Tomatoes, Kumquat, Bargain Basement Peace Rose

It's been a week of hot days, high 80s. The tomatoes obviously like it because they're turning red. Would they turn red anyway, simply as a function of time, regardless of the temperature? I heard that citrus definitely need heat to ripen. The two tomatoes are different types with different times to mature, but they seem to be getting red at the same rate. Maybe one gets deep, deep red over a longer period and the other one is ripe when more pink? Here are two pictures.

I missed the peak flush of the Nagami kumquat, but you can see that there were quite a few blossoms. I forgot to sniff them -- citrus fragrance is wonderful. I hope many of the blossoms form fruit. This plant didn't make any fruit last year. The Bearss Lime tree seems to be still recovering from the root pruning I gave it 2 years ago. This Spring, it flowered and formed a few tiny fruit buds but they fell off.

Other developments in my garden is the Peace hybrid rose is recovering well from near-death. Surprising that it did not tolerate full sun. It has been in bright shade for at least 2 months and is leafing out again. It was one of the very cheap bare-root plants that was on final sale at the hardware store for $3. I thought that it was not bred to be a bargain basement plant so should have as good genes as its expensive cousins; therefore, after a few seasons in a good environment, it should be fine. It seems that I was wrong.

It's naive of me to believe that plants would have less variability within a given specie than in animals. Derivatively, I thought that nurserymen might sort their plants for sale, like transistors are sorted, or like California olives, into "Ultimate," "Superior" and "Fine." But among plants for sale, there is no such grading system displayed; only the reputation of the nursery, or the breeder, like Graham Thomas would be a mark of quality for a rose.

Unusually Cool Summer

Global Warming, huh? We've had two really hot days so far, the rest of the time only high 70s. The plants don't know what to do.

In early May, I planted two tomato plants, taking it seriously this time. Dug a foot deep trench, added more than 25% soil amendment, got premium 4" plants from Yamagami's. I even buried a soaker hose, put on bark mulch and fancy tomato cages. The good part of these expensive cages is the supporting bars clip on so I repositioned them as the tomatoes grew, to support the heavy fruits. Worth the money.

I pointed the sprinkler heads away so that I can water them less frequently but deeply, and not water spot the leaves. I turned on the soaker hose, just a trickle, for an hour or so once a week. Last week, I forgot to turn the tap off so it was on for more than 6 hours! Then I read that soaker hoses emit a gallon per minute per foot. Seems too high a rate, but in any case, that deep watering should ding my water bill.

The big 'muscular' tomatoes are supposed to take 60 days to ripen. See? They're multi-lobed rather than spherical. The fancy 'French chef favorite' ones are supposed to take 70 days. It's been, oh, 65 days. Maybe they'll turn red in the next 5 days? Too much water and no warm weather means even when they turn red, they might not be very sweet.

Here's a picture of the French Chef's Favorite

(not their real name). Smaller fruit, smaller leaves, fewer fruit per branch, shorter plant, and not as red when ripe.

Well, I gotta say, growing big tomatoes is more rewarding than growing cherry tomatoes. All those years of growing various varieties of cherries only end up feeding the bugs. These tomatoes are high enough up, I guess, to keep them bug-free, so far.

Other garden notes: My Nagami Kumquat was looking sad: yellow and no blossoms. I thought it was root bound so finally bit the bullet and put it into the ground. Highly amended soil in a wide but not so deep hole: planted 2-3 inches above soil level; landscape cloth to control soil erosion and bark mulch. Two weeks go by, no reaction at all; leaves still yellow. But today, presto, lots of little flower buds. maybe I'll get some kumquats after all? Will post a photo when the flowers bloom.

Homesick

I miss my garden back in San Mateo. Due to its sometimes unmanageable size, I do not always miss gardening, but I do miss the garden itself. I started a little container garden here in Metz on my windowsill, primarily because I like to cook with fresh herbs, but I finally bought a little chrysanthemum last week, because the sill needed a little brightening!

Even in small towns in France, living is relatively compact. Single family homes are not as common, and buildings tend to have little to no greenspace around them. It is no wonder that it is so common to see plants on display on windowsills! I know that even though my little collection began for practical purposes, I do appreciate the small connection it gives me to something more, for lack of a better word, organic, than the concrete that surrounds me. I suspect it does that for many others, as well.

