Homegrown in a Greek Garden

I love my garden, although hard work, gardening is a rewarding hobby, sometimes a chore but the results make it all worthwhile.

There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing that first tiny shoot emerge from a seed which you have planted and lovingly nurtured.

If you are anything like me, after planting seeds, you inspect them carefully every day; I even put on my reading glasses to make sure I don’t miss anything!

As the days turn into weeks, they are no longer inspected so often, eventually I accept that they have been a failure, then, one day, when they are nearly forgotten about, I have a quick glance and there it is: that first sign of life, oh the excitement, I’m back to inspecting them every day first thing in the morning, before I have even had my coffee!

 So far I’ve done rather well with seeds, pips and fruit stones, my latest are from date stones, of which I planted twelve, four of them germinated only for two of them to later die, the lucky survivors I shall ‘pot on’ tomorrow, I’ll have a sort through my collection of clay pots, see if I have enough fresh earth and settle them into their new homes.

While I’m at it, I shall plant some palm tree seeds, which I had collected one day at the end of the summer whilst on my way back from the beach when I noticed the hundreds of seeds hanging from palm trees outside our house.

The yellow, outer casing of the seeds is very tough; I had a very sore thumb nail after removing the seeds from their protective casings, don’t the seeds look like coffee beans?

 My first success with seeds and fruit stones was in 2004, the year of the Greek Olympic Games when I had planted plum stones, peach stones, apricot stones and lemon pips, that same year, a tiny fig sapling appeared of its own accord, I nurtured that too.

The plums I had taken the stones from are called vanillias, here in Greece, I searched the internet to find the English name for them, I think they may be Victoria plum but I’m not sure.

Plum blossom

We have bumper crops of ‘Olympic figs’ every year and as for ‘Olympic plum’, I have lost count of how many kilos of  delicious, mouth watering, plum jam I’ve made over the years.

Plum Crazy – All my own work

I can’t show you the apricot or the peach tree, which did grow very well, but died after a few years, the peach tree formed fruit that never grew very big before dropping off, the apricots faired a lot better but only gave about ten or so apricots each year  before that tree also finally gave up the ghost.

The lemon pips I planted are doing splendidly, after having them in small pots I transplanted them into the back garden, no fruit yet, but I’m optimistic, another success I have had, which I must say surprised me, is with bare root rose trees, all the way from England.

While ordering the “bare root” roses from the internet, I wasn’t really hopeful that they would grow, would it be too hot here, would they survive the journey from England?

I was even less hopeful when they arrived, they looked like dry dead sticks with a few straggly, bare roots, they grew, in fact they grew very well and we have glorious roses every spring!

 ‘Zephrine Drouhin’ I chose for its deep pink colour, its intoxicating scent and also for the fact that it is thornless.

‘Iceberg ‘, I chose for ‘The White Rose of Yorkshire’, as I’m a true Yorkshire lass, born and bred in Leeds.

‘New Dawn’, I chose for its lovely pale pink color, well it looked pale pink in the picture on the internet, it’s more of a salmon pink, still beautiful though.

New Dawn climbing rose

Something else that grew from nothing is this gigantic yucca tree, once in a small pot plant that my daughter had bought for me over twenty years ago, I can’t really say that I like yuccas; too spiky, I prefer flowing, softer plants, so I pulled it from its small pot and stuck it in a corner of the garden, just stuck it in, I didn’t even dig a hole for it, it grew, it absolutely flourished into…‘The Revenge of the Yucca!

Succulents also grow very well from small cuttings; I have three or four large urns and pots absolutely overflowing with them, this one (below), I especially like, I took the tiniest little piece from a plant in one of the parks in Loutraki.

H then sent me another picture of a Cycas Revoluta that she had taken in Eleusina  which shows the fruit opening to show the seeds.