Quality time

On Sunday morning, I spent some great time outside with my daughters. We picked some Suriname cherries which were still too red for my liking - they have to turn almost black before I will eat them, otherwise they are unbearably sour and taste like turpentine.

Anyway, they loved it and wanted more, but we could only find 2 each.

Afterwards, I took them on an adventure. We stopped at each of the Myrtaceous plants in my garden, picked a leaf, crushed it and smelt it. The Suriname cherry is the most pungent of them all. I explained how these plants are all related because they have oil glands in their leaves that release the oil when crushed. My eldest daughter likes the Suriname cherry smell the best. My favorite is the Marlierea spp, smells almost like perfume(forgot to include it in my previous post about the Myrtaceous family), followed by the feijoa. The least spicy smell of them all, probably the grumichama.

The grumichama is blooming, very shyly, unlike the Suriname cherry which is covered in blooms and should be laden with fruit soon. I wish it was the other way around as we all just can't wait for the grumichamas and its normally a battle between me, mom, the birds and the children to get our hands on them first. They really are yum.

Variegated guava air-layers, take number 2

The variegated guava is heavily infested with whitefly.

I'm not sure if the whitefly arrived first, or the Argentine ants brought them to farm them for honey dew - the classic chicken and egg situation.

In a drastic attempt to rid the poor tree of the whitefly, I sprayed it with volk oil, which burned the leaves and left ugly spots on the fruit. It did appear to reduce the whitefly population though, but I see the tell-tale trail of ants running up and down the trunk, so they are still there.

Extensive searching has brought up few suggestions to control the ants. Most sites suggest boric acid in a sugar solution, but also states it never completely eradicates the ants, merely brings their numbers down. The other solution that seems to help is an insecticidal gel that contains fipronil, which acts slow enough to allow the foragers to take it back to the colony and feed to the queen and larvae, eventually killing the whole colony. The problem with the gel is that at almost $5 for 27g, it would cost a lot to eradicate the ants from my 15000 sq ft. So I've opted for the boric acid solution. Made my own bait with sugar / water and boric acid, now I'm using used water bottles, take the lid off, then squeeze a little of the solution into the bottle, then place the opening close to a big concentration of ant nests. Keep a watch on it and refill when needed.

In addition many also suggest you limb up your trees / shrubs so limbs are at least 12 inches from the ground, then implement some measures to prevent the ants from running up the tree, i.e. sticky molasses, grease .....

Since I am going to limb up the guava tree, I decided to do another round of air layers. The lowest branches that will be removed were all layered. So now I have to wait and see. Probably about 4 months or so before the roots will be strong enough. That should be around June, which is normally our wettest, not too hot yet and a very humid month here in South Florida and an excellent time to sever the new plants from the mother plant and transplant them.

My first attempt at mango grafting

Last summer I started growing a lot of mango seeds, about 10 plants.

This means they are now about 8-10 months old.

I took my first stab at cleft-grafting - I grafted some of my neighbor's hatcher mango and also one of my own lancetilla mango.

Here's a picture of the hatcher mango grafted onto a very strong growing lancetilla seedling. The rest of the grafts are on another neighbors seedlings, possibly glen or kent. Now its wait and see.

Falling home values in South Florida - there's no bottom in sight

This is really disconcerting. Our neighbours just sold their home for half of what we owe on our house. When inflation is taken into account, the home has now sold for half of what it was sold for 14 years ago - brand new.

That means, we are now 100% underwater on our mortgage. Many calls to our mortgage company have fallen on deaf ears, even as my income has been slashed. I still earn too much and thus they will not help me.

So many homeowners are simply walking away here in South Florida. On our cul-de-sac, there's already one unoccupied home. Right now, the lawn and landscape is being maintained - who knows by whom, so at least its not looking bad, but it has a pool in the backyard, who knows whats breeding in there now ? As more and more homes are foreclosing, who knows what will happen to our HOA fees, it must go up eventually to make up for the loss of income.

