This blog describes the gardening experience for my new garden (started from a dirt lot in 2004) in the Carmel Valley neighorhood of San Diego, California. The garden is about 5 miles from the Pacific Ocean and is under the influence of coastal climiate. The garden is subtropical in nature. The garden has a number of exotic subtropical fruit trees, flowers and vegetables and is influenced by the edible landscape idea.
Ornamental Gingers
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Ornamental Gingers
August and September are the months that ornamental gingers bloom in my garden.What a magnificent sight to see a clump of Hedychiumcoccineum flower.The orange torch-like 1-feet long ginger flower cone has 30-40 buds and they almost bloom at the same time creating a tropical exuberance.They fire up shade area for 1-2 weeks and the flowers are gone, fleeting yet magnificent.Hedychium coronarium, so called butterfly ginger blooms soon afterwards.The large white butter-like flowers are beautiful, but the fragrance is heavenly sweet and spicy, reminiscent of Hawaii. The flower cone is not a long as Hedychiumcoccineum and flowers bloom in sequence prolonging the flowering length. Heduchium “Elizabeth” flowers about one week after butterfly ginger.The hybrid has only a slight fragrance, but the flower has a beautiful salmon pink color and is very attractive.
Heduchium gingers needs lot of water and bright shade.They grow quite well in the clay soil of San Diego.They originated from tropical area and pretty high temperature and humidity, but grow quite well in cool coastal San Diego, too.My Hedychium coronarium was purchased during my visit to Maui.It was about the size of my thumb and now it has a clump of~20 5-feet tall canes.Every 2-3 years I have to dig up the ginger-like root and take out most of root to keep it contained.I used to take these roots to San Diego Horticulture Society’s monthly meeting to exchange with other member.Too bad, the SDHS stopped the plant exchange program this year.Now, the roots goes to the compost pile.What a waste.I read somewhere that the ginger root is also edible, but have not tried it yet.The root looks and smell like the edible ginger you can buy in grocery store.Maybe I have to search the Internet to get the right recipe to use the root.
This is the time the ornamental kale at its peak. I have a few ornamental kale started from a six-pack in the spring of 2005. Now they are about 4 feet tall. The colorful leaves are a kaleidoscope of purple, pink, and green or green yellow and white. They look like huge rose blossoms, but last a lot longer. They are also easy to propagate. Just cut a branch off from the plant and stick it to the ground when it is warm and it will root and grow right away. They also last a long time as cut flowers since they are actually colored leaves. Sometimes, the stem will even sprout roots in the vase. The rooted stem can then be planted in the ground. Ornamental kale is a perennial here in San Diego . It will flower in the early spring. The flowers are actually quite attractive. They are typical Brassia flowers, however, the color is a bright yellow and flower shoot is quite long with numerous 4-petal flowers. I have seen gardens beds with flower ornamental kales that w
Wax jambu revisited I have written on Wax jambu in 2006 (see previous blog) . However, ten years have passed and I feel there is a need for an update as I have learned a lot more about the tree. First at all, flowering of the Wax Jambu is totally unpredictable. It flower sas early in May in some years and as late in September in some years. Last year, it actually bloomed twice (once in early May and again in late August) and produced two flushes of fruit. I though the second crop must have less fruit or small size of the fruit. It turned out that the second crop is just as good as the first crop for both the number and size of the fruit (see graph 1). The only problem for the second crop is that some of fruit matured during a cold snap and the fruit tended to crack which attracted ants and fungus. Graph 1.Wax Jambu trees with lots of fruit. Secondly, Wax jambu is one of the most productive fruit trees. It does not mind the clay soil and high mineral content of
What a beautiful, sweet plant! A friend had a few red sugar canes in his backyard. They were about 7-8 feet tall with reddish purple stem and a bunch of green leaves on top. They were really beautiful. I knew sugarcane was commercially grown to make sugar, but I did not realize that it was quite ornamental. I also did not know it would grow in San Diego. To me, sugarcane was also associated with tropical plantations in Hawaii, and Caribbean countries. My friend graciously gave me a few short stems with 2-3 nodes to me in May. I planted the stems horizontally, barely covered with soil. They all sprouted and have grown vigorously. One of the stem is now a clump of 7-8 feet canes. The stem was covered with leave sheath. I peeled the lower leaves to expose the beautiful purple stem. I cut a stem from the ground in October to see if it is ready for epicureans’ enjoyment. Well, it turned out it is a lot of work to get to the sweet pith. First, I had to peel off the tough purple s
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