Brad's Tropical Paradise

Mediterranean palms do great in the Phoenix area. They don't mind the most intense heat, even in full sun, and they aren't harmed a bit by the coldest temperatures that Phoenix gets to. I have a few of them here, and they're great. But they grow in a strange, bushy, way. So if you're not sure what kind of palm tree you have, and it seems to be growing in a strange way, it may be a med palm. And they sucker. A lot. No, I'm not using a rude word here, that's what those additional sprouts that grow all around the base are called - suckers. Most palm trees sucker, a bit (I notice that my dwarf date palms don't), but med palms go absolutely crazy with the suckers. If you try to cut them back to the main trunk, they will grow back. A lot. If you don't have room for a suckering palm tree, sorry, it's gotta go. Otherwise you'll spend your whole darn life trying to keep those suckers down. Anyway, I like the way med palms create a palm bush. Be...

If you have a garden, having a dog in it can be a disaster. Dogs tend to trample on plants, or chew them, or (especially if your dog is a dachshund), dig. The dachshund was bred to dig. Go Google it, I'll wait. So it sometimes surprises people to see that I share my garden with a dachshund. She's been here for almost eleven years now, and no, she doesn't trample on the plants, or chew them, or dig. And that's because what's an even stronger instinctive for our canine friends than digging, or chewing, or anything else, is pleasing us. Aren't dogs wonderful! From the time Macintosh, the good little wiener dog, was a puppy, I showed her what I wanted her to do. If she did something that I disapproved of, I let her know. Gently. There was no reason to be harsh, she was just trying to figure out what she could do to please me. So I reinforced positive behavior, and if she did something wrong (like starting to dig) I would let her know. And she was so sensitive...

If you have a plant that looks like the photo here, and you're still calling it a sago palm, you're missing out on a lot. That's because you're calling it by the wrong name. No, I won't correct you just for the sake of it, and I know that a rose by any other name will smell as sweet! But if you want to take the best care of this plant, being able to Google the word "cycad" will be very helpful to you. And that's because (and you may have had a suspicion about this!), sago palms aren't palms at all. They aren't related to palms, and their requirements are different from palms. They're in a category called cycads. And they do some unusual stuff that palms don't do. Once you start calling your sago palm a cycad, a whole world will open up for you. There will be web pages about the care of cycads, there will be Facebook groups, there will be books. There will be a LOT of great information out there. And (here's the best part!) ...

If you have a sago palm, it won't grow much. The reason for that is that, in spite of its common name, a sago palm isn't a palm at all, it belongs to a group of plants called cycads. And instead of growing continuously, like a palm tree does, a cycad grows in short, fast spurts only once (and sometimes twice) a year. These are called flushes, by the way. Cycad collectors just love seeing a beginning flush, which is what you seeing here on a cycas revoluta (sago palm) in my backyard here in Glendale, Arizona. In the next week of two the leaves will grow all of the way out, and then it will stop growing until next summer. Now be careful during the flush - the leaves will start out very soft and any damage that happens to them is permanent. When they harden off, they will stay that way, so make sure that they're not bumping up against another plant or something or the leaves will get all squished, and they stay that way. And during a flush is the time for water and fe...

I love the sculptural quality of the base of an olive tree. But trimming off all of the little suckers (yes, that's the real name for them, I'm not kidding here) can be a pain. There have been times when I've neglected my olive trees, and I have had to do a lot of work trimming them back, but now I just give them a shave every once in a while, with a chisel. It's actually kind of relaxing to do. I sit on the ground and scrape off the new growth. I also scrape a little bit to flatten the bumps. The trimmings I just let fall to the ground, like the leaves, and they turn brown, and become mulch. The trunk shows some light green areas where the trimming was done, but it goes away very quickly. I have two olive trees here, one in front and one in back. They were planted by the previous owner of this house over twenty years ago, so they give nice dappled shade, and require no additional water (olive trees have deep roots, and they live in the desert, and go find their ...