Recently, our HOA sent every home owner a referendum form, to define how many people may live in a home - as people are leaving their homes, or short-selling, the prices have dropped 100% since 3 years ago, it has now become affordable for many people and more and more renters and people of questionable character are moving in, sometimes 5 cars or more line the streets in front of these homes, making driving and parking difficult for everyone else and looking unsightly. When you drive through the neighbourhood, those are also the houses with unkempt lawns and gardens, very often with no window treatments, or cardboard boxes in front of windows. So they want to make it HOA law, that only one family may live in a home, and also a maximum of 2 people per room. Also, you may have family live with you temporarily, but you must prove that it is direct family.

My mistake was simply buying the best house I could afford at the wrong time. Granted, I would be hard pressed to find a home with such a large garden anywhere within suburbia, but looking at realtor.com and others, there are now newer, more beautiful homes with 1.25 - 1.5 acre lots selling for half what I owe on mine. The original allure of this house was the large lot. It has been my dream to have a large garden as long as I can remember. I have also invested so must sweat and hard labour here.

Florida is a recourse state - that means if the mortgage company sells the home at an auction for less than what you owe, they can come after you for up to 20 years and get a deficiency judgement against you. That means, you are simply screwed, there seems to be no way out of this.

This leaves me the question, as a responsible law-abiding citizen, what am I supposed to do ? Do I simply walk away and face the danger of getting a deficiency judgment against me, should I try to do a short sale, but will the mortgage company settle for 50c on the dollar, or do I continue sinking my hard-earned money into this bottomless pit - according to youwalkaway.com, it will take 104 years to recover my equity !

See here how your home measures up: http://www.youwalkaway.com/output24/InterectiveFlashCalculator.html

Garden services - love to hate them

I fired my first garden services because they were riding over and whacking my fruit trees, then I braved the Florida heat and humidity, bought my own mower and tools and started doing the mowing, edging, trimming myself. I kept this up for two seasons, last summer I finally gave up. Work hours and the un-bare able heat/humidity and less time to spend with family finally made me hire a new company.
Yesterday they came by for their two-weekly moving / edging task.
This morning on my daily walk through the garden, I couldn't help to notice the damage to my newly planted fairchild mango.
For no apparent reason, as there are no weeds near the stem, they whacked it badly.
It was flushing new growth and flowering. I really hope the damage doesn't make it drop its flowers or is severe enough to cause it to die altogether.
I already e-mailed the owner and gave him a piece of my mind! grrrr !

Myrtaceae - what a family

Upon closer inspection, you will understand my fascination with the Myrtaceous family of plants.

This varied family includes amongst others eucalyptus, clove, myrtle, and guava.

The reason for my fascination though is where beauty and usefulness meet, specifically fruits in this family. What also makes this family so fascinating to me is the peeling bark that is so prevalent in most of its members. Not only are these edible family members stunningly beautiful, but some of them bear the most delicious fruits on earth.

Here are a few pictures of family members I am growing in my yard:

Rumberry - Myrciara Floribunda only a few inches tall and peeling bark already visible	Cabelluda - Eugenia tomentosa only a few inches tall and showing peeling bark already
Guava - Psidium guajava most beautiful peeling bark	Jaboticaba - Myrciara cauliflora stunning bark and structure
Pitomba - Eugenia luschnathiana	Strawberry guava - Psidium littorale
Surinam cherry - Eugenia uniflora	Australian Brush Cherry - also known as Syzygium paniculatum, Eugenia paniculata, Eugenia myrtifolia
Grumichama - Eugenia brasiliensis	Blue grape - Myrciara vexator
Feijoa - Feijoa sellowiana

Aloe barberae - my favourite structural plant

	If I had to make a choice about my most favourite ornamental plant at the moment, I would have to say it is this Aloe barberae. I grew it form a bare-root 10 inch plant bought on e-bay. Its been in the ground just over 2 years. In its natural habitat along the subtropical coastal forests in KwaZulu Natal South Africa, this can grow 15m tall (50 feet), making it the largest African Aloe. Click here to learn more about Aloe barberae
	Here's a close-up of the stem and bark.
	Here's a majestic specimen at the Pretoria Zoo in South Africa - hopefully mine will not grow this big - or it will take a very long time and it will be someone else's problem by then.