Friday 1 December 2017

If I had to do it all again???


Lately my wife & I have been thinking of (reluctantly) moving out of the city to somewhere a little more rural. Which is a bittersweet prospect for a gardener. One one hand it would be exciting to have a bigger slice of land to do gardening projects and the dream of a slower more peaceful surrounds. On the other, however, it would be quite sad to say goodbye to the garden i have spent so much time in & all my plant friends I've nurtured over the years. So of late, with this in mind, i've been thinking - If I had to do it all again, what would be my essential plants and projects i would have to have in my new garden?? 



Firstly my new garden would of course based around fruit and food forest ideology with a particular focus on citrus, as you could imagine. I have grown so many different cultivars of citrus in my current garden which has been great to have such a collection. But in future i would like to focus more on taste, extending the season and productivity of the fruit grown. For example i have a quite few bitter oranges such as Bergamot, Serville, Chinotto. Which are interesting trees and unusual fruits but i would much rather have a good eating Mandarin in its place which i would enjoy much more. Another example would be my blood oranges, which i love and are still one of my favourite citrus. The thing with them though is they are incredibly slow to produce (at least 4-5 years) and when they do the fruit is quite small and rarely coloured. If you compare this to say a Cara Cara where they are a vigorous, highly productive tree with loads of fruit. I would also like to have more fruit to eat fresh in the hand rather than those needing time for processing into drinks, marmalade or the like.
With this in mind these would be the essentials for my new Fruit Forest......

Mandarins:
MihoSilverhillEncoreOkitsu WaseW. Murcott Afourer, Scarlett Burgess.
Oranges:
Moro Blood OrangeTarocco Blood OrangeCara Cara
Tangors:
Tangor DweetTangor UgliTangor Kiyomi
Limes:
TahitianAustralian FingerlimeKey Lime
Lemons:
Meyer, Pink Variegated Eureka, Lemonade
Other:
YuzuBuddha Hand

Feijoas
Apollo, Golden Goose, Mammoth
Peaches
Golden Queen, Pixzee, Bonanza, Black Boy
Apples
Pacific Rose, Gala
Passionfruit
Black, Red Banana, Sweet Granadilla
Grapes
Albany Surprise, Niagara
Raspberries
Aspiring, Ivory

Avocado "Hass"
Apricot
Blueberrys
Fig
Blackcurrants
Elderflower
Lemon Myrtle
Plum "Black Doris"
Pear "Beurre Bosc"
Nashi Double Graft "Hosui" with "Nijiseiki"
Coffee
Bananas
Nectarine




Other projects i would definitely look at would be planting out another Lavender farm.