Brad's Tropical Paradise

If you have a palm tree that is sending out a lot of offshoots from the base, chances are it's a Mediterranean Fan Palm. And the amount of offshoots at the base is the indication of the health of the plant. The more offshoots, the healthier the plant is. This one, in the northeast corner of The Tropical Paradise, is spectacular. It has been growing much faster than the other med palms here, because, well, I really don't know. It's just happy there, I guess. It sits on a hill and gets plenty of water, but otherwise I leave it alone. Mostly I leave the offshoots alone. After all, a Mediterranean Fan Palm is a bushy, clumping, palm tree. I planted it in this corner to fill up the space, and it's doing it. But today, I crawled around the base and trimmed a bit. I will have flowers coming up in front of it, at the base, and I want them to have a bit of room. The way I did it was to lay down a tarp and throw the fronds into it. Mediterranean Fan Palm fronds are dead...

One of the most important things that you need to do to create a tropical look is crowding. Having plants just neatly planted with a lot of distance between them just looks sad. The tropics is a place where plants jostle each other for light and space. So, whatever you plant, let them overlap. But of course, just planting stuff and letting it turn into a jungle is a mistake, too. A garden needs to be tended. So give yourself space to get in there to trim the plants. You can see a flat rock just below the Elephant Ears which allows me to step safely (without stepping on anything accidentally) to trim the plants and also to attend to the watering system as needed. You can see the watering head there to the lower right, it's blue. Also, use the old trick that applies to perennial borders - keep the planting area no more than six feet wide. That allows you to reach in three feet, from each side without actually stepping into the planting area. If you visit most public gardens, yo...

I was talking to a friend yesterday who asked when was the right time to plant bulbs, considering that they would bloom in the spring. And it occurred to me that if you're just focusing on blooms, you are missing most of the beauty from plants grown from bulbs. It's October and this is the right time to plant bulbs here in the desert. They will start to grow in a few weeks and there will be a lot of beautiful, green foliage throughout the winter. Yes, they will bloom in spring, but in the meantime, you will be looking at foliage, not dirt. My garden is a foliage garden. I like to see green instead of dirt. When my freesia, iris, etc. bloom, it's a bonus, that's all. So I look very carefully at the appearance of the foliage, that is, the leaves. All of the bulbs in my garden flower, including the Elephant Ears, and the Cannas. But its's not the flowers that I am interested in, it's the tropical foliage. And while you will have to wait several months for b...

It's the first week of October here in the Phoenix, Arizona area and your cape honeysuckle should be starting to bloom. Unless, of course, you did what I just did, trimmed it way back. Cape honeysuckle is a vigorous grower, and can be kept to any size, so it's important to keep an eye on it, and keep it trimmed. I failed to do this, and this plant had gotten way out of control. So I got the clippers out and gave it a serious haircut! Of course, this type of trimming removes the flower buds, so it will be a few weeks before it starts to bloom again. The good news is that all it needs is a little bit of time, and some cooler weather, and the blooms will return. Cape honeysuckle blooms all winter, during what I call "Chamber of Commerce weather".