Summer Garden highlights - 我が家の庭のハイライト

Well, it's nearly done, gone, finished, over...wonderful summertime is ending. I hope we will get warm weather well into November this year, but the garden is already showing signs of the impending cold weather that will arrive in the coming months. I suppose the destructive typhoon (hurricane) we had pass over us a few weeks ago did not help. My cucumber and tomato plants were slaughtered in the relentless wind and were not able to recover. This year I wasn't so into my herb gardening as the puppy kept me pretty occupied. Here is what we had this year:

Edibles:
Rosemary
Lemon Grass
Basil
Lemon Balm
Scented Geranium
Thyme
Chives (mei negi)
Bell Peppers (piman)
Shishito Peppers
Cucumbers
Tomatoes
Echinacea
Lemon (2 regular variety trees and one "giant" variety lemon tree)
Apple Mint
Aloe Vera
Blueberry

Non edibles were:
Plumerias (5 small trees, various colors)
Hibiscus (double flower type)
Jasmine
Angel's Trumpet
Hydrangea
Gardenia
Iilima
Tuberose
Forget-me-Nots
Other various 'always' there plants such as Climbing White Roses, Dichondra lawn, and a few things here and there I don't know the names of.

Only one of the plumeria trees flowered this year, but that was to be expected as they are all only 2 years old (except for one which is 3 years old). It us not usual to get flowers on trees younger than 3 years old. Beginning next year, I hope to get LOTS of flowers!

Plumerias out to the garden in early spring from their wintering safely indoors. They lose all their leaves in the winter but start sprouting new leaves in spring.

A close up of a sprouting inflorescence (a plumeria inflorescence is the clumpy looking growth that will produce flowers). Also can be seen are the new leaves being formed (they look like little brown 'horns').

The growing inflorescence, the little green tips are the flowers forming.

The first flower to open with many more ready to open soon!

Finally we have flowers! They smelled SO GOOD. I enjoyed wearing them in my hair or wrapping like a small boutonniere on a wire to give to friends. Daisy liked them too.


A picture from today, end of summer, before the leaves have started to drop off.

As usual, I can not seem to keep lemons on the tree in Japan. I have tried unsuccessfully for 5 years now to get lemons from my trees (I have 2 trees). They get hundreds of sweet smelling blooms and then the fruit starts forming but shortly after this, everything falls off a few everyday until there is no fruit growing anymore! This year, I added a new lemon tree, a variety that is supposed to produce giant lemons and it did keep ONE precious lemon on it. It's is still green right now and it is pretty big! Hope will we be able to enjoy it soon.

The newly forming fruits on the Giant Lemon tree. As you can see here, all but 2 of the little lemons have fallen out. I wish I knew how to solve this problem. Does anyone out there have any suggestions?

Our ONE precious lemon...it's about the size of a softball at the moment!

We got some great cucumbers this year and made some onolicious salads and tsukemono (Japanese style pickles) from them, but the tomatoes weren't very productive this year. Everything else was green and enjoyable all season. The Dichondra even held up well to the tramplings of the new puppy! I'm so glad we chose that for our lawn instead of grass.

Here are some pics of some other things in of our garden this year.
Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Echinacea sprouting from the ground in early spring.

Echinacea growing taller and taller.

A little bee enjoying an Echinacea flower.

Our Hydrangeas in full bloom (they are growing in an extra large container!).

Close up of the pretty purple Hydrangea flowering, it's called Ajisai in Japanese.

Fabulous Scented Geranium blooming in early summer.