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.