Brad's Tropical Paradise

I spent a week house-sitting for a friend in California recently, and was reminded of a surprising connection between plants and noise. We really don't think of plants as being particularly noisy, so when I first started learning about quiet gardening, I was surprised. But it has to do with their maintenance, and the noise that it causes. Look around your garden. How many plants do you have that require a lot of noise to properly maintain? Think of the noise of a lawn-mower, or power hedge-trimmers. Once you start realizing it, you will probably see more. The little neighborhood where I spent a week relaxing poolside was as noisy as an airport much of the time, with the sound of heavy-duty machinery blasting just about every morning. Thankfully, the neighborhood doesn't allow that type of noise before 8 am, but I was there all day. And sitting poolside with the loud sound of heavy-duty power tools isn't pleasant! So, rethink your plants. If it's something that...

It's July 28th and I planted a cycad this morning. It's now well over 100 degrees here in the Phoenix, Arizona area now, and it's a reminder how important careful planting, and watering, is! The plant, a dioon edule, var. palma sola , is a close relative to the common *sago palm*, but much tougher. I've had then here for many, many years, and they do great. But there are some tricks to making them do their best. This is what I've learned: • Prepare the hole well, but don't plant them too deep. No, you don't want the root ball sticking up above ground, but you definitely don't want a plant like this to stand in a swale, with *its feet wet*. That would rot the roots. So get the height correct. It should sit a little proud of the soil level. The point is here is to prove good drainage. There's a gentle slope here, too, which helps. Yeah, cycads like water, but it needs to drain away quickly. Even a heavy rain can be fatal to a plant like this, if ...

The most common cycad that you see around the Phoenix, Arizona area is a cycas revoluta , commonly called a *sago palm*. And they do OK here, but not nearly as well as a dioon edule , which is the plant pictured here. No, I've never seen a  dioon  edule  at a Home Depot in Phoenix. In fact, they're rare even at specialty nurseries. And since I have had several dioons, like this one, here in my backyard in Glendale, Arizona, survive and thrive even after the *sago palms* have gone, I am genuinely puzzled as to why I don't see more. This is a Dioon edule . I've never really heard much of any other name, so there really is no *common name* for them. When I first started planting them, and getting involved with the Arizona Palm and Cycad Association , I have to admit that it was kind'a strange to be speaking so much Latin. But then I remembered that I could say Tyrannosaurus Rex when I five, and then it didn't seem so difficult. And just like the characters i...

Agaves are pretty tough plants. And like cycads, aloes, etc., they pup. That is, they send offshoots which you can remove and transplant. Today I am preparing two agaves to be planted bare root. I was fortunate to get these from one of my fellow members of the Arizona Palm and Cycad Association , and I am following his advice. The first thing to do is to soak them overnight. So as soon as I got them, I put them in a bucket of plain water. Then, this morning, I started to trim them. Be careful! Agaves are sharp! I started by just peeling away the lower leaves, then I trimmed quite a bit away to remove any irregularly-shaped leaves, and also to make it easier for the plant to establish. I trimmed the roots a bit, too, just to make it easier to plant. The next step is to let them dry off a bit, and then plant them. I've always been a believer in careful soil preparation and planting. You know the old adage *dig a 100-dollar hole for a 50-dollar plant*! Of course, these plants ...

A friend of mine showed me this sago palm that has been in a pot for a very long time, and asked me what he should do with it. Other than saying, *give it to me*, I would say it's time to pot it up. Sago palms grow very slowly and can stay in their original pots for a VERY long time. If you're fortunate enough to have a situation like this, There are a couple of things that I would suggest. • Remove the pups. Those are the plants growing along side of the main plant. No, it's not really hurting the main plant, but most cycad collectors prefer to see the trunk (the caudex), especially on beautiful specimen like this one. Besides, it will give you more plants, for free! Here is how to root sago palm pups for more plants. • Put it in a slightly larger pot, or plant it in the ground. Either way, be sure to use plenty of free-draining potting soil (the kind sold for cactus) and be sure the location is free draining. That is, if you plant it somewhere, be sure it's o...

The best place in the yard for tropical plants in the Phoenix, Arizona area is along an east-facing wall. I call this *prime real estate* and it's where my dioon garden is. It's about six feet wide and there are stepping stones that allow me to get behind it (next to the wall) for trimming, weeding etc. What makes this particular piece of real estate even better for tropical plants is that there is a tree nearby, which adds a little bit of dappled shade in the morning, even before the shade from the house reaches this area. Phoenix is HOT and shade is critical to have this type of garden. If you try to put these plants out in full sun, they will die, or at the very least, look pretty ratty. My experience here is that the very worst place to plant is along a western, or southern, exposure. And surprisingly, a northern exposure is bad, as it can get cold in the winter here in the desert, and tropical plants don't like cold, even just about freezing. It's about 105...

