Brad's Tropical Paradise

It's the end of November and I'm already thinking about the cold here in the Phoenix, Arizona area. Yes, I know that it sounds like a joke, as the daytime temperatures will still be warm enough all winter to play golf, but it can get mighty chilly in the early morning hours for your plants, so it's good to give it a little thought. Unlike places like Hawaii, or San Diego, Phoenix gets much hotter, and much colder. The desert at night can be a bitterly cold place! No, it doesn't snow here, and but it does get below freezing, and if you have tropical plants, like I do, it's good to be aware. Here are some suggestions: • Get an clock that has shows indoor/outdoor temperatures. As you can see, yesterday at 7:30 am, while it was a comfortable 74 degrees in the house, it had already gotten down to 38 outside. So it won't be very long until the overnight temperatures get to freezing. • Check the forecast. I have Weather.com here on my computer, and on my iPad...

Unlike most plants, cycads, like sago palms, are dioecious. That is, the plants are either male or female. And yes, you can tell the gender of your sago palm, but only when it's coning. Cycads are strange plants. Even though they look like small palm trees, or large ferns, they're actually most closely related to pine trees. You know, the trees with the cones. And when your cycad gets old enough to begin its reproductive cycle (it usually has to be at least 25 years old), it will produce cones. If you have a male cycad, when it cones, it will look like, well, a cone. That is, it will be a familiar shape, you know, like pine trees have. If yours is a female, like the one at the top of this post, the cone will be less "coned shaped", but casual cycad collectors like me still call it a cone. The reproductive process is a familiar one. The female must be in a receptive state to accept the pollen from the male, the female produces the seeds, which the male makes v...

A friend of mine visited me yesterday here at the Tropical Paradise, and when he looked at my cannas I could tell that he knew that they were a lot of trouble to care for. He's right. For me it's a labor of love, which I've been doing for many years. Cannas do great here in the Phoenix, Arizona area. And since I have a tropical theme to my garden, I love their big, bold leaves. But you have to fuss with them. And this is what I recommend: • Plant them in your backyard. Plant them where you can get to them easily, like when you're walking around having your morning coffee. It only takes a few days of neglect for cannas to start looking ratty, so having them out front, or where you can't get to them easily, is a mistake. These aren't very good plants if you want to have a gardener come every few weeks. • Be vicious. Cut them back hard. I have a curved Japanese saw/knife that does a great job of cutting the stalks down. When I see a plant starting to get r...

The time to plant petunias in the Phoenix, Arizona area is just before winter. And if that sounds crazy to you, consider how beautiful the weather is here from November through April. I grew up in Minneapolis, and winter is spring here. Really. So you can plant petunias from November through January. You can plant them a little later than that, but remember that this is the desert, and they will die when the heat of the summer returns. There are a few considerations whenever you're planting anything here that isn't a cactus. First of all, you need potting soil. Just plopping petunias into the clay soil of your backyard in Phoenix ain't gonna make it. I dig a generous-sized hole, and fill it with potting soil. I also add some polymer moisture crystals and some dry fertilizer. Yes, even my petunias get royal service, like all of my plants. I figure it costs me more in potting soil, and fertilizer, than the petunias themselves, but that's OK, all I want is for my plan...

If you've walked past some cyclamen at your local garden center, and had your eyes knocked out by the amazing white, red, and sometimes purple blooms, and were wondering if they were too good to be true, don't worry, they'll do just fine in your desert garden all winter. I've planted them many times. Now remember, they're annuals, so when the weather gets hot again, in June, they will die. And they're pretty darn expensive - even a small single plant costs about $4 so you really shouldn't try to do them in a mass planting, like petunias. This is what I've done here: I got three white blooming ones and planted them in the river rock garden by the patio. As you can see, I've mixed them in with other plants, like Haworthias (those things that look like tiny aloes), euphorbias, and other succulents. Actually, I put the plants in first, and then added the rocks around them. Of course the illusion is that it's supposed to look like the plants gr...

It's November and here in the Phoenix, Arizona area, it's time to plant annuals. I've done it most years lately, just because it's so cool to see flowers bloom all winter. And this year I'll be planting petunias again, especially with white flowers. There is a reason for that. Petunias grow like mad here. If you plant them a foot or so apart from six-packs, they will all grow together into a beautiful tropical-looking ground cover. But wait, it gets better. If you get the ones with white blooms, you'll get a bonus at night. White flowers absolutely sparkle at night, especially if you have Malibu lights. And since the days are shorter in the winter, it's a good idea to think about how your nighttime garden will look. I am also planting white-blooming cyclamen, for the same effect. It should look amazing in about a month. I'll let you know. Planting perfect petunias How to choose the best six-pack of petunias

