Brad's Tropical Paradise

Rocks, including gravel, are great in the garden. Done correctly, typical 1/2" landscaping gravel looks great. I converted my front yard from grass to gravel when I moved into this house, twenty years ago. But, like everything else, if you do it wrong, it looks terrible. And one of the worst mistakes I see people make is to put gravel in places where people need to walk. Big mistake. Don't do that. I just want to grab my guitar and sing a sad song when someone proudly shows me that they have converted an area where people walk, like a small lawn, into a gravel area. It looks great for exactly one day - then people walk on it. No, I'm not criticizing people walking where they shouldn't be. If the design has gravel in walking areas, the fault is with the person who designed the space, not the people walking. Designing a space that encourages people to walk on gravel is always a mistake. I see it everywhere - around parking lots, for example. People walk on the g...

Here in the Phoenix, Arizona area, we do everything to conserve water. Water is precious in the desert, and besides, it costs money, and I grew up in Minnesota where I learned to be frugal. So, when I started my garden here over twenty years ago, the first thing I read up on was "Xeriscape" - which just means having a landscape that is the most water-efficient it can be. A true Xeriscape garden isn't just a bunch of rocks, would just makes your backyard even hotter, it's a small place of shade, with a few plants that give the feeling of an oasis. And one of the most important tricks is: mulch . Mulch is anything that protects the soil from drying out. It can be chips of bark, stuff you get in bags at Home Depot, or if you're lucky and have a tree that sheds, like mine, leaf litter. This is what I do - I get a bag and fill it up with mulch. A lot of it accumulates up front in the courtyard. Then I sprinkle it around the base of my plants, and water it i...

I noticed some telltale signs of the misting line leaking yesterday - excessive water accumulating on the ground, bubbles. So I pushed the dirt aside (the line is only an inch or so below the soil line) and sure enough, there was a tiny pinpoint hole that had been leaking - and once revealed was spraying out like crazy. I'm assuming the birds that dig into the soil did it. I've found a neat trick for fixing these types of lines, using brass compression fittings. The first thing I did was to cut the line (where the arrow is pointing) and made sure to cut away where the hole was. Then I went to the hardware store and bought a brass 3/8" compression union . It's in the plumbing area, and be sure you get it right - there's only about a million different variations and sizes. Be sure it's 3/8" on both ends. The first time I did this, I had the guy at the hardware store show me how it all works. The tools required to assemble it are pliers and a small adj...

I just love the architectural and sculptural quality of the base of an olive tree. It always reminds me of the pictures I saw as a kid of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Like most desert-adapted trees, olive trees are really just big bushes that are trained up to look like trees. That is, left to their own devices, they tend to splay out and get all bushy. Of course, what I want here are trees, not bushes, so I have to keep after my olives trees. Caring for the base of an olive tree is a great "puttering around the garden with your coffee" activity. If you neglect the shoots for a long time, you will need to do some heavy pruning, but if you're like me, and wander around every morning, just take an ordinary chisel along with you every once in a while. A couple of times a month is plenty. I sit at the base of the tree and gently scrap away the shoots. Sometimes I just sit there with my coffee, and I am thankful to be there.