Category: Trees

Tree ID help

I was lured out back today by endless chirping of birds and found, to my delight, that there is a new type of bird visiting my garden. Tiny little birds, hanging out and darting around on the huge Hibiscus. I tried to photograph them but they were too quick for me and once Dexter started running around and bringing me his ball to throw, they took off.

The Dove however, not intimidated by rambunctious Rottweilers, was content to perch in the tree and check us out which it did for ages. Isn’t it cute …

Which brings me to my question … The dove is sitting in the now bare tree. I don’t know what type of tree this is and I forgot to write down what the Tree Guy told me. (I don’t think he did tell me about this tree as it was bare when he was here and they didn’t do anything to it).

Here is what it looks like in the height of summer …

I would really like to know what tree this is. If anyone can help me identify it I will be very grateful.

You can click to enlarge these two photos for more detail:

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PS: I’ve trawled tree ID websites and all my books and I am none the wiser.

Happy gardening
xxx

Tags dove, tree, trees

Christine's garden Gardening Home page features Trees

Up close and personal with the Pittosporum

Post author By Christine
Post date June 29, 2011
10 Comments on Up close and personal with the Pittosporum

Yesterday I showed my new shrubs / trees, the three Pittosporums, which I’ve planted as screening in our back garden. Diana of Elephants Eye, my Blotanical Mentor and ‘Mom’ to Lady Aragon and M’sieur Chocolat, (go look, they are tooo cute!) asked me a question that I could not answer so I promised a follow up post. Usually these types of posts force me to research and learn something new and I come away every so slightly wiser (one hopes).

Here’s the thing … when I was in Elgin a few weeks ago I saw three trees planted alongside each other that I loved and the owner told me they were “Pittosporum nigrescens”. I came home and looked them up, never actually found them – but what I did find was various types of Pittosporum and thought no more of it. When it came to actually buying the trees I was happy to find them listed as “Pittosporum nigrescens 2.5 – 2.8” at my preferred tree nursery and after an e-mail establishing that the price was great I had three delivered. On arrival, they were the exact trees I was expecting. But then why do searches on Google not return what I now have growing in my back garden?

More searching today reveals the actual name as Pittosporum tenuifolium, var. nigricans, with a foot note saying Name in the Camden Park Record: Pittosporum nigrescens.

Having discovered all that, doing searches for those names still doesn’t really bring up exactly what I have, certainly not in the size and beauty of what I saw in Elgin. But here are my photos taken today (apologies for the poor quality / appalling lighting – it’s been pouring with rain all day and I ran out between down-pours to get these shots). These are specially for you Diana and to answer your question, here is what I found … “‘Nigricans’ has black twigs“.

Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘Nigricans’ photographs
(you can click on the photos to view the enlargements)

[one_half]Pittosporum nigrescens?[/one_half]

[one_half_last]or do we call it nigricans?[/one_half_last]

Who cares what they are officially called … I love them just as they are. Isn’t the foliage lovely?

Pittosporum eugenioides ‘Variegata’ photographs:
(you can click on the photos to view the enlargements)
Here are photos of the existing Pittosporum I had, the Pittosporum eugenioides ‘Variegata’. Isn’t that foliage lovely?

[one_half]Pittosporum eugenioides ‘Variegata’[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Up close and personal[/one_half_last]

What is your favourite screening tree?

Happy Gardening!
xxx

Tags pittosporum, trees

Christine's garden Gardening Trees

Claiming back my privacy

With all the work that has been going on in our back garden (tree felling and french-drains being expanded) it upsets me terribly that from having a completely private back area, we are now seeing ugly walls and neighbours roofs! On the plus side we do have the view of our mountain back, but I prefer privacy. Not that they can look into our property – unless they stand on their roofs (which I haven’t seen them do) they can’t see into the property, but I just don’t like it. Frankly, I preferred the wild, overgrown jungle I had there before, but I know that in a year or two (or three?) I will be very happy that we had all this done. To speed things up a bit I purchased three trees that were planted today.

I saw three Pittosporum nigrescens planted next to each other at a nursery in Elgin – and fell in love with them. The owner told me she had planted them three years earlier and not done a thing to them. Very tall and narrow with beautiful foliage these trees are a good choice for the space I’ve put them in as they grown upwards and stay narrow without causing the deep type of shade some of the others do, and they create a screening effect. A bonus is that they won’t be dropping any berries into my neighbours’ gardens which has been a three year bone of contention between us.

