| A few years ago, in one of those fits of horticultural insanity that often afflicts gardeners from northern climates when they visit South Florida or California, and they see all these plants that they've struggled for years to maintain through the winter just standing outside on somebody's lawn, 8 feet high and gorgeous. And then they go to a nursery and see all these michelias, barbados cherries, jasmines, brunfelsias, bauhinias, brugs, ixoras, just sitting around -- not tiny rooted cuttings on a bench, mind you, but big 1 or 5 gallon pots, dirt cheap, just waiting to be picked up, and, and, ohmygod ohmygod stopstopstop!!!!
Uh, where was I?
Oh yeah, so I got a couple of plants that I wrestled onto the airplane (the flight attendant was very helpful with the 4 foot bay rum tree, I must say) and have kept them alive since, and now that it's finally stopped raining and NYC is enjoying one of the most gorgeous stretches of summer weather I can remember, I can sit out on the terrace and take stock of them.
First, there's the fiddlewood, citharexylum spinosum. Sure, Logees sells cuttings of this one, but mine's 5 feet tall, baby; with multiple trunks, pretty orange stems, shiny light green leaves and -- absolutely no flowers. Last summer I had a few racemes developing by now, although the didn't last long despite my attempts to keep the darn thing regularly moist. The scent was quite sweet and nice, but I wouldn't call it spectacular. A full-sized fiddlewood in bloom is an awesome thing to see and smell, the bees go totally nuts for it in the morning, but I can't help feeling that it's just not shaping up the way I thought it would. Anyone know any tips for getting a stubborn fiddlewood to bloom?
Second up is even more obscure: myrcianthes fragrans, aka Simpson's stopper. It's in the myrtaceae, a close relative of the eugenias, and I never realized it could be grown as a houseplant -- hell, I'd never heard of it -- until I saw one in a tub at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, in flower and fruit. The scent is spicy, slightly musky, and the fruit tastes a bit like an orange, in the way that various wild game animals "taste like chicken." Mine's finally blooming on one branch, and thankfully the fragrance is everything I remember. The leaves are fragrant, too, but mine's more turpentine-ish than the BBG's specimen. It takes temps down to freezing and can, like other myrtles, be pruned any which way. If I can get enough fruits out of it before frost, I plan to soak 'em in sugar and rum to make a kind of native maraschino cherry. Sweet.
I'd show pictures, but neither's looking spectacular right now, and my daughters have the camera with them to their grandparents; you can look 'em up on the web anyway.
If you like the unusual, consider Simpson's stopper, and if you have room for a 5 foot fiddlewood, I'm open to trades.
Hope everyone's enjoying their summer!
Jim |
