Friday, March 20, 2020

The Trees in My Yard

Some good... some not so good... and some just okay~

The White flowering  Plumeria pudica jacq is growing the best out of everything in my back yard. 
I had help planting it because the neighbors were so excited I was doing something to the yard to make it nice (it was an empty lot with weeds and whatever growing in it for two years).


In the front yard, the same kind of tree has not grown flowers yet.  It is still growing, or should I say living, but has not developed maturity to grow the flowers like my back yard tree.  The bush-like tree in the corner behind it is finally growing.  For the first time in 7 1/2 months, it has sprouted new leaf like tips.  I can't tell for sure if it's actually flowers coming out or just new growth because the bush/tree has not changed in all this time.  It was living and not dying, but that's different than growing and flowering! So I haven't really figured out what kind of bus/tree it is.

You can also see I have not dug up weeds and put fresh grass down yet.  I'm only able to be outside for a couple hours in the bright early morning on the weekend before it gets too hot to work, so only sections get done at a time.



The yellow flowering Tecoma Stans is finally thriving.  In the beginning, it took watering two times a day to really show growth.  Then once the lower branches starting sprouting out, then there was promise of more flowers to come.








Then the flowers just simply erupted and the trees became top-heavy, so help was in order.   We put large broomstick handles in place and tied the trees up.  Now they're looking more gorgeous than ever!


So we fixed them up and I'm watering constantly.  They'll look like this some day (like the neighbors)!



Sunday, March 15, 2020

All My Work Getting the Shade Garden to Grow...

but now I could just cry....

I had to do some adjusting to get this shade garden growing since some plants were lost to the types of soil I used, and other plants just didn't do so well in the shade (water lotus).  But all in all, I was so happy with trimming up my Banyan tree and how things were looking.  This is a snapshot of how nice it was growing.
Next, you'll see the orchids a co-worker gave me to put into my shade garden.  They are lovely and she promises to get me a white one, too!  The shade of the tree branches were perfect for the orchids.
 Now look at how high the tree branches are above the beautiful (shade loving) orchids.
 I'm just heart broken.  That's what I get for asking my friend's father to take out the short trunk that grew a bunch of branches.  This next picture is actually the picture I took and showed my friend what her father should take out.
You can see this part on the left side of the main tree sections.  It's short and looks like it's in the corner below.  So, my wonderful helper trimmed the tree and now the sun hits it from the right side (as you look at the below photo) from about 1 in the afternoon until sunset.  It's definitely NOT a shade garden any longer, and I'm afraid everything will dry up from too much sun.  This was my only spot in the whole yard that had shade.  I want to cry! The poor orchids will surely struggle. 

 In an earlier post, I mentioned that my Thai friends asked me why I was doing the gardening and yard work alone.  People here have gardeners work in their yards for them.  If a person owns a house, someone else does the work putting in the garden.  It will take another year or more to get this tree to grow lower branches and become a shade garden again. I'm just heart broken. I knew I should have just done the trimming!  So, now I'm on to my next project... the other trees~