Do You Like Gardening

my goodness you have a whole botanical garden. Such a variety. I think my yard front, side and back is 1/10th of yours.

What are pond apple trees? Also is a shaving brush tree anything like a powder puff plant? I don't thinks so but not sure.

Shaving bush tree...? My first thought was a bottle brush tree...

HaHa! Three years ago I started an herb garden in some fancy cinder blocks that I had raising up some quarter whiskey barrels! And here, I thought I was being original! LOL

Last year, hubby planted a bulb in each cinderblock that he had arranged into a group. And I thought HE had stolen my idea!

Isn't it time to be planting bulbs right about now?? I need to get busy if that's so! I also need to get myself to the plant nursery to replace the tuberous begonias that rotted this past spring. I gave them too much water. Silly me! Bad momma! LOL

When you ask about the shaving brush tree, I did a web search and came up with this wonderful site that all of you plant lovers will enjoy. The website is the Tropical Plants Library. They list names of plants, as well as, latin names and have pictures of most of the plants that they sell. So if you want to see a shaving brush tree, this is the place to go. http://mgonline.com It is located in Fort Lauderdale, FL
Some more plants, trees, and bushes in my yard, include Ixora, Bird of Paradise, Heliconia, Aloe plants, Kalanchoe, Powder Puff, Saw Palmetto, Tulip Tree, Southern Hictory Trees, Java Plum trees, wild grape vines.
Pond apple's are a fruit that resembles an apple in shape, but has big seeds in it and a bland flavor. My kind are not edible but the raccoons love them.

Oh, WOW!! It's definetely NOT a bottle brush tree although the flower is somewhat similar. Totally different family, though.

I wonder what of those tropical plants I could manage to grow in S. CA? Like I have any room left! LOL

Slightly off topic

Does anyone make their own compost or have a means of making a mild form of plant food/soil amendment?

Something that stayed with me from my life on the ranch was growing worms in the piles of bunny pellets. I raised rabbits for food and to sell for food, therefore I had quite a few rabbits.

When I moved into this mobile home park, I wound up with a rabbit and soon afterward, I went to a fishing bait place and bought me a large package of earthworms. I set them free in under the bunny cage and have been growing them ever since. They've now graduated to their own bins.

Just recently, hubby bought an outdoor vacuum/blower. I found that the vacuum will pretty much turn the pellets into "dirt" and shred the yard waste into small enough pieces to give the stuff a good start in decomposing. I've got a bin of powdered bunny pellets with worms and another bin with yard waste, used coffee grounds and worms. The bin with the yard waste is winning by far... er... because of the smell. LOL It smells WONDERFUL! Like rich earth! But I've found that the powedered bunny pellets are as rich a soil ammendment as alfalfa meal!

My berry bushes are loving it! Where they had just kinda been sitting there all summer, now they are growing by leaps and bounds. It's too late for my roses this year, but I'm saving the bunny pellets to mix in with the two other meals to ammend the soil in my rose bed this coming spring. I'm really excited to see how the roses will do next year. I wasn't really happy with their "production" this past year. Miracle Grow doesn't even help them all that much. Can't wait for Spring!

Gosh, SeptemberMorn, sounds like you have a good compost bin in the works. I have a smaller one that I add leaves, vegetable peelings, and etc.... that I pile around my plants and bushes. I had rabbits for a while and had big worms under the pens in beds, but the armadillio's would come at night and eat the worms. So I had too build a special bin for all the rabbit pellets and garden waste. Could have sold them to fishermen, ended up with lots of big long earthworms, and the worms grew better than the garden did.
Now, I was going to say that there is nothing quite as special so going out for a stroll through the garden only to find things blooming that you never saw before. I found one such plant this morning, it had pale yellow flowers that remind me of the trumpet flower, but are different. Still trying to identify it. Will let you know when I figure it out. LOL