Brad's Tropical Paradise

If you have a cycas revoluta, commonly known as a sago palm, it does some weird stuff, including something that we usually associate with pine trees - it cones. And another unusual aspect of this plant, which isn't a palm at all, it's a cycad, is that each plant is either male or female. And so when your plant gets to be old enough, it will cone. If it's a male, the cone will look like, well, a cone. If it's a female, it will look like a big weird alien-looking lump. And it gets weirder, depending on whether your plant decides to just cone that year, or if it will cone and then grow fronds right through the cones. Yes, that happens, but it's rare, so if yours is doing that right now, go take a pic. This plant isn't mine (I wish it was!), it's over at an apartment complex not far from me. And yes, it's a female, and yes there are fronds growing right through it. If you take a closer look you'll see seeds in there, and if the plant nearby, whic...

If you have an olive tree, you're gonna have sucker growth at its base. And no, I'm not trying to be funny here, suckers are actually the correct term. So ya gotta trim those little suckers! I have found the best thing to be ordinary chisels, like the kind used for wood working. I have to admit that I probably should have gotten some new ones sooner, but I hadn't realized that over the twenty years I'd been using the old ones how dull they had gotten but I started using the ones I bought on sale at the local hardware store. A set of three cost me about six bucks. I figure that I'll replace these in another ten years, I won't wait so long next time. I can tell that fall is on the way, but it's still hot in the sun, so I didn't linger. As the backyard goes into shade this afternoon, I'll do more lingering. And by that I mean sitting on the ground, usually with a cold drink nearby, and just moving slowly around, chiseling and smoothing. I find it...

I just love having a garden, and I just love having dogs. I have two dachshunds, and I'd like to believe that they're just as happy in the Tropical Paradise as I am. When I bought this house, over twenty-five years ago, two things attracted me to it: it had a garage, and it had a nice little area for a garden. I dislike leaving my car out exposed to the elements, and I dislike not having a space big enough for some plants and flowers. And I lived without dogs for a long time. As the years went by, I struggled to keep the grass growing in such a small and shady area. And then I got my first dog, who I taught to be good, but hey, dogs are dogs - they do their business on grass, and it kills it. So about a year after I got my first dog, in 2006, I had artificial turf installed. At the risk of sounding like a commercial, it was the best investment I ever made. It cost me a fair amount of money, and I did have it professionally installed. Artificial turf is not a "do-it-...

No tropical paradise is complete without ferns. Well, at least plants that look like ferns. And that's the best I can do here in the Phoenix area because you can't grow ferns here. No. No. Now calm down, I'm not saying that you can't buy ferns here. You can buy all kinds of ferns, just about anywhere. They're grown in greenhouses, and as soon as you put them in the ground here in the Phoenix area they start to die. No, it's doesn't matter how much water you give them, or shade, or if you mist them every few hours. The air in the desert is simply too dry for ferns. Yeah, no one could talk me out of buying and planting ferns for years and years. I wish I had the money, and effort back! Oh well, live and learn. If you're at a point now where you've wisely given up on planting ferns in the Phoenix area, you're ready for my favorite fern-like plants, called cycads. No, you really won't find them at your average nursery, and you sure won...