Here is Part 2 of the tour of the back garden in January.
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| Strawberry Plant |
The strawberry plant has been repotted and has a flower or two. I'm looking forward to more strawberries this spring.
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| Curry Leaf Tree 1 |
The curry leaf tree growing near the patio area is doing well after having one or two branches pruned off. Meanwhile, the curry leaf tree growing behind the garage has been pruned down quite a bit:
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| Curry Leaf Tree 2 |
Once it starts to leaf out, again, we will cut back all the suckers that are growing around it. I use curry leaves in my cooking and they are supposed to have many beneficial health effects, but, I only use a handful of the leaves at a time.
A few feet down the wall from the first curry leaf tree, the Star Jasmine plant is still growing up the homemade trellis:
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| Star Jasmine Plan |
There is half a tree stump in front of it and some pieces of cardboard around it to try and keep the weeds down. But, there's a type of asparagus fern growing around it, too, and no doubt it will cover the cardboard in a few months.
In front of the star jasmine vine, is the bottle brush tree which was pruned back, last year:
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| Bottle Brush Tree |
No flowers, yet, but, I think it will flower later, this year.
Nearby, we have the orange tree:
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| Orange Tree |
And sharing the same planting bed as the orange tree, the volunteer plant that M thinks is a Carob plant:
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| Volunteer Carob Plant |
I had suggested transplanting it or potting it up to M (carob trees tend to grow big and I'm not sure if I want a huge tree in the back yard), but, so far, that has not happened.
Just behind the orange tree, we have the avocado tree, looking a bit lop-sided because we pruned off all the dead branches on one side!
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| Avocado Tree |
No signs of it flowering, much less bearing fruit, but, that's OK with me. It's something I grew from a seed and I will simply consider it as an ornamental plant.
Barely visible to the viewer's right, behind the avocado tree, is the old rosemary bush:
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| The Old Rosemary Bush |
She with the tangled stems:
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| Rosemary Stems |
The plant is over 30 years old, grown from a cutting my mother received from a friend with the same name as the plant! We probably should have pruned it back, a long time ago, but, now, I love how the stems look and I don't want to cut it back. The two upright poles you see are the trunks of the bauhinia tree (and its daughter plant) my mother grew from seeds given to her by her younger brother, from his garden. I have grown a seedling from these two plants and it's growing in another part of the back garden (behind the shed; I didn't take a picture of it). The rosemary bush has woven its stems around the two bauhinia trees.
Across from the rosemary bush, past an empty planting circle and the dormant nectarine tree (its twigs visible in the foreground), the calamondin tree has been pruned back quite a bit:
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| Calamondin Tree |
The calamondin tree was already well established when I bought the house, so, I'm assuming it is at least 40 years old.
On the other side of the calamondin tree, we have one of the two loquat plants, grown from seeds, which were given to me by neighbor S (from her aunt's garden). This one seems to be doing better than the other one which we planted near the nectarine tree. They do grow to be big trees, but, I will keep them pruned if necessary (my previous loquat tree died before it became very big).
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| Loquat Plant |
The big tree in the distance, beyond the wall, is a neighbor's avocado tree.
This is the plumbago/lantana hedge along the side wall. It started out as two lantana plants and a plumbago plant; the plumbago seems to have taken over! I had M prune it back at the end of last year and it is starting to leaf out.
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| The Plumbago/Lantana Hedge |
I'd mentioned before that a papaya seedling was growing in one of the blueberry planters. M removed it from the blueberry planter on Friday and we planted it where the fuyu persimmon tree used to be, in front of the plumbago/lantana hedge:
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| Newly Transplanted Papaya Seedling |
I hope it will grow well in its new spot and produce some papayas, one day.
We are now planting some succulents in the back, behind the garage, near the garden shed:
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| Succulents by the Shed |
On the side of the garage, the lemon trees are full of lemons; here's just one of them:
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| Lemons |
And nearby, the baby lemon tree (a sucker plant from the above lemon tree that I am allowing to grow):
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| Baby Lemon Tree |
Here's how it looked last year:
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| Baby Lemon Tree in January 2024 |
Nearby, we have the moringa tree; the recent winds blew away all the leaves, but there are flowers that the hummingbirds enjoy and pods that I am allowing to mature to collect seeds from them:
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| Moringa Tree |
At the base of the moringa tree, I have the volunteer Berkeley Tie Dye tomato plant, that is bearing fruit and has flowers:
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| Volunteer Berkeley Tie Dye Tomato Plant |
M is amazed that I am able to grow a tomato plant in the winter, but, I've picked a couple of tomatoes from it, already, and there are at least two more that are forming:
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| Green Tomatoes |
That concludes the January tour of the back yard. I hope you enjoyed the tour.
Just in case you are interested, here is how the back yard looked last year, in
January 2024, when we had a wet winter.
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