The garden, mid-December

With a little rain, and some respite from searing summer temperatures, many of the garden plants are growing like crazy.  After weeks and weeks of poor weather we’ve finally had a change; yesterday the sun shone once more.  The air was sweet and mild and it was a pleasure to potter in the garden and then sit quietly in the sun with a cup of coffee.

On the citrus trees – lemon, orange and what we think are clementines – we have a healthy cross of ripe fruit  and a good supply of still ripening to follow.  At least one of the lemon trees has a second crop coming.  To us it is still strange to see the fruit in all of its stages on one tree; ripe, unripe , immature and blossom.

Bucket loads of fruit

... with plenty more to come

Meanwhile the lilies are determined.  Now is their chance to flourish and that’s exactly what they intend to do, whether in the ground, or in pots or even in a bucket, waiting to be planted.  Clearly they should have been in soil some time ago.  The ones that were missed during the removal process are also growing quickly.

Determined Alum or Calla lilies

Yet more lilies

Finally, with a little spare time, some of the yucca offsets were re-homed.  These six were the smallest on the tree, and the only ones that could be easily removed.  Soon we’ll need to use some force to separate the larger ones, perhaps even sawing them from the main trunk.

When we moved into our Aradippou rental home a friend gifted us three offsets about twice the size of these.  Within three years they had grown to over 5 feet tall and were producing numerous offsets of their own.  We, in turn, removed those and gifted them to a friend in Oroklini.  She had no room in her garden but is happily cultivating the open ground beyond the boudaries of the property in the hope of improving her view and providing a screen of mature plants should the land eventually be developed.

Yucca offsets

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