Brad's Tropical Paradise

I just realized that my neighbor directly east of me has planted a purple-leaf plum tree, and I am thrilled. You can just see it in the photo poking up behind the six-foot block wall. It must have been there for a while, and I am now seeing it! There used to be a beautiful ficus tree there, but it was killed in the big frost of 2007. And the area did seem a little bare after that.  The new tree will cut down on the blazing morning sunshine and will be a beautiful backdrop for this part of The Tropical Paradise. I'm lucky to have such good neighbors! By the way, here is a photo that I found on the web that shows a little bit more of a purple-leaf plum tree. Purple-leaf plum tree

Coleus are beautiful and amazing plants. Unfortunately, they usually look their best on the day that you buy them, and then proceed to look worse and worse in the garden. I call this depressing phenomenon "watching a plant die slowly". Not pleasant. But the plants in the picture, which have been in the ground since early spring, are looking good in October. Of course, when the real cold nights hit in December and January, they will die, but in the meantime I am getting a nice show. This is how I did it - I started with one small plant that I got at Summer Winds Nursery up on Bell Road. There is no sense in buying coleus - if they grow, they will grow fast. If they don't grow, well, you've just wasted more money. As soon as it was established, I noticed that it started doing what all coleus plants do, getting "leggy", that is losing the fullness and showing too much of the stems. So I created clones. Each time I trimmed off some growth that was gettin...

While gardening is something that is normally associated with the ladies, believe me, we men like it, too. And men seem to have a tendency to be, well, guys. And I definitely fall into that category when I look at my Elephant Ears. They are big! There seems to be a real appeal for middle-aged guys to grow gigantic plants. If you Google "giant pumpkins", you will see. And I think that I can confidently say that my Elephant Ears win the prize for the largest Elephant Ears in The Tropical Paradise. I wish I could take credit for this, but I really can't. These plants were tiny bulbs that I got permission to take from a friend's garden in Los Angeles many years ago. I planted them all over The Tropical Paradise and most died. The ones that lived are in the shade of the house in the wettest area. It's October now and the weather is still plenty warm during the day, and down into the 50s and 60s at night. These Elephant Ears have survived freezing temperatures, ...

The courtyard area at The Tropical Paradise has been neglected for years. Because of the low wall, this area isn't really visible from the front of the house. And since I enter and exit the house from the garage, I rarely go here. Trick-or-treaters have used this area, and Jehovah's Witnesses, but that's it. In the past few weeks, though, I have been sitting out here in the morning and pondering what to do. My first step was to get rid of the blocks that were being hefted up by the roots of the tree. In twenty years, that tree has gone from being a little twig to being, well, a tree. And while you can't see the roots (they're by Macintosh's tail), they are there, and will continue to grow. Of course, it won't affect the concrete sidewalk, which is an original part of the house, but the blocks were just set in sand and had started to get all crooked, and worse than that, had become a trip hazard. You can see that I left a few of them in. And I will get mo...

One of the Elephant Ear plants here at Tropical Paradise is flowering again in the middle of October. This plant just flowered in June of this year. No one is more surprised than I am at how well the Elephant Ears do here. They originally came from a friend's garden in Los Angeles almost ten years ago where they were little tiny things that looked like ground cover. I had no idea what they were. But I planted them all over the place here, and while most of them died, a few lived, and thrived. They like it here. But only where there is deep shade, rich soil, and lots of water. This flower, oddly enough, is facing towards the house. I took the photo by leaning out of my dining room window. I really don't know anything about these plants, except that the leaves are incredible, and the flower only lasts for a day or two. These Elephant Ears grow to be over five feet tall, and the leaves can be over two feet long. They tend to burn around the edges in the summer, and they re...