So here are the photos of the newly planted trees …

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Note: In the second photograph, the Pittosporum eugenioides ‘Variegata’ on the left was planted ten months ago and was a fairly small shrub (two thirds its current size). It has grown a lot and bushed out nicely in the last ten months so I am hopeful the three new ones will do much the same.

Happy Gardening
xxx

Tags pittosprum, trees

Christine's garden Gardening Trees

Tree work, blocked drains and mayhem

Post author By Christine
Post date June 10, 2011
14 Comments on Tree work, blocked drains and mayhem

Sigh … a corner in my fledgling garden, planted only 10 months ago, is taking some serious strain this week. First of all we had the Arborist and his team here on Monday. What can I say other than that I now have plenty of sun light coming into the garden. I do hate how sparse everything looks right now, but it needed to be done, what with a neighbour threatening me with lawyers letters because berries off my trees were blocking his pool filter and a general clean up needed anyway, we went the whole hog and they did a mass clean up. I have to compliment this team of tree fellers though – they did extensive work and were busy in every single garden area – I begged them to be careful with my plants and … they were! Only one little plant lost a side branch. How’s that for care? They worked fast and well and I was very impressed with them. I expected lots of trampled plants and all I could find was one minor thing that can’t even be considered a “plant casualty”. More like a light pruning. Whilst their work was outstanding, I do prefer full lush trees and hate the bare look and all the walls and neighbour roofs I can see now! But so be it.

But then on to the news story of my week. In my back garden we have this one very deep shade area that always seemed to me as if something was not quite right. Nothing grew particularly well (which I assumed was because of the shade) and it had a weird vibe about it. I can’t think of any other word to describe it other than “miff”. This is also the area where Willem (the Arborist) removed a tree that was growing into my bedroom windows and damaging foundation walls and I thought that might fix things. Then the rain came down and we discovered that we had some seriously blocked drains there. No drainage – something very blocked – almost like a quagmire back there. Enter the Plumber. Apparently a “French Drain” that lives underground, is totally blocked and needs to be dug up and enlarged so that the water can drain away properly. Result: One huge mess. Absolutely all the plants in that area have been dug up, there are huge piles of stone and soil and … well I am just not going to look at it again until they have finished the job or I am going to cry. And the worst thing is they won’t finish it today, it will take Monday as well, so I can’t even “fix” it this weekend. I clearly will have to reaccess, redesign, replant and re-love that whole corner area once they finish.

So I started this post with a sigh and I end it with … another huge sigh!

Here the reason for my sighs:

[one_half]What happened to the trees?[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Digging …[/one_half_last]

Happy Gardening
xxx

Tags drainage, trees

Barbie's garden Gardening Home page features Perenniels Trees

Guavas and all

I think the garden is all about growth and life and new beginnings and nourishment for the body and soul. There should always be time to take a walk in the garden. To look at it through the eyes of a fellow garden plant. To see how all plants work together to give each other shade or nutrients or help ward off pesky pests or bring the welcomed insects. I look at my new lemons on my tree and I think of the pleasure and pain to see these ripened beauties. I look at the lemons on the grocery store shelf and I can see and feel the energy that went into making one simple lemon. I delight in my new guavas – even though I was not a great fan of them, I have learnt to enjoy them fresh off the tree. So I appreciate all my trees and plants that bring me joy and sweet treats!!

Here are some new photos of my garden walk about!

Enjoy! x

[one_half]New Lemons[/one_half]

[one_half_last]New Guavas[/one_half_last]

[one_half]The end of my Fig season[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Onion forrest[/one_half_last]

[one_half]New tomato plant[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Rosemary blossom[/one_half_last]

Tags fruit trees, guava, lemon, onion, tomato

Barbie's garden Gardening Home page features Trees

The big Leopard Tree planting!

Post author By Barbara
Post date April 21, 2011
8 Comments on The big Leopard Tree planting!

Hi Chris, I know you are dying to see the beautiful trees I bought and that arrived this week! They are Leopard Trees or another name is Brazilian Ironwood (Caesalpinia Ferrea). They prefer full sun and are tender to frost. It is deciduous and waterwise (yeay!). One of the most attractive trees, its grey bark peels off to reveal dark brown underneath. Red foliage emerges in Spring which matures to fine, attractive, acacia-like green leaves which provide dappled shade. Bearing clusters of yellow flowers in summer. They are also relatively fast growing.

