Local Guides Garden - Year 4 - Describe your World [through the flowers]

[ErmesT]

I hope so, @TorM

The European meeting in Krakow was one of the best meetings I have ever attended.

I hope soon we will be able to travel again, because I am missing a lot to meet other Local Guides in person

[ErmesT]

I call it “evolution” @Sophia_Cambodia

Every living species evolves according to their needs.

Colour and aroma are of course not made for us to enjoy them, but to attract other species (e.g. bees) or to protect themselves from danger and natural enemies.

It is interesting to see how the life evolves, to find a balance. Different ways of evolution are what we call biodiversity, the capacity of a living specie to adapt to environmental changes.

Just a few days ago I was talking with @plavarda about orchids in the “isle of the dead” and how many orchids moved to a different place, due to climate changes

[AlinkaN]

о превосходно, чудно, удивительно. Спасибо за такие прекрасные фотографии

[TsekoV]

Hi @Munawar951 ,

Welcome back to Connect!

I am letting you know that I merged your post to the Local Guides Garden - Year 4 - Describe your World [through the flowers] article, since your post is about flowers. You can check out what other Local Guides have posted there.

You might be also interested in reading How to take photos for nature lovers.

[ErmesT]

Thanks @AlinkaN , I am happy that you like it.

Do you want to share with us the flowers you like more in your area?

You can also check “Your guide to Connect” , the introductory Guide of the community.

In there you will find all the necessary information to know how to better contribute in the community

[KarenVChin]

@ErmesT – how did you know I was working in my garden this weekend? There is a lot of activity happening in my yard. However, I will focus on one particular item that surprisingly came into my life last Friday night.

This will make you happy on two fronts. I saved a tree from being cut down and thrown in the trash to now being dug up and planted in my yard.

By chance, a loquat tree was offered as “free” Friday on the NextDoor app. I PMed the “seller” to say I will come over to his house and dig it up Saturday morning. He said I was the first person to respond to his “ad,” and it will be mine if I could be at his house by 11 am!

As you know, I like “free” AND “rescuing” things from being discarded or destroyed.

I have wanted to get a loquat tree to relive a childhood memory for the past several years. I grew up with a loquat tree at my childhood home. It was grown from a seed from my classmate’s dad and given to my family as a housewarming gift.

I have been trying to find a loquat tree or shrub because this particular tree or shrub is not found in local nurseries (garden centers) for sale. I guess not enough demand?? So, the only way you can get a loquat tree is to grow it yourself from seed or find someone else who has.

Fresh loquats are only sold in Asian produce shops here in Chinatown. But the taste is NOT the same as what you can pick it from a tree directly. It is hard to ship ripe loquats to grocery stores because the skin is very thin, very easy to bruise, so, not much shelf life.

Last Fall, I was able to find a “free” 4-inch loquat on NextDoor. But it will take years to get it to become a fruit-producing shrub or a tree.

This 8 ft loquat tree may not look much at the moment. It was neglected in its previous “home.” If no one claimed this tree, the owner planned to cut it down because he wants to use the space for a new patio.

Hopefully, this summer, I will harvest from this evergreen fruit tree sweet, juicy loquats.

Loquats are a popular Chinese fruit. You and @TsekoV might have eaten loquats when you were living in China?

Cheers,

Karen

[ErmesT]

Maybe because I know you, Karen, and I know your passion for your garden, ?

When the loquat blooms, in the middle of winter, the scent of its flowers expands for tens of meters, intense in the cold air, and surprising in a season in which the odors in the air are very few, @KarenVChin .

I love it because it still surprises me, every winter, for its ability to bloom when the temperature is below zero, a few days before the calycanthus which, in my garden, begins to put flowers in the first days of January.

How many years to get your fruits?

[Sophia_Cambodia]

I see, that’s the power of nature where human can’t really invent @ErmesT I have a new article about the Mae Fah Luong’s Botanical Garden from Chiang Rai of Thailand which you can visit here.

[ErmesT]

Thanks @Sophia_Cambodia for sharing your post.

What about to add one of the photo also here? It would drive readers in your post faster, and you don’t need to add a new photo, but simply to use one already uploaded, like I am doing here below

[Sophia_Cambodia]

I don’t know how to use existing photos @ErmesT I will figure it out now.

Thank you very much, I know now how to do it. New lesson today!

[EllyAzim]

@KarenVChin Hi Karen

Good luck for your loquat tree.

We happen to have the trees when my parents visited China years ago and brought the fruit home with them. After eating my parents planted the seeds. When they were big enough we brought them to our yard in mountain. I can not remember how long it took to give fruit. The fruit are not as big as the one my parents brought from China though but still nice. We have to wait till they go real yellow otherwise they are sour. I quiet like the taste, juicy like & taste a bit like yellow pear, texture like star fruit. I wished they are bigger .

Now some trees have already have ripe fruits some still green. This year fruit season has less fruit because of the extreme long dry season also because there are so many chemical are used in farming. I saw less insects and butterflies.

Who knows you are in neighbourhood some day, you are invited to pick your own loquat from my yard.

