Up the Garden Path

Yes, I misled you - not everything here is wilting. My brain must have turned to porridge in the heat to have missed these sun-loving plants.


The pink trumpet vine, which will flower now until the end of the year. Their blossoms smell faintly of vanilla.Campsis radicans, which sends out little suckers and clings to wood and brick. Both plants are very invasive and we have to get the machete out at times...well, at least the secateurs , although we feel as if we're in a jungle when these two are on the move.
These lovely portalacas probably need thinning out. Last year it was one mass of flowers.
Finally, the natural products for pest control have arrived. The supplier had gone on holiday and the distributor was also out of the country. Everything in pots got doused in Neem spray this morning. Let's see if we banish the white fly, mildew and geranium moth.
We've been enjoying a westerly breeze from the Atlantic for the last few days, which has made us a bit more alert, so much so that I noticed an abundance of our black figs. This is the first year that we can count on more than one hand the number produced. I used to treat myself to these in UK when they arrived in their individually-packed paper doilee at vast expense. It's a real buzz now to go and pick my own.

Levante is late this year

No pictures today as everything is wilting, including me, and all I seem to be doing in the garden is clearing up the mess from the solanum and pink trumpet vine: in fact, it's shedding so fast it's like Autumn. The pears, of which there was an abundance but mostly inedible, spread a yellow carpet on the central bed and I collected a bucketful each time to put on the compost.

We're enjoying a respite from a few days of hot Levante wind before it returns later in the week. Yin hid in the wardrobe for days and Yang ....well, who knows: he only appeared for his grub.

Our little town and separate beach holiday resort is bursting with "emmets" (a Cornish word for tourists from up country)....this means no cash in the ATMs, barking mad city drivers on the road and long queues in the shops. All resources are under strain, the local shopkeepers getting tired and teazy and higher prices on most consumables. Oh, and my neem oil hasn't arrived and I can't make contact with the supplier!

Roll on Autumn!

Trees - Bead Tree and Paulownia.

This is a one-year old sapling of a Bean Tree, also known as Persian Lilac or Chinaberry tree. It was given to us by a friend last year and I'm delighted to learn that it's also known as Nim in India (Green Thumb will correct me if I'm wrong).

Now the strange thing is I've been taking an interest in Neem oil for a few years but haven't been able to find it until recently. It's an effective natural insecticide and fungicide against the geranium moth, aphids, mealy bug, spider mite, botrytis and mildew. So I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of my order from northern Spain and will report on its effectiveness.

And this is the mother tree from whence our sapling came, grown from seed. It has pinky-bluey flowers in the Spring. Beautiful, eh.

Now the central seedling below is a Paulownia, seeds ordered from UK, and took around 4 months to germinate. We have around 6 and they are being nursed like babies. They are very fast growing, have beautiful blue flowers and huge leaves and are prized by wood carvers. In Japan, so I read, one is planted on the birth of a daughter and cut down later to make her wedding chest.



Here she is in all her glory, with thanks to a website for the picture.
Finally, here is my friends' "cork" tree which is really a yucca. There's been a lot of new growth in their absence and they haven't got round to adding corks to the new spikes, but you get the idea. It looked very cute when all the spines were capped but I guess they need to do a bit more imbibing before they can complete this one!

Name this plant

We're stumped again. I saw this in Yvonne's garden nestling against several other plants and admired it. She didn't know its name. So when I saw one at the garden centre yesterday and it was labelled Clerondendron, I bought it and looked forward to enlightening Yvonne.

Blow me, it's in none of the books, no information on the various plant identifying websites, nor Google......so, please, if anyone knows the name, let me know. Maybe Clerondendron is the Spanish name.


P.S. Thanks everyone for your replies. It is Clerodendrum Thomsonae.

We went north of Cadiz (near Chipiona) yesterday to look for a paraguayos tree and hostas for the friends who drove us. We were resolved to buy nothing else! Of course, that didn't happen and we staggered out with everything but what we came for.

Here is a little slide show. We stepped into an Aladin's cave of ceramics, textiles, furniture, sculpture, tableware, candles.....then we tackled the plants. One section felt like the tropics so we had to repair to their bar/cafe for refrescos.