Also common in France are heavy-duty light-blocking shutters, which seem to be unique to this country. I have a roll-down version on my window, and at night, I lower it to the tops of my plants, so I can still see them, but it blocks the view of the driveway. In the morning, my plants are the first thing I see when I look out my window.

A Luridly Scented Garden

Last week, we had three days of 90-some degrees. That seems to have signaled the flowers to pop out. They're all out now, blooming aggressively even though the temperatures went back to 50s and 60s. The scent from so many different blooms wafts around outside.

The earliest to bloom was the pink jasmine (Jasminium polyanthum). I finally got it to wrap around the 10-foot tall Salet rose. The effect isn't very obvious yet, but lovely. The Daphne Marginata was just fabulous -- such a wonderful plant! My single hyacinthe bloomed faithfully but after it faded, I forgot its location and stupidly dug up what I thought was an unusually stubborn clump of defiantly gripping crab grass.

The biggest contributor to the scent right now is the Wisteria. I have a love-hate relationship with that plant. It's beautiful, has a lovely scent, is prolific and carefree, and has an Asian heritage, like me, but it's so vigorous that it's strangling the two trees on either side of it. I should have pruned it way back last winter.

The second biggest scent contributor isn't blooming yet -- the Star Jasmine. It's a huge, vigorous plant that many people use for ground cover. I hate using the hedge trimmer on it because it oozes a white sticky milk when it's cut.

I'm surprised the various blooming citrus isn't pumping out fragrance. Lemon, grapefruit, lime, kumquat. Maybe their scent is being overpowered by the other flowers?

A really great, natural nummingbird feeder is honeysuckle (Lonicera). It can be invasive so make sure it's contained and well trimmed.

The classic and English roses are blending their various scents. The Salet with its musky scent is one of the most satisfying roses to have in the garden. The Eglantyne is very, very sweet. The musk rose is just getting started. The Baronne de Prevost is putting out 4" blooms and grew a foot in height last month! The Graham Thomas smells citus-y. My beloved pampered pet, Evelyn, doesn't even have buds yet but has a sucker. The two-tone Peace hybrid has the typical tea rose scent and is blooming very well. The pure Peace, I think should be removed -- it has some kind of fungal infestation. I'll put tuberose corms in that pot.

I'm anxious for the gardenia to bloom -- it should smell great. It seems to be late this year. Thank goodness the Kahili ginger is way in the furthest corner by itself. I don't like its scent although its sheer size is impressive. I would love the scent of the butterfly ginger (Hedychium Coronaria), but it has never bloomed for me, despite lavish applications of fertilizer, compost, manure.

When it stays warm, the French and English lavender and two types of rosemary will dominate the garden's scent. The Stephanotis did well last summer, but was not the powerful scent that I was hoping for. Maybe it likes real tropical temperatures, consistently high 80s and low 90s?

The scented geraniums (real pelagonium, Rose of Attar and Citronella) are blooming but they don't put out scent -- you have to crush the leaves to release the oil. Ditto for the spearmint.

Yard Cleanup

This isn't going to be one of those 'happy happy' posts about everything blooming. It's about yard work.

It's so satisfying to cut off big, big, I mean BIG branches, and pull up 3 foot high weeds. Who knew that all those English roses that I didn't prune in January are actually climbers? Took a deep breath and cut a 5-foot long, half inch diameter cane from the Eglantyne rose (pink flower in the picture, very vigorous and fragrant!). That leaves another 6 feet of that cane. The Salet (dark red rose in picture) is being interwined by pink jasmine (jasminum polyanthum) which was what I wanted, but the star jasmine in front has grabbed branches and is throttling them! It took some patience to cut the rose free.

Then there are the mistakes from my ignorant gardener days. I didn't know that the Japanese Anemone Queen Charlotte is invasive! In addition to springing up everywhere, the spent blooms dry on long, ugly brown stalks and must be pulled out by hand. Maybe defoliant will eradicate it without hurting the tender air roots of the camellia that it's near? Speaking of invasive, I sneered at the asparagus fern ibeing sold for money. How do I get rid of the ones progressing across my yard? They have their own underground nutrition nodes so they're hard to kill.

Alas, there's that oramental tree in the center of the yard whose roots sprout branches. It has infiltrated a hedge (hard to saw off saplings that are inside the hedge), lifted a stepping stone on the main path, and appears among the ground cover. Is it possible that one small tree can propagate a whole forest of itself?