Lime tree blooming AGAIN!

Winter in the Bay Area is so wonderful because instead of everything dying, so many plants bloom! The grass gets green and the landscape looks happy and healthy instead of the starkness of colder climes.

 

Are lime trees supposed to bloom in the winter? I thought they liked it HOT! When living in Phoenix AZ, I was told that the heat makes citrus sweet. Gosh I miss my 7 foot tall lime tree there -- it was so prolific and such a beautiful plant. When it bloomed, you can smell it all over the neighborhood. Maybe neighbors have citrus too that that's why the scent waffed through the neighborhood?

 

My Bearss Lime (yeah, its label really has 2 s's) is probably more than 10 years old, counting time with me and at the nursery, but it's still, um, rangy. It doesn't have the dense branches and leaves of my lime tree in Phoenix. Maybe it's a different kind?

 

The daphne has blossoms, even though all the lower leaves have fallen off, and an occasional leaf still turns yellow and falls off. Does that happen when plants are root-bound so cannot get enough nutrition/water to support the lower leaves? Do daphnes have big roots? They don't like their roots disturbed. maybe I can propagate it instead?

 

Salet Rose is rooted!

Two of the Salet classic rose rose cuttings rooted. In the spring, I'll make more cuttings so that by May, I will have several reasonably stable plants. Salet is probably a specie rose from the Roman days so is pretty vigorous. In fact, it's still blooming a bit, in 50-some degree weather.

 

The night blooming jasmine is growing just as advertised -- new leaves, new branches... very satisfying plant. I might plant it outside where the lavender died. Lavenders are reputed to be short-lived, but that one was only 4 years old and I didn't think plants with small leaves like that were susceptible to fungus. Well, I guess I proved that they are -- it's dead as a door nail, half-inch thick branches notwithstanding. Dugging it out will be not fun.

 

My 4 rooted gardenia cuttings and about 10 rose-scented geranium plants seemed determined to take over their tiny piece of my tiny garden. What to do, what to do? Meanwhile, the white ginger isn't blooming. The things I want to do well don't, and I have a surplus of other stuff. Have about 1000 lemons but only 2 limes.

Over-watering!

I was surprised to see the brick path still wet at 3 PM and moss growing near the little bridge -- it's right out in the sun! I thought I re-set the automatic sprinklers back in September to only turn-on on Mondays. Then I saw droplets caught in the nasturtium leaves. This year, autumn in the Bay Area has been unusually dry and warm, so maybe more water is OK.

Of course, I turn off the sprinklers every winter, but it's so seductive to go out there and hand water, just a little, just to be sure, just to reach those little corners, in case a sprinkler head was blocked...

I was surprised to read* that the Bush ranch in Crawford (Texas) diverted gray water, water from the kitchen drains, from showers, the laundry, to irrigate the lawn. They must clean that water to get the salts and detergents out. I wonder whether some tireless MBA majoring in accounting has done a rigourous calculation of the net savings, including the cost to clean the gray water? Maybe it's just for show, even if it costs more than to use 'new' water, the PR value of 'recycling' makes up for it, huh?

As for my house and garden, a luxurious hot bath (with bath salts, or bubble bath, or essential oil, all no-nos for plants) uses maybe 20 gallons? 40? More? My sprinkler system is set for an average of 10 minutes for each of 4 zones, 40 minutes total per session; at the rate of maybe 2 gallons an hour, three times a week at peak usage (Do I have my numbers right?) Actually, some zones are on for 30 minutes while others are only on for only 5 minutes once a week... carefully planned for soil types, plant types (herbs need less water, fruits need more), depth of soaking, time of day... When will home gardening suppliers come out with sprinkler controllers that sense the average temperature and allow Boolean programming?

I'd like to give my sprinkler controller an IP address (and the appropriate mechanics) so I can control it from Singapore. Last year, when I went to Australia for 10 days, a power failure caused the sprinkling system to default to sprinking every day. My garden almost floated away before I got home!

Maybe I 'can afford' to be more profligate with watering the garden, but taking only occasional hot baths? Then there is the cost/benefit analysis to upgrade to a $1,000 water-miser washing machine, and the infrastructure cost to divert and clean that grey water (high detergent concentration) into the garden; would it be enough water, would it need supplementing... How many laundry loads would it take to depreciate?

Being analytical can be a drag.

* Tommy Franks, "American Soldier" (now only $7.99 from Amazon)

Lime is blooming AGAIN!

