Brad's Tropical Paradise

Rocks can be a wonderful addition to your garden. I'm always anxious to add more, like I did this morning after a friend dropped some off yesterday. But there are a couple of things I've learned. • Don't just have your landscape be rocks. That's what I call a moonscape. I've seen people who, with the best intentions, take beautiful rocks and pile them up all over their yard, maybe with a stray weed or sickly-looking cactus, and make an eyesore out of what could have been a beautiful landscape. The point is that rocks are accent pieces, they're not an entire landscape. Use them with with discretion, or your yard will either look like the moon, or a gravel pit. • Make them look as if they've always been there. I like to find rocks with some jagged edges, and dig them in around my plants, or around the light fixtures. The illusion is that these rocks are buried deep into the ground, and only the tips are showing, like on the top of a mountain. I call t...

I planted some daffodil bulbs last month (in December), and I'm just starting to see them sprout now, on the beginning of the third week of January. They will grow quickly, and will be blooming in February. Even though it's kinda chilly out there now (59 degrees right now), when I planted them about a month ago, they were planted alongside of annuals, which died from the heat. It wasn't ridiculously hot last month, but it got hot enough to kill the tiny little annuals. But the bulbs are doing just fine. I bought a package of 25, and planted them in groups of three in different places in my backyard. In some spots I planted five in the same hole, as I like the look of a cluster of daffodils, single ones just look so sad. If you plant bulbs, you know how cool it is to see them just starting to sprout. I start looking for new growth about ten minutes after I plant a bulb, and just keep looking all of the time. But you really won't see anything for at least a month...

I like trees. I feel better around them. I grew up in Minneapolis, where there are a LOT of trees. And I lived in Southern California in areas that are lush with tropical plants, including trees. But I live in Phoenix, and it's a compromise. You really can't make Phoenix look like Minneapolis, but it doesn't have to be just dirt and rocks. Contrary to popular belief, trees can grow in Phoenix. They were widely planted from territorial times until about the 1970s, when the city was essentially stripped bare of trees. But there are people who want to bring the trees back to Phoenix, and I'm one of them. I always say to plant a tree, and care for it. But there are arguments for and against any type of tree, planted anywhere, and for a lot of people that stops them from doing anything. Some trees grow too slowly, some grow too fast. Some have leaves that all fall off in the winter, some have leaves that continuously shed all year. So find a tree that you like, and can...