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The Tropical Grower welcomes you to the online version of Our Garden. Check out our What’s Bloomn’ slideshow featuring last week’s flowers, cruz the latest topics at the Blog Page for information, enjoy the Photos, or just check out what’s happening this week in Garden Dirt. While we are Growing Tropical, growing is for everyone, and we’re here to share the green.

Garden Dirt

August 10, 2026

It’s Done. Finally.

In August of last year, our 1980s full-size satellite dish we repurposed into a gazebo covered in Dragon Fruit Cactus, collapsed.  It’d been at least 20 years.  It probably lasted much longer than we had a right to expect.  LOL.  In our defense, it was super sturdy and would have lasted another 20 if the center post hadn’t rusted below the ground.  Apparently there was a hole, and it may or may not have held some water.  LOL!  I joke, but sadly, we lost a major blooming space.  Dang.  We love Dragon Fruit Cactus Blooms.

It also meant removing all the Cactus, and there was a ton of it.  As we were going, we noticed some snails.  Dang.  Then, some scale.  And, finally, a fungus.  Not just on the stuff we had to remove.  Dragon Fruit Cactus grows in long sections.  It was connected to the Cage Match and all along the fence.  Then, it spread to other parts of Our Garden.  Both the other fences with Cactus, some of the plants.  We did have a hard freeze and things have been recovering.  Not a good time to expose the planties to anything.

The Fight

Of course, the other plants were the priority.  They are fine.  We removed leaves, cut back anything infected.  It all stayed mostly with the Dragon Fruit Cactus.  And, we started work, a year ago, removing everything infected, along with the regular trim, and the collapse.  Now, I will mention, some stuff got reinfected and removed.  But, as of this weekend.  It’s all trimmed back.  We’ll hit it with some organic fungicide, 1st cloudy day, but the major removal is complete.  And it’s oh, so, bitter sweet.  I dislike seeing the removed sections, but I also dislike it being sick.  Can’t it all just be recovered already.  LOL!

The Cactus sections are heavy, and there was so much.  So, instead of trying to remove everything, which I would normally highly recommend as it was sick, we’re composting it into the yard.  Not the beds or regular compost.  We do not want to potentially spread anything.  We’ve chopped the sections, allowed them to die in the summer sun, sprayed and treated everything.  It’s still a risk.  But, piling it until we could remove it also posed a threat of spread.  So . . . We’ll see.  It’s done.  Woo-Hoo! Check out: How to Grow Dragon Fruit.  

Around Our Garden

While I thought we’d be spending the week planting, we didn’t.  LOL.  We got to working on the Dragon Fruit Cactus, we tried to do a little each week, and saw how close we were to being done.  Motivation.  LOL!  There was at least one weekend morning of powering through.  A year is a long time to work on something.  Did I mention how much I dislike cutting up the Cactus Sections?  It was so sad.  But, it’s done, now.

Most of the rest of the week was spent on maintenance.  With all the rain and our focus on plantings, things get out of hand quickly.  We’re in the tropical growing season and that means weeds and crazy plant growth, including grass.  Since we converted some of the areas with grass to mulch and rock this year, those particularly need to have the weed grass treated.  It doesn’t help that the raccoon keeps digging in all the mulch.  Dirt on the bottom, mulch on the top, to keep weeds down.  No sense in lecturing the raccoon.  They are searching for bugs.

We also got started on our Fall Food Crop, the beds at least.  The Raised Crop Beds were completely weeded and the mats pulled up.  While we’ve been adding compost every year to the plantings, this year we’re going to turn and add new soil to all the beds and pots.  Every 2-3 years it really boosts your crop to basically fill the beds with new, fresh and highly nourishing soil.  Turning helps with soil settling.  We do that every year.    You don’t want tight, compressed and compacted soil for planties roots to fight through.  You want to make it easy for them to grow.  With that, we’re 1 step closer to being fully ready to start our plantings in Sept.  We like that.

Harvest

Also on the ‘Like’ list are all the sprouts in the nursery.  Woo-Hoo!  We love baby sprouts.  We’re well on our way to having starter plants and that much closer to food.  We usually start with the Cabbage and Broccoli.  The bigger they are when they go in the ground the better.  While the seeds sprout almost immediately, the plants take a minute.  Unfortunately, the Red Cabbage and Celery did not sprout.  Dang.  We should have new seeds in a couple of days.  The quicker we figure out which seeds are bad, the better.  We could buy them new every year, but we don’t.  We try the leftovers 1st.  Some plant seeds store better than others, but a cool dark place usually works for at least a year.  

Still in Our Garden, Leeks, Onions, and Tomatoes.  The Leeks and Onions like the long days, hate the daily rains.  We’ve found they like it under the big tree, and they’ve lasted into August.  Woo-Hoo!  There are also 2 Tomato plants.  They are not producing Tomatoes.  Our guess is the rain is washing any pollen from the sparse flowers away before they are being pollinated.  We even tried by hand.  No powdery pollen.  Dang.  We’re going to try to take some cuttings in the hopes of having nice strong starter plants for the Fall.  Tomato plants don’t like to be cut, but we don’t expect them to last the summer.  It’s our best option at this point.

Flowers

The Flaming Torch Bromeliads sent out their 1st round of blooms last week and captured the Feature.  Woo-Hoo!  We have whole beds, and in the sun, they grab the light and look quite flaming.  So much so the camera has a hard time with all the light and color.  LOL.  A lovely problem to have if you’re just enjoying them in the garden.  Up close, dozens of small red/orange flowers with purple and yellow centers.  Amazing.  Luckily, this is just the 1st round.  We usually get 4.  Whole areas filled.  Woo-Hoo!

The Streamside Spider Lilies are still floating through Our Garden like little jellyfish.  Even with all the rain battering them, they just keep throwing out new ones.  The August Zinnias we planted a month or so ago are starting to open their 1st flowers.  These are usually the biggest and strongest ones we get all year.  And, yeah, we drop new seeds all the time.  LOL.  Because we can.  My Great Grandma’s Easter Lilies sent up another stalk.  It got rained on, but so pretty anyway.  And, the butterflies are coming back.  Woo-Hoo!  Enjoy!

Check out What’s Bloomn’ slideshow for more flowers or visit Garden Dirt Diary to catch up on what’s been going on around Our Garden.