Brad's Tropical Paradise

I've designed my garden to guide people to enjoy its beauty. There are places to walk, places to stand, places to sit. I dislike gardens that have hoses running across them all of the time, or junk piled up that people have to walk around. That's just poor design. And the solution for that is to do "behind the scenes" stuff. I'll show you around in places that are meant to remain hidden, but are essential. Let's go to the side yard, where the garbage can is. I go there every day, as does my dog, and there's where I put things that are waiting to be planted, or in some way moved. I also store my dog's pooper scooper there, and a shovel. You can also see a hose that I have that wraps back into the space but I can bring into the edge of the garden and use as needed. Water is critical for a garden, but I just hate to see hoses lying around that people have to step over. The hose is in the side yard, well away from where people walk. I have a couple ...

One of the reasons that so many people fail with their desert garden is that they don't know what's "behind the scenes". That is, the watering system. I try to keep mine as hidden and discreet as possible, and it isn't because I'm secretive, it's just that it looks better that way, and is more efficient. I have a low-pressure system that waters the roots of my plants through tiny sprayer heads. I started with a "drip system", which had "spaghetti tubing" but that tubing would always get clogged up, so I changed over to little plastic sprayer heads, which I put on small plastic risers. I just installed two of them a few minutes ago, and it looks like I'm not a minute too soon - the oleanders were suffering in the awful heat! Close-up of the sprayer heads I use the adjustable sprayers, which I get at Home Depot, which allows me to control the distance of the spray. Even though it's a low-pressure system, it's still...