Assorted Fruiting Trees - 2016

 Here are photos from some of our fruiting plants.

Pomegranate flower from March 2016 - unfortunately no fruit developed.

One of our Sunrise limes in May. The tree died off in winter but since spring started, it has re-sprouted and grown very quickly. Hopefully we can have more this season.

Our blueberry bush produced lots of flowers in August/September but unfortunately they all dried out and no fruit seems to have developed. Possibly a few days which were just too hot.

Calamondin (kalamansi lime) tree blooming in October. The fruit are forming now - this is a green skinned lime with orangey-yellow flesh that is great in cooking or juicing to add to water for a refreshing drink.
 

We also picked up a Valencia orange tree in September. Here are the blooms and developing fruit. The first crop of budding fruit actually all dropped off but a second crop have developed so we are still hopeful for some fruit come winter next year.

Just Joey fragrant Rose - Summer 2015/16

This is a very late post from last season. This year's blooms have already started!

The first summer after we moved in, our Just Joey rose was blooming very prolifically. Large apricot blooms with ruffled petals and a very nice scent - almost paeoniform.

As you can see, there's quite a bit of yellow to the flowers. However, this seems to change, maybe depending on the weather.

However the blooms are so large that they tend to droop under their own weight and do best (and last longer) if you stake each bloom.

This one again, is a slightly different shade - much more yellow.

Here is more of the colour that we have seen since then. More orangey-apricot with only a bit of yellow towards the centre.

The roses bloom so much better after we started staking each head. Very very large creamy orange blooms which open extremely full after 3-4 days and last at least a week.

These are all photos from last summer (2015/2016) - I will put up some photos from this season soon. We are getting more of the same - very large creamy orange perfumed blooms. Just Joey has been our most prolific and rewarding roses and we are enjoying having it in our garden very much.

Succulents Winter/Spring 2016

We have expanded into succulents very recently.

We purchased this beautiful arrangement from a local seller, which gave us a nice variety to start off with. Some were even in bloom and had pups.

These jellybean sedums are my favourite. This one is Sedum Rubrotinctum - red jellybean. The red colour is a stress response so don't treat them too well and you will get a lovely colour.

We also purchased some loose rooted and unrooted cuttings which we roughly arranged into a few pots. Here, there's an assortment of donkeytail sedum, sedum gold mound, sedum rubrotinctum aurora (pink jellybean), Haworthia attenuata (?) and firesticks.

Here is a close up of some of them. It's nice to have a variety of shapes and colours to play with.

After potting, there were lots of fallen loose leaves, so we've just stuck them in a pot to hopefully develop into baby succulents.

Vireya Rhododendron Cara Mia

We picked up a Vireya rhododendron for cheap in the first week of August.

This one is a Cara Mia vireya rhododendron.

There were a few buds developing on the plant when we purchased it.

Here is the bloom in late August, a soft yellow shading to pink. This is just after opening. Ever since then, the flowers have opened a bit more fully and have tilted upwards more instead of outwards like here.

Oncidium Twinkle fragrant miniature orchids

Today I have photos showing two varieties of miniature oncidium orchids.

These are Oncidium Twinkles, in a yellow variety and a red one (Red Fantasy). When we purchased them at the end of May, they had plenty of spikes with developing buds.

About 2 weeks later, you can see the buds getting larger (red on left, and yellow on right).

This is at the same time, you can see a visible difference. However, these do take a long time to develop and bloom.

They finally started to bloom around the middle of August. A very interesting looking bloom.

Here is Oncidium Twinkle Red Fantasy, partially blooming and then fully bloomed. The colour also lightens gradually with time.

This is Oncidium Twinkle Yellow, very bright and cheerful miniature flowers.

The two varieties together. Remember, these are miniature orchids - very small! Another thing is, once they are fully bloomed, you can smell a sweet fragrance from these Twinkles. A bit hard to describe, not quite floral, more honey-sweet.

However, these blooms only lasted about 3 weeks which is fairly long but not for orchids. Perhaps they need to settle in more since they were bought in spike. Next year, we hope to get plenty more spikes with lots of long-lasting blooms.