Actually, everything is blooming again. I thought with colder temperatures, the plants will be going into dormancy. But I see from my Google instant weather that the humidity has been high, around 80%. This was a few days before that little rain shower. That's even higher and calmer than in Lahaina, Hawaii, my favorite dive spot.

The lime was doing just great this spring -- loaded with flowers, then they all fell off. I have exactly one lime on the whole tree. But there's a small flush of bloom now, about 20 blossoms. Maybe I'll get some limes afterall? The lemons are ready though, huge clusters of them. My lemon is on a grafted tree with a grapefruit. I used EB Stone Organics for citrus this year and that seemed to kick the grapefruit to finally growing taller than the day I put the tree in, 7 years ago. Don't see any grapefruit on it, though.

The Asian eggplants are still blooming like crazy, but not forming fruit like they were this summer. Do they 'winter over' or should I pull them out and plant new ones next year? The French lavender is a gonner, nary a green leaf on it, as is the tarragon. I'll yank them out and put the citronella and rosa pelargonium(s) (true scented geranium) and echenacea in the lavender's spot. Hope they don't drown.

Moved the plumeria and passionfruit into the greenhouse.

The camellia are doing GREAT! I'll post some pictures assuming tomorrow is bright. Even the Peace Rose that nearly gave up the ghost to black spot put out one really big beautiful bloom. So they should all be OK next year! Phew!

Flower Fragrance, Memories and Their Emotions

The fragrance of Night Blooming Jasmine really 'takes me back' to Asia. Marcel Proust said smells bring back complete memories, including their emotional content, so we experience them as if we were re-living the event. I used to think Proust was exactly as satirized by Monty Python, self-consciously overly romantic and intellectual. I can never get through any of his books.


But the scent of Night Blooming Jasmine really brings back the nights my siblings and I sat on the balcony in Hong Kong, telling each other stories (and feeding the mozzies!).


I'm glad it's a tough plant that can take care of itself. For that same reason, I have cats for pets. They need food and water, but that's it. They never get out of shape so they don't need to be walked. They don't care what you think so you don't have to be attentive. And they're small enough that you can overpower them if you have to. :)


The neurologists now say that Proust was right about the close association of smells and memories because the smell sensors are right next to the primitive brain where emotional memories are stored, so we do associate smells with emotions.


Here in Western culture, consumer marketers think smells like cinnamon and pine are nostalgic. For us Asians, probably insense and hot garlic oil work better!

Night Blooming Jasmine is Blooming!

Whoopie! My sister sent me a 4 inch high, two twig Night Blooming Jasmine plant. It looked healthy but I babied it anyway. Re-potted it into lovely SuperSoil and added more perlite as well as vermiculite, added an earthworm. Dunno how well the worm likes living in a pot, but even if it dies, it'll still enrich the soil. Put a clear plastic bag upside-down over the plant that's held upright with a chopstick stuck into the side of the pot. The bottom of the bag is open for ventilation. I put the plant on a warm windowsill that gets only morning sun.

In a week, it bloomed! Really powerful fragrance coming out of the bottom of the plastic bag -- filled the whole kitchen! What a fragrance! Marcel Proust was right, the smell brought me right back to my childhood in the tropics of Asia with all those old emotions unchanged.

Now I've removed the bag and placed the whole plant in it so that the top is open to let more of the fragrance out, but the sides are right up to the top so the interior environment should still be very humid.

It really does only bloom at night. In the day time, the flowers are closed.

Developing this blog

Just added a site meter, to see if anyone other than I am reading this thing.

Amazing that so many bloggers blog even when there's no audience! I might be among those ranks and don't even know it.

So I hope the site meter will tell me how much I should keep trying to keep this blog going. Many people blog to vent their spleen or some other self fulfillment thing, but I do it to share gardening info. You silent team members, I hope you read this!

Emailed In

Even though there are several people who are set-up to post to this blog, none of them has. Why?

There's a way to send an email to Blogger.com and the content of that email will be posted. It's conceivably more convenient than opening the Blogger content tool. Those of you, Dear Readers, who would like to add posts to this blog, but have not signed up, please do leave a comment to this post to let me know that you'd like to contribute.

To Gravel or Not to Gravel, that's the question

Mulching is another mystery to me. When I first started gardening, I put down loads of bark mulch because I heard that it helps to retain moisture, makes your beds look neat, leeches beneficial elements into the soil, and I've seen it on commercial flower beds. Then I read that citrus should not be mulched because the bark might rot.