Happy loquat

[KarenVChin]

Woww @EllyAzim ! Your loquat tree looks very healthy and vigorous! Here, too, last year was not a great early summer growing season. It was either very hot then unseasonably cold then hot again. Not a lot of bees . Zero butterflies.

This year plan is to plant more bee and butterfly friendly plants and flowers to attract more of them.

With it being a weird weather year last year, I had to hand pollinate with a Q-Tip the squash and tomato blossoms. Still did not get a great crop though.

What I remember as a child, we left the loquat tree alone until the fruit was a deep orange. The birds did not pick it. The squirrels ignored it.

The tree was in full sun for most of the day. And tree was watered once or twice a week during the summer— I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. The tree liked the direct sun.

Thanks for the neighborly offer to pick fruit from your tree.

Cheers,

Karen

[KarenVChin]

Never knew loquat blossoms have a smell @ErmesT . I don’t remember that as a child. But I do remember the sounds of bees buzzing.

This tree was deeply neglected. Found out that loquat trees in general has shallow root system so very easy to dig out than a normal fruit tree.

The tree has lots blossoms but with the shock of it getting dug up then transported then replanted in a 7 hr period to its new home I am hoping for something but not a lot of fruit for its first year here. I will be happy if it will start to fill out and grow branches.

Loquat trees have big, long, thick, fuzzy leathery leaves. It can grow to 33 ft tall in ideal conditions. But with clay soil here that will be a challenge!

We did find a couple of earthworms while digging the new hole which is a good sign there is life in my soil (It’s been two years of adding redwood mulch to the soil). Hoping the tree will grow back thicker and wider to block my neighbor’s windows is what I wish for too besides producing fruit.

My next door neighbors are excited to try the loquats. They lived in Indonesia for awhile and remember the fruit.

Cheers,

Karen

[Munawar951]

Hi @TsekoV

Thanks for your information,

[ErmesT]

The variety that we have here is the Eriobotrya japonica, @KarenVChin , that have an intense smell.

It is very difficult to have fruits here, because the temperature is too low, but loquat it is very common in gardens precisely because it blooms in late autumn and for the intense scent of its flowers.

I really like the fruits of the loquat, but to get them I have to buy them in the fruit shop

[ErmesT]

Thanks for your photos, @Munawar951

Rice is one of the most important food in the world.

Unfortunately we don’t have too many cultivation of rice here in Italy, but I love harvesting corn

[ErmesT]

What always surprises me, @KarenVChin , is how through selection you can get flowers like this, beautiful but very “unnatural”.

This is a primrose, for sale at one of my favorite greenhouses.

The one below is a primrose, my first this year, photographed in nature on Valentine’s Day. Personally I prefer the latter, for the simple fact that it surprises us in the middle of a lawn, instead of in the shop counter.

[EllyAzim]

Hi @ErmesT

I love your Local Guides Garden & I have become a fan of your garden now

I love flowers, visiting flowers garden and taking flower pictures & nature. There are should be flowers/plant inside my house or in my yard no matter how little the place was. I love to travel in spring because there are so many flowers around.

I move from city to the valley of mt. Rinjani to be able to grow plant & flower easily.
Less effort better result rather than growing them in the city.

There, I run my little inn and pack the yard with many kinds of flowers and fruits.
I grow lots of banana trees, mulberries, strawberries, loquat, avocado, passion fruits, jack fruit, figs & other trees…
Orchids, roses, amaryllis, lilies, geranium, gerbera, vine flowers, cosmos, dahlias, jasmines among many others.
Can we call it Local Guides Garden in Rinjani?
Who knows you will be in the neighbourhood some day, we can have tea or coffee while enjoying the flowers.
Guesses enjoying the flowers with peaceful surrounding and at fruit season we share the harvest with them. They also love to see us pick vegetable fresh before cooking for them.

This time we should be able to see more flowers however rain felt so hard that many also died.

My project this year is to grow more flowers which attract honey bee. I would love to farm honey. I need to have lots of them so that the bees do not go far to find their nectar.

The flowers I took are in Lembah Rinjani Villa & Resto and in Rinjan Garden in Sembalun, Lombok Indonesia from various time. I sometimes post them on their maps.

Being in high place 1100 asl, we can grow almost all plants that people in 4 season countries can grow and bonus being in the tropic we can have harvest twice a year. Plants and flowers are bonuses, I think the view and the landscape are more stunning.

Through women community SembaluNina, we plan to make Sembalun colorful with flowers. In the last 1 years I saw many people in the village grow flowers which is very nice to see.

Enjoy the flower pictures.

Camera I used Samsung tab S, Redmi Note 7, Mi Note Xiaomi

[Munawar951]

Thanks @ErmesT

in Indonesia rice is a staple food.

[ErmesT]

Thanks for your flowers, @LaelyFarida

Local Guides Garden in Rinjani sounds great, I agree.

Also your project sounds great, and I wish you will be able to run your honey farm soon.

I love also the bees, and to take photos of them.

This is season four of the garden, if you go to the end of the main post you will be able to find the link to the previous seasons, an to meet other lover of flowers and nature.

See you soon