Horseradish tree is no more

I received a notice from our HOA in October to remove the horseradish tree from my front yard, apparently it wasn't planted far enough from the road easement.

I sent a request to extend the 30 days notice to after Christmas. At least we had a beautiful tree in the front yard decorated with lights.

Shortly after the new year, I received another letter from the HOA with an architectural approval form.

That's when I decided I had enough and chopped it down. As a final blow, I received another letter from our HOA last week to "remove the tree stump from your front garden". So this past weekend was spent digging up and removing the stump and re-planting emerald St. Augustine grass (see dark rectangle in the front of the picture). So, almost one year after planting the tree, seeing it grow to 20 feet tall and eternally covered in beautiful orchid-like blossoms, I had to chop it down.


So along with it goes our dream of a shady front yard with a bench. I guess we'll have to grunt and bear the 100F afternoon sun or wait till after sunset to venture outside.

I also grew another horseradish tree in the backyard. It too is stunningly beautiful, and it even bore a number of "drumsticks" seed pods. I tried to acquire a taste for it, but no matter how I tried it, I just couldn't stomach the taste of it.

So I had to make a touch decision, keep it for its beauty/ornamental value or plant a fruit tree I really like in its place - after much deliberation, I brought out my chainsaw attachment and before I could get second thoughts, I chopped it down too. I used the main leader as a support for the passion fruit vines and saved the other major limbs for other support duties, i.e. for planting pole beans etc.

In its place, I planted a mango I grew from a seed that I got from a friend. The mango is unlike any mango I've even tried, I suspect it may itself have been a seed-grown mango.

Monster passion fruit vines

I bought these "Brazilian round yellow passion fruit" seeds from Bakerstreet last year. I built a two wire trellis with 8 feet cedar posts. I underestimated these vines. The trellis is almost collapsing under the weight of the vines. They are growing so vigorously, they are now starting to cover my neighbour's crepe myrtle trees. I am not feeling guilty because their bougainvillea is taking over the corner of my yard and now it looks like they also have another vine (I suspect the highly invasive mandevilla vine) growing all over my palm trees. One of the vines flowered briefly in November, with pure white flowers but none set fruit. There are a total of three vines planted, so hopefully there will be enough variability to ensure cross-pollination. I tried to look up round yellow passion fruit with white flowers and so far no luck. The closest I could come up with is the lillikoi, but they have flowers similar to the purple passionflower, Passiflora edulis which have purple tinged flowers. I guess I'm going to have to start pruning them already and hope they flower and set fruit soon.

Fairchild mango

Fairchild Mango growing in Florida sand - err I mean soil.

I can hardly believe it, but my newly planted (December) little 4 foot tall Fairchild mango, is having a growth spurt and its sporting a flower raceme on one of those growths ! I never even anticipated it bearing right after planting it and at such a small size even though is a dwarf or condo mango! I probably will have to remove the fruit because the little tree is not mature enough to hold fruit. Even more worrisome, since it so small,l how will I keep the raccoons and other animals at bay ! Maybe time for some electric fencing !

Raccoons, rabbits, birds, insects, possums now squirrels

As if I haven't had enough trouble protecting the hard-earned fruits of my labour from raccoons, now something else started eating my half-ripe sugar apples, starfruit and papayas.

It soon became very clear, the squirrels have now also discovered my "garden of Eden".

Its very clear that I'm probably not going to get one ripe papaya from this tree.

I strongly suspect they are also to blame for my disappearing or half eaten starfruit. I laid rat traps, but something set them off and was obvious to large and could free themselves, or the rat traps were too large and maybe the culprits eating my starfruit were mice, so I bought mouse traps also - no luck either. So now I am strongly suspecting the squirrels are also eating my starfruit.

Maybe its time for a rat zapper, an electronic rat killer, supposedly kills squirrels (tree rats as they are affectionately known) too.

Record breaking cold temps

Burnt Pineapples	Burnt Aloe thraskii
Burnt sanchezia	Burnt seagrape

We had a 10 day period in January where 70 year old records were broken each day for overnight lows and even for lowest daytime maximum temperatures. It was also the longest time ever on record with freezing or close-to freezing temperatures in West Palm Beach. We even turned on the heat for a couple of days when the maximum barely hit the 40's.

It took a heavy toll on my garden, but fortunately a lot of plants are already recovering well.

Worst hit was the crossandra and sanchezias. The pineapples, aloes, cleodendrum all got burnt, but are recovering very well. Even the native seagrape got quite badly burnt, but its already pushing out tonnes of new growth.

Not much came of my attempts to grow vegetables. In fact, I planted beans twice, first they succumbed to the intense heat we had right into November, then the second batch wilted after our cold spell, so I dug them up, removed all my vegetable beds from their conspicuous spot and relocated a few beds to the back of the garden, where they're out of sight (and big hallelujahs were heard from my wife's mouth). In place of the vegetable garden, I replanted emerald St. Augustine grass and my seed-grown atualfo mango.


Atualfo mango

Indian Jujube - the verdict

It took forever for the jujube's to ripen with our record breaking cold December and January.

The branches became so heavy with fruit that some snapped off.

The tree likes to droop and not a single branch is growing straight. I pretty much planted it in the spot I have because I counted on it growing up straight, instead, it is consuming so much space with its drooping branches that my lawn services can't mow the lawn there and every time they were here, another branch or two is broken in their attempt to cut around it.

So with much anticipation, I waited and waited, tried a couple of green jujubes and just spat them out as they are completely tasteless/ insipid. Finally some turned ever so slightly yellow and dare I say, some had a slight resemblance to a bland golden delicious apple. Most however, have no taste whatsoever. To make matters worse, some go from green to brown and then have a slightly spicy but half rotten taste, completely alien to my palate. Even the raccoons had second thoughts about it, the drooping branches were complete laden with fruit and lying on the ground. Every day, I would find half chewed jujubes everywhere, much like I did, took one bite and spat it out.

The big question now is, do I keep it around even though no-one in my household really cares for it and because I paid $35 for it, or do I cut it down and plant something I really like ? Maybe a different guava variety - I am growing an orange fleshed variety from seed and its going to take 3 years or so to reach fruiting age.

This weekend, I took out my frustration on it and cut it back almost to a stump. I will give it one more season and I will attempt to make it grow a little more upright and compact, plus I will prune it so that it bears fewer but larger fruit - the larger fruit tends to be sweeter and tastier.

If I had tasted jujubes before, I probably would not have bought the tree.

Late fall

Fall came very late this year, even up to late Novemeber we were having 90F days. That postponed my vegetable planting and I could only start towards the end of November. Hope that the beans, zuchini squash will have enough time before we get frost (if any). We normally have a couple of days in January where the mercury can fall close to or below freezing.

I'm continuing to have problems with raccoons who have now made parts of my garden their latrine. It concerns me as I have small children who run around in the garden and raccoon feces can be infested with roundworm.

I have even borrowed my neighbour's raccoon trap, so far they are evading it and going for my ripening starfruit and guavas instead !