Behind the scenes at the Tropical Paradise

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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 of stray pieces of flagstone that I haven't found a use for yet, and some pots sitting on an old lawn chair that I really do need to set out for loose trash day.

Water sprayer heads.

Of course, the best "behind the scenes" secret is hidden among the plants - the watering system, which is a low pressure system hooked up to a battery-powered timer. It's very low-tech, and very inexpensive, but it's worked here for over twenty years, and I see no need to change anything.

There's a half-inch trunkline for the main watering buried just below ground (no more than an inch in most places) and a second thinner misting line, also shallowly buried. I walk the lines, inspecting them for clogged heads, etc, which I replace right away. I keep plenty of spare misting heads and water sprayers around.

So there you go: behind the scenes. If your garden doesn't naturally have any "behind the scenes" areas, I recommend that you create a space for things like garbage cans, hoses, etc. They're essential to the garden, but they look just terrible.

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