Brad's Tropical Paradise

To get the most flowers on your cape honeysuckle, the best thing you can do is to leave it alone. All cape honeysuckle needs to bloom is some cool weather. I attribute much of my success in getting my cape honeysuckle to bloom to the fact that the plants are in areas that are not easy for me to reach. I'm a neat gardener, and I like fussing with plants, and if you are, too, it may be the reason you aren't getting many blooms. Keeping a cape honeysuckle bush neatly trimmed discourages flowering. So I have a tendency to let it get pretty rangy and then climb up the hill at the back of The Tropical Paradise and do some trimming. Just a few times a year does it. Cape honeysuckle can be kept to any size, from just a few feet to towering over your walls, it's up to you. I keep mine fairly short, but mostly I leave it alone, especially during the winter! Should be a pretty spectacular flower show in January!

If you live in a climate where the ground never freezes, such as here in the Phoenix, Arizona area, you can install your own flagstone. I've had it here for over fifteen years, and it looks great. I've made a few mistakes, and learned a few things along the way, but overall it has been very successful. I'm doing some repairs this morning, so I thought I'd review some of things I did right, and some of the things I did wrong. • Get the largest, and thickest pieces that you can. I didn't buy any of mine, it was all donated by friends, so I have no idea how expensive it is. I got a lot of big, thick pieces, so I just used what I had. The bigger, thicker ones did better than the smaller, thinner, ones. • Don't put the flagstone directly on the ground, put it on sand. It may be tempting to just put a slab of flagstone right on the dirt, but that's a mistake. Underneath all of my flagstone is several inches of sand. This allows you to refine the setting. If ...

The coldest part of your garden in winter is along a south wall. That is, a northern exposure. The reason for this is that the sun is at its lowest in the winter and the wall creates a barrier to sunlight. The lesson that I've learned here is to not plant cold-tender plants along a south wall. As you can see in the photo, which was taken at about 9:30 am, the southeast area of the wall is the darkest, and the coldest. As the sun comes up, it warms up the eastern exposure of the house, where I do have some tender tropicals, but the southern wall never warms up. I've planted a lot of things along that wall over the years, but mostly all that's left is that pile of rocks behind that agave, up against the wall. I am successfully growing a Mediterranean palm (you can just see a bit of it) and some fountain grass, but even they look a little sad in the cold weather. And the palm is leaning out for sun, understandably. The bottom line is that a northern exposure, even here...

What daffodils need to bloom is water, light, and warmth. Here in Glendale, Arizona it seems a shame not to plant them because we have plenty of that, even in December. It's December 16th and these daffodils (narcissus) have been blooming for a couple of weeks now. The temperatures during the day have been in the fifties/sixties and this location faces west, and gets plenty of sun. The water is something that I make sure to add just about every day. Towards the end of December we usually get "Christmas rains" here, but so far it's been dry. The bulb for these plants (they have multiplied) was planted two years ago. In September, when the heat of the desert starts to die down, the leaves emerge, and the blooms started at the beginning of December. They will continue to bloom through January. I bought a single bulb from a bin at the local nursery. I think it was about seventy-five cents. It's planted in rich potting soil, about three inches deep. When plante...

It's the second week of December here at The Tropical Paradise in Glendale, Arizona, and if you planted iris in September or October, you should be seeing some strong growth by now. Don't worry, they won't bloom until February, but they will do a lot of growing in the next couple of months. And you can encourage growth, and ultimate bloom with a simple trick, simply scraping away the soil at the base. I just use my fingers and scrape away some of the leaf litter, rocks and any other stuff that is around the base of each plant. Yes, it's OK if you can actually see the top of the bulb. When you do the scraping, you make a little swale that will hold water better. Get a large watering can with some plant food mixed in (I use Miracle Grow, but they're all the same) and water. Then do it again, and again. Iris love water, and for some strange reason, they do better with their roots exposed. I don't know why, but they do. Iris that are planted too deep don't d...

Even though geraniums grow well here in the Phoenix, Arizona area, I have resisted them as I had learned to dislike them from when I lived in California. I found that they had an unpleasant smell, and an unpleasant color and texture to the leaves. But now I have discovered something new: ivy geraniums. This new type of geranium has the same spectacular blooms (by the way, it's December 11th today, and I just took the photo a few minutes ago) but the leaves are nice and glossy, and there is no "geranium smell". A friend of mine gave these to me a few weeks ago. It's nice to have experts for friends! Ivy geraniums are difficult to find, but this one came from Home Depot. It was the last one they had, so people must be finding out about it. There were plenty of ordinary geraniums! Yes, in addition to the other things I mentioned, this plant grows in a trailing way, like ivy. Hence the name, I guess. I like this. And I will learn to love geraniums again!

Although it doesn't snow here in the Phoenix, Arizona area, it can get very cold. And the coldest temperatures usually hit in late December and through January. Luckily, it's only at night and there is something you can do about it, cover your plants with frost cloth. And if you're wondering what plants to cover when you hear the frost warnings, here is a list of typical plants that I've seen in my neighborhood that get badly damaged by frost: • Bougainvillea. These beautiful plants are very frost-sensitive. I removed mine a few years ago just because it was so frustrating to being trimming them all summer, and worrying about them all winter. • Ficus. If you have small ficus trees, they can die from a severe frost. Even big ones can get damaged, and there really isn't a lot you can do to protect them. It really gets too cold here in the Sonoran Desert to plant these beautiful trees, so if you are tempted to get one, don't. • Dwarf (miniature) Date Pa...

Here in the Phoenix, Arizona area, it doesn't snow. But it can get cold. Even though it's a desert, it can get much colder than places like Los Angeles, where the low temperatures there are tempered by the ocean. Here in the desert, there are extremes. The ability to withstand cold temperatures is determined by how "hardy" the plant is. Yes, that's the word. Hardy. So the best thing to do is to check the hardiness of your plants by identifying them and then going online to find out their hardiness. The information was also on the tag when you bought the plant, but you probably threw that away. No worries, just look it up. It will say that the plant is "hardy to (for example) 32 degrees". If the plant is hardy to the teens, you don't have to worry about covering it up if you live in the Phoenix area. If it's hardy to the 40s, you will definitely want to cover it. This is how you do it: • Get some old sheets, or go buy some frost cloth at H...