Combining flowers, palms, and cycads in your garden

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Combining flowers, palms, and cycads in your garden takes a few tricks. The problem, of course, is that these different plants require different amounts of water and sunlight (commonly called their cultural requirements if you're a stickler for that).

The most important trick is to have a slope. Here in this photo, taken along the southeastern edge of The Tropical Paradise, you get a better view of the slope, which is 20 -30 degrees. I wish I could take credit for this idea, but it just happened that when I moved here there was a whole bunch of gravel everywhere that I just shoveled up against the walls. When you visit gardens you will rarely see everything planted on flat ground. And it isn't just to make things display better, it helps your plants to grow better.

Towards top of the slope are the cycads. They appreciate water, but it needs to drain off right away or their roots will rot. As you go down the slope, you see where the palm trees are planted. They also like water, but don't like standing with their "feet wet". At the bottom of the slope, and planted in little "swales" along the way are the flowers. In this photo you can see iris, amaryllis, and a lot of freesia.

I turn off the automatic watering system in the winter here at The Tropical Paradise so I keep an eye on the flowers and water them with the hose if the weather seems dry or hot, of if we don't get much rain. The rocks also help to catch and contain the moisture in the soil, so I try to get a bunch of them along the edge of the artificial turf. I could use some more!

Flowering plants, of course, need plenty of sunlight, and you can see that even though it's still late morning, they are getting plenty. They face west and will get good sunlight until late afternoon when they are shaded by the house.

Of course, viewed from the front you don't really see any of this, and that's the point. You just see a Tropical Paradise!

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