MIDNIGHT GARDENING: EXOTIC FRUIT TREES

I've earned the unofficial title of "Goth Gardener" because of my habit of doing a lot of gardening at night, sometimes after midnight. It's not that I necessarily have a penchant for lurking around in the dark, but is usually done out of necessity: I simply don't have enough free time during daylight hours. But I will say that there is something quite relaxing and zen-like, hanging out with plants late at night. 

 On my latest nighttime venture this past weekend, I headed out into the garden around midnight to remove five overgroan cherry tomato plants to make room for my growing collection of young exotic fruit trees. Gardening real estate is scarce in my apartment backyard so I need every spare inch of space. I purposely did this weekend's gardening late at night for a good reason. It was one of the hottest day's of the year, several degrees over 100 and even working at night was very sweat-inducing since the air was humid and in the mid-70s.

After picking the last few red tomatoes, I snipped the base of each plant and then spent a good deal of time breaking down the tangle of tomato vines and cleared out the debris to prepare the area for the exotic fruit trees.

At 2am, the job is done and I am beaten to a pulp. It was exhausting but satisfying work and I am quite pleased with the results. I've purposely kept all of the trees in their pots because I am still trying to figure out the ideal arrangement. Most of the trees are small still and I'm trying to gauge which ones will be fast and slow growers in order to keep the taller ones in the back.

Here's a clearer view of the exotic fruit tree area in daylight. I have are several bananas, a tropical guava, two strawberry guavas, three papayas, three wolfberry (goji), several avocados, a fig, and a Surinam cherry. They fit nicely in this area now but I am still in a state of denial about the reality of exactly how much room they will need in the near future. There's still time to plot my long-term strategy.

MANTIS INVASION

I've had a flurry of praying mantis sightings over the past several months, both in my tropical garden in Pasadena and also on the landscaped grounds of my job in Burbank. They are truly stunning critters. Beautiful but deadly.

A COUPLE OF WEE LITTLE XANTHOSOMAS FOR THE GARDEN

Last summer I picked up a Xanthosoma Robusta plant for my parents' garden. This aroid plant is also known as an elephant ear, similar to Alocasias and Colocasias (which are prominent in my garden). A few months later the eigh inch tall plant seemed to have vanished from it's spot in their garden. I'm not sure what happened but since they live a few miles from the Pacific Ocean I guess the cooler autumn air caused it to go dormant and die back to soil level. This seemed to be the case because this past weekend, I checked the spot where it had been and discovered four new baby Xanthosomas. My folks generously allowed me to snag a few for my garden. Here's a photo of one of them:

Although my petite apartment jungle garden is way beyond capacity, I figure I can make room for a few more fascinating plants. I mean, how much 'damage' can two little Xanthosoma's do?

And the answer to my last question: A LOT! Xanthosomas, much like many elephant ear plants, stays true to its namesake, and grows monstrously huge leaves in a very short amount of time. The one in this photo could well be less than a year or two old! Well, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't aware of this before getting the plants (I already have dozens of elephant ears so I should know better), but I couldn't resist. As for how to deal with these giant plants in my compact garden, well, I'll cross that path when I get to it. In the meantime, I can't wait to see the huge leaves!

THE ARRIVAL OF THE GOJI PLANTS!

I've been pondering the idea of growing goji berries (also known as Wolfberries/Lycium barbarum)  for a while now. And although my compact apartment garden is pretty much filled to capacity with tropical plants and exotic fruit trees, I had a moment of weakness last weekend and made an impulse purchase on eBay: 8 goji plants! Each plant reaches a height of over 6 feet so this was not a very wise choice, given the minimal space I have available. But I was able to negotiate with the very courteous seller, botanyshop.com, who offered to instead send me 3 larger plants, plus a free pollinator plant (if I understand correctly, goji plants have the best chance of producing fruit if accompanied by a goji bush of a slightly different breed).

An unsuspecting package arrives! I, of course, have no idea what it can be.

Here are the 3 goji berry bushes that were in the package plus the pollinator plant, an inconspicuous but apparently very necessary component for having a successful crop. All plants look dry and barren but I'm quite confident that after a few weeks of regular watering in their transplanted pots, they will be just fine.

Here are all 4 plants transplanted into larger pots (Gardening tip: Shop for pots at 99 cent store!).  You'll notice that the photo is shot against a dark garden. I do most of my gardening under a moonlit sky, out of necessity. By the way, let me apologize in advance if my blog looks rather messy. It's in the middle of a complete makeover. Please bear with me. I promise bigger and better things!

JUNGLE GARDEN BEFORE/AFTER VIDEOS - MAY 2009/AUGUST 2011

Check out my apartment tropical garden transformation in these videos taken two years apart. I always forget the full impact until I view these side-by-side and then it reminds me that all my hard work (sweating in 100+ heat and laboring under a midnight moon) has paid off. The garden has officially gone 'native'.