I totally LOVE my new trees! So now you can see the whole sequence of events! Even the arduous digging. We have such hard clay soil that you need a buzzdozer or a pick axe and muscles like Schwazzenager to get through. It was so tough to do this, and I needed the help of my hubby but even this was not enough. We had to take days to add water to soften the area. It nearly didn’t happen when my hubby said, “That’s it – just add more water and make it a pond. Bring the koi!!!” But we managed – just, just! You will see – I’m smiling for the camera but I was just exhausted!! I could hardly believe that I had the endurance to keep going. We had to dig a hole 1.1m x 1.1m x .7m for a 250 litre tree which stood 3.5m high! I even surprized myself. I guess it is all the bending in the garden for 6 years! Builds a strong back!

Ok here are the photos! Enjoy!! xxxxxx

[one_half]Hard work this hole digging![/one_half]

[one_half_last]Using a Koevoet to break the ground![/one_half_last]

[one_half]Trees SA arrive as promised![/one_half]

[one_half_last]Bring in the Trees![/one_half_last]

[one_half]My first Tree![/one_half]

[one_half_last]My second Tree![/one_half_last]

[one_half]Adding the stakes![/one_half]

[one_half_last]She’s a beauty![/one_half_last]

I wish to say thank you to Trees SA for the great experience. The staff were on time, professional, speedy and efficient – as well as friendly. I highly recommend Trees SA! I’m going to post a special review for Trees SA so stay posted!

So Chris, so when are you coming to visit so we can have a “dop onder die bome”!! 🙂

Flickr Photo Gallery of the Big Leopard Tree Planting …

Tags Brazilian Ironwood, Caesalpinia Ferrea, Leopard Tree, tree

Christine's garden Gardening Home page features Trees

Birds a bathing

Every morning when I sit in my office, for about two hours I hear the non-stop chirping and tweeting of birds. They have three bird baths which are situated in the Water Feature (in the side garden) which they seem to like but I’ve noticed that they prefer the trees in the front garden (the Frangipani and Willow trees in particular). I recently added two free standing bird baths to the front garden for them but up until today had never seen them being used by the birds. Until today … and use them they did! What a lovely way to start my day – with a cup of coffee and camera in hand they allowed me to sit quietly whilst they went about their morning ritual at the bath.

A few days ago I put a cutting of a plant in the bath as I assumed they weren’t using it – well one of them decided it needed to be taken out – he picked it up and flew off with it, taking it into the Willow Tree!

Here are a few photographs …

Birds in the bath

Bird removes my cutting and takes it to the willow tree …

Conference in the Frangipani Tree …

That’s All Folks! Happy gardening
xxx

Tags bird bath, bird nest, birds

Christine's garden Gardening Home page features Trees

Good, bad or just ugly?

I got a bit of a fright today when I was weeding in my back garden. In the very shaded area which I would classify as “deep shade” there stand a few trees. I’d recently had some branches pruned off them as well as had foliage cut back from trees that were threatening to break through our bedroom windows and had never examined the trees in any real detail before. They were just there. Until today when I was removing weeds in this area and suddenly found myself staring at this …

To be totally honest, I think its sort of beautiful. Interesting, different and alive. And I stood staring at it in awe for a while, took the photos and only after downloading them to my computer and really examining it in detail did it occur to me that this may not be interesting or beautiful at all, and that I might need to do something about it.

Is there something wrong with the tree? I’d really appreciate advice and opinions on this. Do I leave it and enjoy it or is it some horrible I have to deal with?

Happy gardening
xxx

Tags mould, mushrooms, tree

Barbie's garden Gardening Home page features Trees

My Lemon Tree

I have to brag about my lemon tree that is looking FABULOUS! As you know, I have been nurturing this tree – pest control, fertilizing, deep watering, composting, mulching and pruning. And it has proven successful. Have a look at how green and lush it is and there are lots and lots of lemons!

I have to admit though that the Nastirtium seeds you gave me I only now planted underneath it! It will prevent the aphids from infesting the tree. I did spot a few leaves with these nasties starting again, but I immediately sprayed with my Biogrow Neem organic pesticide and they just fell off! I’m getting the hang of it and listening to the needs of my plants! Or, I guess, I know what to look for now!

Happy gardening xxxx

Tags citrus tree, lemon, lemon tree

Barbie's garden Gardening Home page features Trees

My little guava tree

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[one_half_last][/one_half_last]

Hi Chris, just a quick update on my guava tree. It was looking so bushy, that I decided to give it a prune. Now it is looking like a tree. I have about 5 guavas on it! A small harvest, but I guess this little tree is only just recovering. It still only stands at about 1.5m high. I love guavas so hopefully in years to come we can make all sorts of jams, juices and bottled guavas. Happy gardening! xxx

Tags fruit tree, guava, guava tree, tree pruning, trees