JoChris
Superstar
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2017
- Messages
- 6,168
This is in response to Polymoog's entry in random thoughts section:
We have lived at this home for nearly 7 years. The garden up the back was an absolute dump so we had to clear it out, pull out vines, old trees stumps and have kept the two bottlebrush trees as part of the hedge. They are getting taller now they have more sun. (A massive palm tree was in the wrong spot for a hedge). They should flower much better now.
I have the best support for dragonfruits - a spiky leaved tree -yucca plant. We pruned the leaves for tidiness' sake.
The dragonfruit vine grows up to where the spikes are, bends over and now all around the same tree we have it looking like this, but much higher up than this farmer's. (minus fruit of course, it is technically winter here).
The flowers are beautiful and only open at night. It has a very strong perfume. We blow into it to pollinate them.
I was given a fair few dragonfruit vines by my son's friend's mother. So far they have all been the red ones. For such a beetroot red colour you would expect a strong flavour but they are like diluted Watermelon with kiwifruit seeds. They are very nice when super-cold straight from the fridge though.
My jaboticaba trees must have been earlier fruiting variety - I had a few already this year! The fruit tastes like a mixture of grape and lychee nut. Time will tell if they ever get like this tree - I have hopes that the one which gets the run-off from the water tank gets fruit like this photo. It has so much growth in the past few weeks.
You are right about the strawberry guava tree and its fruit flies. I have to keep an eye out for them. It is a losing battle between my insect spray and them. It is a shame the grumichama tree will get them too.
The plumcot tree has only had a few flowers, no fruit.
We put a tangelo tree recently because we had to pull out the black sapote tree which had got much too big for the hedge and was blocking the sun to the pomegranate tree.
I am still waiting for macadamia flowers from my macadamia nut tree. We have had that almost 7 years. I think it had delayed development because we moved it several times in the garden after flooding. I also planted it much deeper because we had such bad ant problems in the soil from rotting wood.
The passionfruit vines are getting better now the sun is coming back. The more sour, larger yellow ones do much better than the sweet purple ones.
Every vegetable we have tried has failed, either excess sun, too much rain at a time or insects.
So for a 600 m block I think we have done pretty well. The 2 story house was built so it is much wider than long so the backyard itself is way larger than the average house. Limited space down the sides so the south side especially gets dark and damp. We had a garden path built there because it stays damp for so long.
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So any other green thumbs? I suppose a lot of you have way more temperate climates so you could grow roses, stone fruit and have gardens that look very different at different times of the year.
If I had an acre+ I definitely would have liked all the trees you have suggested. Any reader in a tropical/ subtropical should try your suggestions for sure - are you professionally involved in gardening? If not it sounds like you should be!
We have lived at this home for nearly 7 years. The garden up the back was an absolute dump so we had to clear it out, pull out vines, old trees stumps and have kept the two bottlebrush trees as part of the hedge. They are getting taller now they have more sun. (A massive palm tree was in the wrong spot for a hedge). They should flower much better now.
I have the best support for dragonfruits - a spiky leaved tree -yucca plant. We pruned the leaves for tidiness' sake.
The dragonfruit vine grows up to where the spikes are, bends over and now all around the same tree we have it looking like this, but much higher up than this farmer's. (minus fruit of course, it is technically winter here).
The flowers are beautiful and only open at night. It has a very strong perfume. We blow into it to pollinate them.
I was given a fair few dragonfruit vines by my son's friend's mother. So far they have all been the red ones. For such a beetroot red colour you would expect a strong flavour but they are like diluted Watermelon with kiwifruit seeds. They are very nice when super-cold straight from the fridge though.
My jaboticaba trees must have been earlier fruiting variety - I had a few already this year! The fruit tastes like a mixture of grape and lychee nut. Time will tell if they ever get like this tree - I have hopes that the one which gets the run-off from the water tank gets fruit like this photo. It has so much growth in the past few weeks.
You are right about the strawberry guava tree and its fruit flies. I have to keep an eye out for them. It is a losing battle between my insect spray and them. It is a shame the grumichama tree will get them too.
The plumcot tree has only had a few flowers, no fruit.
We put a tangelo tree recently because we had to pull out the black sapote tree which had got much too big for the hedge and was blocking the sun to the pomegranate tree.
I am still waiting for macadamia flowers from my macadamia nut tree. We have had that almost 7 years. I think it had delayed development because we moved it several times in the garden after flooding. I also planted it much deeper because we had such bad ant problems in the soil from rotting wood.
The passionfruit vines are getting better now the sun is coming back. The more sour, larger yellow ones do much better than the sweet purple ones.
Every vegetable we have tried has failed, either excess sun, too much rain at a time or insects.
So for a 600 m block I think we have done pretty well. The 2 story house was built so it is much wider than long so the backyard itself is way larger than the average house. Limited space down the sides so the south side especially gets dark and damp. We had a garden path built there because it stays damp for so long.
-----
So any other green thumbs? I suppose a lot of you have way more temperate climates so you could grow roses, stone fruit and have gardens that look very different at different times of the year.
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