Most people don't associate gardens with noise, and it wasn't until I got an email from someone who was described as "The Quiet Gardener" that I began to understand the connection between garden design and noise. It's wonderfully quiet this Sunday morning here at The Tropical Paradise, but pretty soon the noise will start. On the weekends in suburbia, we have come to expect this. But hopefully times will change. Please let me explain. A garden, by definition, is a bit of tamed ground. That is, it takes some care and maintenance. And the plants that you choose define the amount of noise that you will need to create to maintain it. Of course, the worst culprit is a lawn. The roar of lawnmowers, whether gasoline, or electric, is one of the loudest noises that reverberates through a quiet suburban neighborhood. Following closely after that are bushes that require the kind of harsh treatment that only a power hedge-trimmer can provide. I hope that you see the pat...

Tourist weather is finally here in the Phoenix, Arizona area! While we locals suffer through some pretty miserable months, this time of year has what I have always called "Chamber of Commerce Weather". Just incredibly beautiful. For the next five months tourists will be paying the big bucks to enjoy the weather that I now have right in my backyard. We got a little gentle rain last night here in Glendale, and the air is so clean and fresh it's incredible. The air has a very gentle, cool breeze, and the sun is mildly warm. This is amazing, and this is why I live here. As you can see, I have set up the chaise lounge in a nice sunny spot. I'm not going to bother with the leaves on the artificial turf right now, besides it looks more real with less maintenance. And you can see the bulbs beginning to really show some growth. Some have already started blooming, although most will wait until spring to flower. But there will be a lot of beautiful, lush, tropical foliage al...

No, I'm not suggesting that you go out with the hose and water your plants while it's raining, but it's a good idea to water them whenever you are walking around saying, "tut, tut, it looks like rain!" Please let me explain. On overcast days like this, where you can "feel the rain in the air" on its way, you may be tempted to go turn off your watering system. Big mistake. Continue to water normally. That's because your plants are like you, they know the rain is coming. Or at least they think that they know. If you've lived in the Phoenix area for a while, you know how sometimes it feels like rain and all we get is a dust storm. Or the rain passes a few blocks away from you, flooding your neighbor's streets and leaving you high and dry. Your plants are at risk at this time. In preparation for the rain, they have "opened up their pores". And if no rain comes, or if no rain comes for a long time, they will lose moisture faster th...

When I bought this house, many years ago, I had recently moved to Arizona from California. And while I was in California, I had become very aware of the value of a "view". In Santa Barbara and Redondo beach, I had looked at apartments that had an "ocean view" - even if only a tiny bit could be seen past other buildings, telephone poles, trees, etc., and that made them more expensive. So I noted, when I bought this house, that there was a mountain view. I don't know if you can see it in the picture, but it's straight ahead, due west, behind that palm tree in the background. I bought my house intentionally with the backyard facing east as I knew it would be best for the garden. The front of the house faces west, and if you live in the Phoenix area, you know that that is "the fires of hell", the hottest area on your property. So, I really never spent much time in the front of the house. I have tried to plant things in the court yard, but the bruta...

Here in the Phoenix, Arizona area, October begins the tourist season, and what I like to call "Chamber of Commerce" weather. In a word, it's gorgeous! So I am pleased to see The Tropical Paradise looking good at this time. Part of it is selection of plants (which I would like to take credit for) and part of it is just twenty years of failure. But it's the successes that show! Don't forget that even though the weather is fine, fall is still on its way. Here the temperatures will stay in the 70s, but the plants think that winter is coming on. The reason that I mention that is to avoid deciduous plants if you want your garden to look good during "Chamber of Commerce" weather. Deciduous means any plant that loses its leaves in the fall. It includes not only trees, but many shrubs that look great in the summer, and are just sticks all winter long. If your property is large enough, deciduous plants don't look bad, but my space is too small for sticks! ...

One of the nice things, and one of the drawbacks, of planting bulbs is that many times you can get a surprise. Over the years I've impulsively purchased bulbs from anywhere from online to a dollar store, put them in the ground, and forgot about them. And so seeing a plant growing where I hadn't expected it, especially a blooming one, is great. On the other hand, I really like to know the names of all of my plants. But I have no idea what this one is. If you recognize it, please let me know. It has a nice, delicate, tropical feel to it. Right now I am just calling it "The little flower of the desert".

