Brad's Tropical Paradise

Choosing flowers, or any plant, based entirely on the bloom is a serious mistake. That's because plants aren't in bloom all of the time. Most of the time you're looking at their foliage. And that's why you should choose flowers based on foliage that's attractive to you. There's an old saying with gardeners that blooms come and go, but the foliage is always there. And that's what you're gonna be looking at mostly. Yes, when your flowers bloom, you'll go take a closeup photo of the flower, and the foliage will be less important to the composition of the photo, but in real life, you're gonna see foliage. It's part of the reason that so many people are disappointed with the flowers that they plant in their garden. But I have a solution. When you look at a flowering plant, look at the foliage first. Ask yourself what the plant would look like without any flowers? Would it just look like a stray weed? There are a lot of flowers that look gre

Geraniums do great here in the Phoenix area, but I never planted them here until yesterday. I have to admit to having a prejudice against them that I developed when I lived in California, where they grew like weeds. They are, in fact, a very robust plant, suited for dry climates, and they flower profusely with a brilliant color. But I didn't like smell, and if neglected, they can look very ratty. So my first test yesterday was to see if the pungent smell was going to bother me in my backyard. Up close to them I could smell them, but once they were planted I couldn't smell anything at all - and I have a tiny yard. So far so good. They were an impulse buy at Home Depot yesterday, but I made sure to choose the best little plants I could, making sure to get ones that weren't all bloomed out and leggy, and also had enough bud showing to guarantee the correct color I wanted, which was red. I took the picture at the top of this post just a few minutes ago and I'm enjoyi

I've had spotlights here in the Tropical Paradise for many years. There are two transformers, both 100 watts, connected to two lines that go around the backyard and meet in the middle (although they don't actually connect there). The spotlights that I use aret 20 watt halogens, and yesterday I added an LED spotlight, which is the equivalent in brightness of 20 watts, and uses just a fraction of the electricity. I installed it yesterday on my northern line, and I'm happy with the effect. My plan now is to replace the old halogen units with LED ones as the bulbs burn out (which they're doing a lot of nowadays). I'm no expert on how electricity works, but I noticed that the halogen spotlights get dimmer as I add more to the line. Apparently it has to do with something called "resistance", and that's why I'm using two lines, and two transformers. When I had only one line, trying to do as many 20 watt spotlights as I wanted was creating too much re

Daffodils grow great in the Phoenix, Arizona area. You can plant them as early as September, and as late as December. The ones I have growing here right now, which are King Alfreds, were planted in early December, and it's now February 14th. They will reach their full height (which is considerable) and start blooming in a few weeks. I've grown lots of different bulbs here, but I always come back to daffodils, and especially the big ones, like King Alfreds. I plant in groups on no less than three, and I hand-water all winter, because my automatic watering system is turned off in late December and all of January. The bulbs are planted near enough to my walkway that I can easily water them, and then as they bloom, and the blooms fade, I can deadhead them. I don't know if you can tell by the photo, but King Alfreds are not only big plants, their foliage is just slightly bluish. This makes them stand up to the heat that comes on pretty quick here in the desert, although o