Brad's Tropical Paradise

It's April 30th here in The Tropical Paradise and the cannas are just amazing. They've been here for several years but they have never had leaves this big that looked this good. I'm trying to figure out what went right this season. As I recall, we had a very mild winter and it didn't really damage the cannas badly enough to require a *cut down to the nubs*, but I did it in February, anyway. I'm gonna have to remember to do that on a regular basis. I also removed the Elephant Ears from this area. They grew well, almost too well, there, and it was a constant effort to keep them under control in a narrow area that's difficult for me to get to. So I replanted several elsewhere where there was more room and they're doing fine. And now this area belongs to the cannas. I have doing regular application of Miracle-Gro fertilizer, poured on the roots, not on the leaves. The hard water in Phoenix makes nasty water spots, so no more pouring on the leaves. I have

This tiny area of The Tropical Paradise, along the walkway at the foot of the cannas, has been a problem for years. Although it gets afternoon shade, the morning sun in the summer has *cooked* pretty much everything that I had planted here. And to make things worse, it's an area that collects cold air in the winter. What I am trying now is haworthia (that's the plant that kind'a looks like aloe) and sansevieria (old-timers will remember the term *mother-in-law's tongue* for the typical houseplant form, nowadays usually just referred to as a *snake plant*). Luckily, my association with the Arizona Palm and Cycad Association has put me in contact with some of best experts on plants, and these were all given to me as a *donation*. The truth is, at first the haworthia didn't look so good. Before it got established, it just sat there, and got kind of purplish. Once the plants took root, which took a few months, they brightened back up to the green you see here, plu

I use a low-pressure *drip system* here at The Tropical Paradise. It is a simple 1/2" plastic trunk line that has emitters (nobody really uses drippers anymore) that water the plants. Compared to the regular pressure of the water pressure in the house, it is much less, but it's still a system under constant pressure. And when a connection fails, as I noticed this morning, it isn't a leak, it's a spray. This morning I noticed *Fountain Hills* where there had been a connection done by a young man with really no experience with this kind'a stuff about twenty years ago (me). So I did a much better connection, using something that wasn't even available back then, these cool couplings that I get at Home Depot. The first thing I did was to cut away the area to be repaired, and add a generous amount of new trunk line. This requires two couplings and a length of trunk line. I keep these couplings around, and spare trunk line, in the garage. This is a very robust s

The Phoenix, Arizona area gets hot. Really hot. Not the ordinary *heat wave* in California, where you have to turn on the air conditioning during the day, but blistering, unbelievable, *you can fry eggs on the dashboard of your car* hot. It starts in June and stays ridiculously hot until September. Even in the middle of the night, it's too hot to even be outside comfortably. And if you have a western exposure, that is, a yard that faces the setting sun, in the Phoenix area, you're gonna have a hard time. Not only is it blisteringly hot, putting up shade doesn't really help much, as the setting sun will get underneath it and get to your plants every evening. And that's why you see so much dirt and rocks, and cactus, in Phoenix. Since my backyard faces east, the front of my house faces west. And that area, which I have experimented with over the years, I call *the fires of hell*. But it's not all just dirt and rocks. And there is no cactus. No, you can't do a

It's April 22nd and the Elephant Ears are looking their best. It was a mild winter, so they have been growing strong since February, and will look good until it just gets way too hot, beginning in June. In July and August, even with deep shade, they will sunburn a bit. I try not to look at them too much then. Anyway, since they are growing strong now, there are a few things that I need to do. First of all, I need to trim away any leaves that have become unsightly. It's just like trimming a palm tree, cut off the bottom leaves and leave only the best-looking top leaves. You can see the cut on the stalk in the photo. I have also given them plenty of plant food, both dry and mixed with water. The dry plant food are the Dollar Store spikes. Sometimes I use the big ones that say that they are for tomatoes, sometimes just the houseplant ones. Food is what these plants need, and plenty of it, so be generous! You can tell by the leaf shape that these plants love water. Any leaf

It's April 21st and I just noticed that one of the Elephant Ear plants here is beginning to form a flower. It's that weird-shaped thing in the middle with the bulge at the bottom. I've had Elephant Ears here at The Tropical Paradise for many years and they very rarely flower, and the flower only lasts a few hours, so I'm gonna keep an eye on this one. From what I can figure, gardening is just like real estate: location, location, location. This plant was planted about year ago right nearby a bunch of others that have either died or are just struggling. But the combination of water and shade in this exact spot is working for this plant. Other than its location, all I can say is that it gets a nice double-dose of water, both from the low-pressure watering system, and the misting system (you can see the riser for the misting system just to the left). I also have given it regular feedings of those Dollar Store plant food spikes, an occasional dousing of Miracle-Gro, a

