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We had three olive trees, two of which had been planted in the half shade between some tall trees and the sunlit side of the house. As a result, they grew at an oblique angle and only on the side…
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Mediterranean Gardening in Autumn
Autumn is a Second Spring Most Mediterranean gardens are a feast for the eyes from April through the beginning of June. In July and August though most plants enter summer dormancy and you don’t find many flowers or even green…
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Tamarix
Having never met many of them before in real life, Tamarix always seemed rather delicate to me. Turns out they are pretty much indestructible. We have two of them in the garden. One grows with massive roots right out of…
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Verbena bonariensis
Another one of those plants that seemed not suited to this area but simply took a year to establish itself. In 2023 I sowed and planted Verbena bonariensis into the then still more or less empty garden. They grew and…
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Cosmos bipinnatus
Some plants just seem to want to give you “the finger”… When I think about how I coddled and cuddled my little cosmos seedlings last spring and summer, padding them with mulch, hovering over them with the watering can – and…
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Pears “Clapp’s Favorite”
The rather small old pear tree (half trunk), which had not been pruned for ages, produced only two pears after my first heavy pruning in early 2023. In the spring of 2024 it had developed masses of steeply vertical water…