In the past 100 years or so, the landscape of Southern California has been so completely changed that it's almost impossible to see what the native plants are, or used to be. The reason for this is because, to be blunt, they weren't very inviting to people. And people buy real estate. People don't really want to live in areas of dirt and scrub, with smelly, marshy areas, infested with mosquitoes, etc. If you could travel back in time to see what the San Fernando Valley looked like 100 years ago, you would probably be disappointed. Dirt, dirt, dirt. And a lot of weeds that easily caught on fire. Yes, and a few Live Oak Trees. And in Los Angeles, you might be discouraged by the swampy conditions and the smelly black stuff oozing up from the ground. La Cienega means swamp, you know. And the La Brea Tar Pits weren't the exception, they were the rule. But you can still see the native plants, undisturbed, just the way that the have been for thousands of years. But you...

If you've lived on the coast of California sometime in the last 100 years, you've seen a lot of palm trees. In fact, for many people, it's hard to imagine San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, even all of the way to San Francisco, without them. But if you like looking at old photos, like I do, you can see that these places looked very different at one time. And it all has to do with Real Estate. Because in order to get people to invest in real estate, you have to assure them that they will have water. Nowadays, of course, other than some water conservation, people don't give much thought to water. They turn a tap and get water for coffee. They brush their teeth at night, all the way along the California coast. Yes, it's precious, but no one nowadays really decides not to invest in a property in San Diego for fear or having no water. At all. But it used to be like that. The tremendous engineering that has been done in California has made it possible for millio...

Plants grow well here in the Phoenix, Arizona area, but it gets REALLY hot in the summer, so water is critical. I just added a new sprayer head for the watering system yesterday and am doing a bit of refining this morning. The goal is, of course, to water the plants, not the walls, or the sidewalks. This is a typical low-pressure *drip system*. The 1/2-inch trunk line runs all the way around the garden, towards the back, and is buried in the gravel just a few inches down. So, if I need to add a new sprayer, I can get to the trunk line easily, insert the new sprayer head, and then push the gravel back in place. This is an adjustable sprayer, and it looks like it's doing fine. As you can see, the idea is to keep the area along the wall dry, and not have the spray hitting the sidewalk. Well, there are a few drops, but that's OK. This is all ordinary, do-it-yourself stuff from Home Depot, by the way. I planted a lot of small stuff here, but mostly I am interested in getting...

If your sago palms are getting yellow, like  the ones that belong to a friend of mine in Phoenix, they are getting too much sun. Sago palms can survive in full sun in Phoenix, but they almost always suffer. Their leaves turn yellow, especially in the middle of the fronds, and their tips sunburn brown. No amount of water, or fertilizer, or anything else, will help. They need some shade. If these plants are getting some afternoon shade, they will be fine. The sun stress will go away after they get settled into their new home. If they are out in the "fires of hell" in Phoenix, they'll live, but won't ever look very good. Of course, sago palms don't need to be planted in full shade, even in Phoenix, but if you have them out in full sun, especially with gravel and the reflected heat of a block wall, they are going to suffer, and will never do well there. If, however, if your sagos have been recently transplanted, they may look like this for a season or two,...

When I first started The Tropical Paradise, I didn't give a thought to rocks. Little by little I started adding them, but mostly for function. The rocks tell me where my water lines are, so I don't dig there (well, at least that what they should do - I've dug into a water line more than one). As I started adding more rocks, though, I came to realize how important they are to the look of the garden. To me, rocks are in three categories, pointy (or craggy), river rocks (or roundy-roundy rocks), and large stepping-stone flat top rocks. • The pointy rocks give the look of an outcropping of rocks, and need to be well buried. If they are just sitting on the surface, they look kind'a dumb. Aside from looking great, they perform the functions of protecting the water lines from digging, protecting the water heads from being accidentally kicked, and keeping people from walking in the garden. I have plenty of pointy rocks along the edge of the garden. They say *keep out* and...

I have to admit to being unimpressed with the new patio umbrella that arrived yesterday. But now I'm understanding why umbrellas look like this, and work much better than what I had before. Before I had a *grass skirt* thatched-style patio umbrella. It looked great, but functionally, it was awful. Raising and lowering it was quite a chore. It didn't have a handle for raising and lowering, you had to reach up and pinch your fingers to do it. Then you had to go around an put in all of the wire edges, which all popped out. It was also missing that little bit of engineering that is on the top of my new umbrella, which helps keep it from becoming a wind foil. It really didn't take much wind to tip over the old one. I'm experimenting mostly, and I thought that I would buy this one (which was on sale at Wal-Mart) and then look for another *grass skirt* or *tiki style* at my leisure. But the more I learn, the more I'm deciding to stay with this style. This umbrella ...

I have to admit that my success rate with getting the pups from my sago palms to root has been very poor. I'm sure I've done everything right, applied rooting hormone, put them in free-draining pumice and sand. I sent an email to one of the best cycad experts in the country, bemoaning my failures, and since he has a greenhouse, I asked if it necessary. He said no. And he's doing it just a few miles away from me, in the Phoenix, Arizona area, so it isn't a climate thing. I just went out into the courtyard and did an inspection of one of the pups that has been there for about two years. I don't see any roots, do you? That's just a piece of string there, by the way. So, I pushed it back in and will leave it alone. Time will pass, and maybe I'll live long enough to see this become a plant! Water once a week, if in the Phoenix area, where it's hot in summer! Otherwise, monthly.