A friend gave me LOTS (I mean a pickup truck bed-full) of red lava pea-sized gravel. Wouldn't it look nice at the base of roses, and keep the roots warm? What a mistake. My Eglantyne, described by David Austin as one of his most satisfyingly robust cultivars, nearly died. But the Gardenia Veitchii right next to it, started to bloom right away and kept blooming, for two years so far. Was it the gravel, or sheer chance? Should I use the gravel elsewhere, around other tropical plants such as gingers and passionflower? Will it kill the volunteers that spring up around the hedges? What other plants like to have warm roots?

Fertilizers

One nurseryman I asked told me that all fertilizers are the same, except for their percentage of Nitrogen, Potassium and Potash. And of course other trace elements such as iron. Remembering my college chemistry, it made sense.

I started out using Miracle-Gro which I believe was 10-10-10. Dissolve in water, spray onto leaves, every two weeks. That was tedious, and I didn't see much difference before and after feeding. Then I just sprinkled the granules around my plants -- still no difference.

Moved on to liquid boosters. No effect at all. Tried Peter's 12-55-6. That seemed to have some effect, but mixing and spraying was still tedious.

An experienced and successful gardening friend recommended fish meal. Yuck, the very idea, the smell...

Then I went to El Real Nursery in Santa Clara. I think they survived on landscape design and installation. The Daphne I bought there only had leaves near the crown and had moss on its soil! But Daphnes are special so I bought it anyway ($32 for a 2 gallon plant). Then I noticed that their in-ground lemon tree was absolutely busting with fruit, as are their other in-ground plants. So I asked what they used. They recommended E.B. Stone Organics Ultra Bloom. The formulation is, surprisingly, 0-10-10 -- nothing for leaves, a little for flowers and a little for roots. Their citrus food was really low in all three ingredients (already threw out the box so can't report that mix exactly). The granules should be sprinkled on the soil every 3 months, not much work at all. Wow, was I impressed with the results! My lemon tree is busting with fruits (hum, why is the lime tree not doing as well? It got fertilized too). So until I stumble upon something better, I'm a convert. Not all fertilizers are the same.

This Spring's Killer Black Spot

Boy, wasn't this wet cool Spring a killer for black spot? My entire garden was affected; some of my roses, including the defiantly robust Eglantyne still has not fully recovered. Spindly branches with tiny flowers, no leaves on the lower branches... Even my Lavandura Intermedia was affected maybe not by blackspot but by something that isn't good. All its inner, lower leaves turrned yellow, then black. It might still die! Should I prune drastically? I did that to my kumquat and it died anyway! Oh don't get me started on my anxieties about my citrus plants!

Oh yeah, I did the neem oil spray, the Ultrafine oil spray, removing all the affected leaves, even considered something recommended by Yamagami Nursery for $20... eventually used a very dilute chlorine spray. Maybe it was purely fortuitous timing or the chlorine worked, but the black spot seems to be finally defeated. Bleached my gardenia (which lives next to the Eglantyne) but it got over it in a week, thank goodness.

How guilty do I feel to read (now) that black spot doesn't blow in the wind, but the spores were already on the plant since the previous season? I thought f'sure that spraying it frequently should 'wash' it, but now I find that it is distributed by water spray! Duh!

Better start studying up on how to help my roses recover.

Spamless group blog

Hi Former members of Bay Area Gardening on Yahoo Groups,

This is a blog -- that's web slang for web log. Click on the word, it's linked to a definition of 'blog.' They're all the rage now, you know?

I've set it up so that it is a group blog -- that means several people can create posts and the general online public can see the posts and can add their comments. If spammers add comments about irrelevant commercial services, we can delete them. We can restrict comments to members only, or turn off all comments -- no one can make comments. We can, if we want to, add AdSense which will place context-relevant adds on the blog's page. Those ads would be driven by Google. I have found relevant ads to be more useful than annoying. But for now, let's keep it a 'bare' blog.

The advantage of a blog over Yahoo Groups' email list is you have more choices. You can have the system notify you when a new post is made, or you can check at the blog site when you feel like it to see what's new. You can make comments that will be presented with the post so no long, long, repetitous email threads. The disadvantage is (as far as I know) no tools like archiving files, or the ability to conduct simple polls... but we didn't use those tools anyway when we were on Yahoo Groups.

Some more advantages: we can add pictures! We can have color! Alternative fonts! Active links! We can create a blog roll (a directory) so readers can check out other blogs that we recommend. We can have a larger audience.

Team Members:

Go to Blogger (click on the word "Blogger") to get how-to instructions if you need them. Or if you've received an email with the address to send your post to, you can start blogging now!