Developing a winter garden in the desert

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It's October 25th here at The Tropical Paradise in Glendale, Arizona (a suburb of Phoenix), and I am noting the changes of shade/sunlight in the garden.

This area, in the Outback, is getting a lot more sun now that the sun is lower in the southern sky. In the summer, this area is wonderfully shady, which helps the plants during the heat of the desert, but in winter, as you can see, it's sunny. And that's a good thing, because it will give me a chance to do a summer garden, with flowers that need a lot of sunlight.

I trimmed the bottom fronds off of the Dioon Spinulosum (the fern-looking plant in the center), and it revealed a lot of new open ground. And looking at this area this morning, I have changed my mind about how well annual flowers would work there. A couple of months ago I wouldn't have considered flowers, as this area was in deep shade. Now I see that it will get a lot of nice winter sun.

Vinca
So, I'm off to Home Depot for more vincas. I've planted them elsewhere in the garden, but really hadn't considered this a good spot, until now.

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