Yesterday as I was removing some of the paver blocks that had shifted over the years, I noticed that my court yard really looked terrible. It's a space that I don't use much, an area near the front door and behind a four-foot wall with a gate. So, you really can't see this space from the street, and I didn't really look at it much over the years as I, like most people in the Phoenix area, go in and out of my house through the garage. This area I have used as a place for rehabilitating plants, so there is good shade, a watering system, and some big pots. There are several cycads and a little palm tree that I got years ago that I really didn't want but was unable to give away. It's growing, so I'm going to let it live here. And to bring it all together I went to Lowe's yesterday for some annual flowers. By the far the best annual flower for this is the petunia. It has a wonderful vining shape so it will not only fill the pots, it will spill over the ...

Now that the weather is finally cooling down a bit, I can get out into the courtyard, and the front yard, which are mostly neglected. The courtyard, which is where I rehab my ailing plants, has never really looked very nice. I need to work on it. What I just did today was to remove 9 of these square pavers, which had been hefted up by the roots of the olive tree. They were just set dry on sand by some young guy twenty years ago (me!) and so were pretty easy to pull out. I've raked some of the leaf litter and gravel from under the tree in this area, and will go back and tidy up more as it settles. The leaves fall continuously, providing a wonderful free mulch. The sidewalk, and the pavers next to it, I clean with the electric blower. The courtyard itself faces the setting sun so it's brutally hot in the summer, but the tree gives shade to the plants in the pots, which change continuously. The reason that I removed the pavers is that they had lifted up just enough to be a t...

I usually try to remain optimistic about The Tropical Paradise, but I have to say that ice plant has been a failure here. I'm in Glendale, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, and now I know that just a little change in elevation can be very meaningful to plants. In the photo you can see (just barely!) ice plants that didn't die. But that's all I can say for them. They have not grown at all. In my mind I pictured them spreading out all over, creating a beautiful carpet of their silvery-green leaves. Instead, they just sit there. I visited The Boyce Thompson Arboretum last spring and marveled at their display of ice plant. Unfortunately, they are at 2,400 feet elevation and here in Glendale is about 1,000 feet lower. And it made all of the difference. How I pictured my ice plant would look. This is at The Boyce Thompson Arboretum

It's October here in the Phoenix, Arizona area, and if you are wondering what to do to get your Cape Honeysuckle to get it to bloom, do nothing. Yes, I know the weather is beautiful and you have any itchy trigger finger on that power trimmer, but put it away. And put away the hedge clippers! Cape Honeysuckle is a vining plant. If you need a plant that works well in the shape of pom-poms, get some boxwood or something. If you want flowers on your Cape Honeysuckle, let it vine. All Cape Honeysuckle needs to bloom is cool weather and to be left alone. Sit out in your backyard, listen to some music, pet the dog, drink a beer. In about a month your Cape Honeysuckle will be covered with flowers. Yes, it's that easy.

If you're wondering what those pods that are opening up on your palm tree are doing, they are flowering. And just like all flowering plants, your palm trees do this every year, and sometimes they do it twice a year. This palm is a Phoenix roebellini , a dwarf date palm. So it wants to make dates. You know, the gooey brown fruit that is sometimes used to make shakes. Not that this is a variety that produces edible dates, but it's a relative. So it flowers, pollinates and fruits. That means that it will do what most flowering plants do, attract birds and bees. Actually wasps. This type of palm tree attracts wasps while in flower, so it's best to stay away. The wasps aren't interested in you, unless you go in there and startle them. So leave them, and your palm tree, alone for a few weeks. The flowering will end and then will be the time to trim the flowers off. So, sit back, enjoy the flowers, enjoy the nice weather here in Phoenix in October and leave the trees...