I've had daffodils here in the Tropical Paradise for years and years. In this mild climate, all you gotta do is plant them once, and they come back year after year. It's always a pleasant surprise to see them starting to stick up, as in the photo above. And this year I will combining them with petunias. The reason for this has to do with what will happen in the spring, after the daffodils are finished blooming. OK, we all know this - you shouldn't cut down the leaves of your daffodils after they've turned brown. Everyone knows that in order to have plenty of blooms for the next year, you gotta leave them alone. Looking all brown and ugly. I know that. But it doesn't mean that I've always left them alone. I've gone out there and cut all that brown ugliness down, and I'm sure it cost me in blooms the next season. This is the plan for this year - pairing with petunias. The idea here, if you follow me, is to have the petunias grow around the daffodils...

Part of what makes my neighborhood so nice is that there are trees. And I have a couple of nice big olive trees here that shade my house and make it possible for me to grow the types of tropical plants that I have. This is the Phoenix area, after all, where the temperatures get into the 100s in the summer. Shade is precious! As I write this, I'm having my trees trimmed. I saw these guys trimming my neighbor's trees a few years ago, and I like them. My only instruction to them is to "do a good job", and they will. They will trim away where the branches have gotten too close to the roof of my house, and where they're overhanging towards my neighbor's property. I've been in this house for over twenty years, and the trees have started to "fly" over the house. That is, they're taller than the house, and the trunks are kept clean. They have become a perfect canopy of dappled shade. I have no way of measuring how much all of this shade save...

This year I'm planting petunias again. I like them here at the Tropical Paradise not only for their blooms but for their tropical foliage. And if you're wondering what a perfect baby petunia looks like, here it is (above). This plant is no more than a couple of inches wide. Its shape is compact and the leaves are full. As it grows it will stretch out, and become more "leggy", but having a perfect petunia like this gives it a good head start to being a superstar. If the petunias that you've planted are all leggy and splayed out, don't despair. After they've been in the ground for about a week, and look like they're established, go ahead and trim the longer shoots off. You can even trim the bottom leaves, which here get munched by slugs. I got my petunias at the Garden Center at Lowe's. I'm an old-timer to gardening so I still tend to call these places Nurseries. And if you think of the plants there as babies, it will help you to care fo...

Sure, you can grow Elephant Ears in the Phoenix, Arizona area. My backyard is in Glendale, which is  a suburb of Phoenix, and I've had them here for many, many years. But there are a few tricks you'll need to do. • Find the shadiest part of your yard. My Elephant Ears do best near the wall of my house that faces east (towards the morning sun), and under the shade of a tree. Elephant Ears love heat, but they sunburn easily, so be sure they get shade. By the way, Elephant Ears HATE cold, so don't even think about planting them along a north-facing wall. It can get below freezing in the wee hours of the morning in Phoenix, and they will need the warmth of the morning sun in the winter, or they will die. • Make sure they get a lot of water, and food. Plant them in rich potting soil, with plenty of water crystals. I also added coffee grounds (which I got for free at Starbucks) which helps to make the ground more acidic. I give them a generous amount of plant food, includi...

Petunias are great. They do well here in the Phoenix, Arizona area, and stay in bloom all winter. They can be planted as early as October, although it's best to be absolutely sure that the weather has cooled down, so I waited until November. There are some tricks to getting the most out of them, and one of the first steps is to choose the correct six-pack. By the way, the six-pack is the only size you should buy, there's no need to buy them any bigger. If you do it right, they will grow like wildfire! First of all, don't worry about going to some fancy nursery. Annuals are annuals, and what you want is freshness. So places like Home Depot, or Lowe's, which do a lot of sales, and get a lot of plants in fresh, are the best place to go. And luckily, what most people choose are the wrong ones, so there are usually plenty of the correct ones, that get passed over, for you. This is how to choose: • Look for small, compact plants. Big ones, that are all stretched out...

One of the nice things about planting bulbs here in the Phoenix, Arizona area is that they return year after year. It's November 1st and I'm seeing daffodils (above) and freesia return. By the way, if you planted your bulbs in September, you should be seeing the same thing. And it's important to recognize these tiny shoots, especially if you're a gardener who is always on the lookout for weeds! Freesia shoot in November, Phoenix, Arizona. You should see strong growth through the winter. Keep in mind that the plants won't have flowers until Spring, so you will be seeing only foliage for several months. And that's part of the reason I've selected the bulbs that I have here, based on foliage. I've tried other bulbs, but if the foliage looks weedy, well, you have to look at it for months, and I don't like that. I recommend daffodils and freesia. And if you're from back east, no you don't need to lift these bulbs, or chill them, or do an...