A friend of mine from California visited recently and was impressed by the cannas here in my backyard. He said that in California that they usually look ratty. And ratty is exactly the word, even here in Arizona. I've had cannas here at The Tropical Paradise for years and I've learned a few things to make them beautiful, not ratty. Here they are: • Cut them back *to the nubs* every year in February. Yeah, it looks kind'a sad, but it's the new growth that looks so great. Old growth on cannas is, well, ratty. It's April 19th today and the cannas are really showing that beautiful foliage that I grow them for. Hey, there's even a bloom! • Cut the blooms off quickly. Cannas are grown for their lush, tropical foliage, not their flowers. The flowers fade after a day, so don't let them sit there. I cut the flowering stalk as low to the ground as I can. • If you live in the Phoenix area, avoid watering the leaves with a hose. Phoenix water is very hard, and

This past weekend a friend of mine from California asked me what kind of "ferns" he was looking at in my backyard here in Glendale, Arizona (a suburb of Phoenix). They are cycads, not ferns. And it's my favorite illusion. No, you can't grow ferns in the Phoenix, Arizona area. Believe me, I've tried, and I know a lot of people better than me who failed, even with fancy watering and misting systems. It's just not humid enough here, even compared to Southern California. Yes, you can buy ferns, and you can plant ferns, but all you will get will be sick-looking ferns that will eventually die. So don't bother with ferns. If you Google *cycads*, the most common one that you will find will be a *sago palm*. The ones that you are looking at in the photo are dioons, which do better here in the desert because of their bluish color, but are difficult to find, and expensive. But they require very little water and virtually no maintenance. Unlike ferns, cycads

I've had Elephant Ears here in The Tropical Paradise for many years now. As usual, I am always experimenting, and any plant like this, that grows from a bulb, is pretty easy to experiment with. That is, just put it in the ground somewhere and wait. I have planted dozens all over the garden and the ones that don't survive, well, I forget about. The ones that do, teach me where they should be and how to care for them. The one in the photo is doing particularly well. • Plant Elephant Ears on the east side of your house. The north side is too cold, the south side is too hot, and the west side is waaaay too hot. And if you're new to the Phoenix area and are wondering what I mean by *too cold* on the north side, consider that this is a desert, and that most of the growth of this plant happens in the winter. It's tropical, so it doesn't like cold. And by that I mean anything that is even close to freezing. • Give your Elephant Ears shade. The one in the photo gets sh

I love the look of a tropical garden. But I would never want to live in the tropics, where it's hot and humid. And in my twenties I lived in Southern California, where the weather is nice to plants, but it's crowded and expensive for people. My solution was to create a tropical oasis in Phoenix, Arizona. The Phoenix, Arizona area is not humid. And because of that, most tropical plants don't do well here. And, since it gets so hot in the summer, it surprises a lot of people that cold is a limiting factor here, too. It gets much colder here in the desert in the winter than it ever does in the tropics, or even in a Mediterranean climate such as Southern California. And did I mention that it's a lot less crowded here than in San Diego? And that you can buy a house here for a fraction of what it would cost there? But I really don't like desert landscaping. I like lush, tropical landscaping. And if you think it can't be done, well, that's the point of this b

OK, I'll admit it, I really kind'a hate to show the *behind the scenes* stuff of the garden. But there is a lot of it, and a good magician never reveals how it's done, so I must not be all that good. Today I am doing a couple of simple *houseplant* things that you probably saw your grandmother do. That is, I'm airing a houseplant, and I am rinsing out the salt from the soil. It's a beautiful day here in Glendale, not too hot, not too cold, and a bit of cloud cover, so it's a perfect day for airing out a Kentia Palm. So, the first step was to get it safely outside and removed from the cache pot. What you are seeing in the photo is the original pot that the plant came in. I was told by Kentia Palm expert  +Kevin Williams  of Elegant Kentias that these plants like to have their roots a little crowded, so I have left it in the pot. I have already transplanted two plants out of this pot, so it should still have plenty of room for several seasons. It's no