Brad's Tropical Paradise

Irises love water, you can water them all you want here in the Phoenix area. I planted an iris bulb here in Glendale, Arizona (a suburb of Phoenix) on October 10th. The leaves started showing about three weeks later, and now on November 29th, it's growing strong. It will flower in February, and will grow much taller by then. Irises love it here, and they do great. And they LOVE water. In fact, the only time I've ever had problems with them is when they have dried out (the air is very dry here in the desert). They did their best one season many years ago when I forgot to turn off the automatic watering system in the winter. So water them all you want. I fill a watering can with Miracle-Gro and water them whenever the mood strikes me, which is often, sometimes a couple of times a day. No, they won't die if you miss a day, but you don't have to worry about over-watering them. My point here is that if you're one of those people who always fed their goldfish too...

If you live in Phoenix, or any similar climate, like Los Angeles, or Las Vegas, you may have gone out to your yard and seen a palm tree growing where you know you never planted one. Depending on how often you look at your yard, they can be just a little tiny spear, or it can bigger, looking like, well, a palm tree. If it looks like the one in the photo at the top of this post, it's a Washingtonia robusta , more commonly called a Mexican Fan Palm. And it was planted by a bird passing by. And I do mean passing. Yes, birds poop them out.  Mexican fan palms grow like weeds in Phoenix. They're the ones that you see along Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, and they grow VERY fast, and VERY tall. So, if it's in a good spot, and you would like a palm tree there, just leave it. It won't require any extra water and it's already in a perfect spot, selected by nature. Remember that in a few years it will be tall enough so that you will either have to climb up there and trim i...