Redeveloping the western edge of The Outback

-
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 some new leaves flushing on a cycad. It's a Cycas Guizhouensis x Taitungensis hybrid developed by Robert Chumley that I have had since 2005. It got some damage during the big frost of January 2013, but is coming back nicely now. In fact, most of the cycads are beginning to flush now. Better late than never!

If you look carefully, you can see that I planted some elephant ears. Tiny now, but they get huge. These are great "background" plants because of their size. They like plenty of water and plenty of shade, which this area has.

All this area needs now is a little more time and some warm weather. That will be the easy part!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

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