Two Years Gone By
We moved to this home exactly two years in May 2014. I must say we’ve put in a lot of work both inside and outside the house. As retirees, we both love it. I spent lots of sleepless night (there are still occasionally) planning projects after projects for the inside and what to plant and where to plant outside. In the garden, we plan and plant as we go along, it just really depends on each day and the plant of the day. There is no general master plan. Except for a guava tree which I think we should have planted a few feet to the right, our plants are pretty much happy where they are and so am I.
This is the backyard photo of the house from 2012 when we first moved in.
This is how our backyard looked in May 2012. Since it is a new contraction, the builder only had the front landscaped.
With lots of inspirations from garden blogs and magazines and gardening books, numerous trips to garden centers and nurseries, lots of digging and bags and bags of garden soil and manures and fertilizers, this is how the backyard looks now. The middle section is the vegetable patch, so the look changes depending on what’s growing.
We had also constructed a pergola where I am now growing a white bougainvillea, rangoon creeper and Hawaiian stephanotis to go over it. I hope by next year, the pergola will be covered with the vines.
We put in a turf to protect the orchids and other sensitive plants from the hot sun here in South Florida.
2012: On the South side of the house, we planted jackfruit, pomegranate, sugar apple and sour sap.
2014: The trees have grown at least 3 times the original size.
Jackfruit is now about 7 feet tall.
The pomegranate died back due to excess water from a 2012 typhoon, but it still grew to a good size.
The sour sap does not show any sign of fruiting but it has grown twice its original size.
The sugar apple gave us 4 fruits last year and have several fruits now. They should be ready by Fall
Young fruit of the sugar apple.
On the North side of the house, we planted a guava tree.
Thai White Guava
I trained the trunks of the guava tree into an espalier-form to force the growth perpendicular to the wall so that the limbs do not grow beyond the property line into the neighbor’s. This tree has fruited continuously since the first season. I wrapped the fruits in Ziploc bags to keep the birds from pecking and eating them.
Guava fruits from the tree.
With the beautiful pink inside of the That
Towards the back of the property, we planted two varieties mango trees, Tommy Atkins and Valencia; two banana plants, and an avocado tree. We also have a lychee tree, a Jujube tree. We planted a key lime and Meyer lemon in huge pots.
Tommy Atkins Mango.
Mango blooms early this year.
Out of the many flowers which produced numerous baby mangoes, these are the only survivors of the strong wind we had in early Spring.
Beautiful blush on the Tommy Atkins mango.
The banana blossom when it first appeared.
Bunch of bananas appear one layer at a time.
Full grown banana we harvested late last year after a year and a half of planting baby banana plant
Meyer Lemon
Key Lime
Calamundin
Meyer lemon fruits.
A lot had happened in the garden in the last two years. We not only have fruit trees, we have vegetables, herbs and lots of flowering plants and they all happily mingle together into an edible landscape as I learn gardening in South Florida.
I intend to vanish most of the lawn around the property so I will be gardening for a very long time.
Florida Home Garden: Fruit Trees
June 2012.
We have a long list of tropical fruit trees that we want to plant and it will be a challenge to plant them all considering that the entire property is only .22 acre.
- Backyard with a mahogany tree when we bought the house. I decided to use it as trellis for the passion fruit.
These are what we have so far.
- Meyer Lemon. It is planted by the front entrance as an accent plant.
- Sugar Apple
- Sour Sap
- Pomegranate
- Jackfruit
- Side of the house showing the planted jack fruit, pomegranate, sugar apple and sour sap.
The sugar apple and the sour sap are planted close to the wall and will be trained into informal espalier. On the other side, planted in similar fashion are two White Thai guava trees which will also be grown in espalier style.
- Thai White Guava
- Passion Fruit trained to climb up the mahogany tree.
- Mango(Tommy Atkins)
- Mango (Valencia Pride)
South Florida area is currently suffering from an infestation of white flies. As a precaution and to control them, we applied the recommended treatment around each plant. I am learning that here in Florida because of the warm weather, we have to be watchful of the insects attacking the plants. As soon as we planted the Kaffir lime on the ground, the leaf folders attacked it and the moth immediately partied on my sugar apple leaves. I went to a local garden center and asked how to treat. Bayer Advanced Tree Insect Control. We are also experiencing the rains and winds of our first tropical storm (Isaac). We are quite relieved that it diverted its course. So far my plants are all coping.
In New York, my constant garden enemies were rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks. I love Theodore but chipmunks are real pesky. They haven’t visited us yet and hope that they don’t.
Florida Home Garden: Flowering Trees
June 2012
In the first 30 years of my life, the closest thing I did to gardening, was watched my Grandmother tended her plants.
I never tended a garden until we had our own house in New York. But if having a ‘green thumb’ is hereditary, then I must have inherited it from my Grandmother. I had a healthy collection of plants thriving in the garden as well as inside the house. For a long time, I grew orchids under the lights until I became too busy both at home and at work to take care of them. Whatever plant I stick to the dirt, pretty much live. In my kitchen bay window in New York, there was something rooting in water at all times, like an avocado pit, a chayote, a pineapple top, sweet potato or cuttings from plants. I like to see plants grow and flower inside the house especially when it was cold and freezing and white outside. It’s my victory over winter.
Tropical gardening is new to me. I am taking baby steps in learning how to garden here in Florida. I just learned that unlike in the Northeast, spring and summer are not the right seasons to grow vegetables here. Summer is too hot and humid. Farmers and backyard gardeners grow vegetables during the winter, when the temperature hovers around 80 degrees, which is pretty much the summer temperature in the Northeast. This means I have to adjust my vegetable gardening calendar more or less two seasons over.
One of the reasons that enticed us to move to Florida is the prospect of being able to plant tropical fruit trees and flowering plants. We purchased a new home and it came with the basic builder landscaping. The backyard is nothing but a piece of green lawn. We like to transform it into a tropical garden, the way I would like if I had the chance to garden in the Philippines. I have no gardening advice to share at this time, but hopefully the lessons I learn along the way will help those who happen to be reading my posts. This is also my way of tracking the growth of the flowering plants and fruit trees we planted. We mostly bought grafted fruit plants which are expected to fruit in 1 to 3 years. We shall see!
This is the Michelia Champaca. It belongs to the Magnolia family. It is continuously blooming and emitting the most gorgeous smell in the yard. This is the source of the perfume Joy.
This is an Ylang-Ylang tree. It is still young to have flowers. The Ylang-Ylang is the source of the perfume, Chanel No. 5.
In the Philippines, we string the jasmines which I also grow, and the champaca or the ylang-ylang flowers into a lei.
I am hoping that in no time, these two trees with the jasmines will make our yard smell like a perfumery!
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