them from heat and sun better than an ordinary sago palm. In fact, I have plenty that sit out in "the fires of hell" where normally only cactus grow. They also grow into clumps, producing new plants, called "pups". If you plant bulbs, you know how this works. After a few seasons you have lots of new plants. I was going to subdivide this clump but at the last minute decide to plant it all together. Its new home is much more cushy than its old one, with some nice afternoon shade, so this plant should grow beautifully here. I'm not exactly sure when I originally planted it, but it was probably over fifteen years ago - so you have to be patient! Anyway, transplanting a cycad is pretty easy, they have a shallow root structure. I got up early this morn...