Our garden in Andalucia

The best garden surprises this year

Right at the start of the lockdown in Spain in mid-March, we noticed that our Bird of Paradise plant seemed to be growing a flower.  Now, that really is something!  We’d never managed to get a flower before, and they are astonishingly beautiful with vibrant colours.  Every single day we took a good look at the plant and hoped ….

But it probably is the slowest ever growing flower in the world!  The changes each day were subtle, and sometimes seemed to be non-existent.  However, the result after a long 12 weeks was worth waiting for, and it reminded us of when we first saw these flowers at a Colombia coffee plantation that we visited some years ago with a similar climate, though a lot more humidity.

Our Bird of Paradise in flower, after a long 12 week wait

For most of the year, our garden is dry, hot and full of stones.  Ideal conditions for cacti, we thought, and so Hilary has created a magnificent cactus garden near our house.  It’s doing well, but growth is even slower than the Bird of Paradise and with some of the less common species, we’re lucky to see 0.5 cm of growth each year.   Oddly, the cacti in our cactus garden bed have been struggling a bit with too much heat and sunshine in the summer, whereas the sedum that we imported from the UK has been thriving.  How weird is that!

The cactus bed

One day when we took our rubbish to the village, Hilary spotted a cactus that had been thrown away.  It didn’t look particularly well, and it had no roots.  Most people wouldn’t have looked twice.  But Hilary saw the potential, wrapped it in a blanket and took it home.  Since then he’s nursed it, fed it, watered it, nurtured it and talked to it – and it has produced the most beautiful big flower.  We now regularly look in and around the bins, though I feel this was a bit of a one-off!

We’ve also found a fantastic lily plant with magnificent flowers hidden away behind the oleanders. They are in lots of gardens here, and make for beautiful cut flowers.

• Found by a bin, without the flower!
• Found underneath oleanders

Surprisingly, roses also do really well in this part of the world.  They seem to like the warmth and the sunshine, though they do require a lot of water.  But then they flower – abundantly!

Glorious roses

What hasn’t worked well in the garden

A few months ago I happened to see a notice on Facebook, advertising the sale of a mega-big euphorbia cactus.  It didn’t take us long to decide that that was just what we needed for our courtyard, and we drove to the coast to pick it up.  Not an easy job – it was more than 6ft tall and prickly (of course), with some very delicate branches that could easily break off. 

We got it home, potted it, and it’s been there for around 6 months and in that time it has increasingly gone yellow.  Not a good sign.… So I think we’re going to lose it – eventually – and in hindsight we’ve realised that it needed a different climate.  It didn’t like the colder winter nor the dryer and hotter summer that we have in el campo.   And that’s the same for mimosa trees and hibiscus, so I’ve given up on that dream for now.

Euphorbia cactus, looking yellow and not so happy

Over the past few months we have planted an orange tree, a lime tree and two lemon trees and we’re very excited because they have all flowered with beautiful smelling blossom.  Apparently, you should take off any fruit in the first year to strengthen the tree, but I’m not sure I can bring myself to do that.

• Lemon and lime trees newly planted
• Limes growing well

The best surprise earlier this year was when Hilary removed an insignificant looking shrub that had been totally overgrown by weeds.  A friend of ours commented that it looked a bit like a citrus tree, and so we took a punt and planted it in the orchard (a rather grandiose term for our small garden area with fruit trees …) and with some tender loving care this very poorly tree has produced its first lemon smelling blossom and is growing well.  It will be so exciting to pick our first lemons and taste them – can’t wait!

The lemon tree nearly thrown out, but now doing well in the orchard