Mutterings and Musings

Palm Prank

Challenge: Do you have a green thumb? Are you a gardener? Do you want to be?

Whilst I do have outdoor space, it's a flat roof that has been decked and carpeted with artificial grass. I've got various pots out there, some of which are pretty big; but my options are still fairly limited. For my birthday last year, Best Beloved bought me a lemon tree and followed it up with an orange tree for our first wedding anniversary. Despite the UK being much cooler than they'd like, both trees fruited (well, I got a dozen lemons, but only two oranges). And the excitement I experienced was ridiculous.
Father-in-law also bought us a cycad palm (the really dumpy ones that look like brown pineapples with a crazy amount of leaves spiking out) for our anniversary which seems to be doing really well.

And that got me thinking, if our garden is sheltered enough for them, what else can I grow?

Well, if you make the mistake of asking that sort of question in front of a friend who is a professional gardener, you end up with a very eclectic Christmas present - I've got a kiwi vine, a fig tree, an olive tree, something called a Japanese wine-berry (I have high, but likely misplaced, hopes for this one), and there's a peach tree with my name on it still at her's (thanks lock-down). I am badly running out of space and there are plant pots everywhere.

I plan on getting my own back mind. I'm trying to germinate some date palms (and if I have to eat my own body weight in medjool dates to get the stones then that is a sacrifice I'm prepared to make...). They have the awesome Latin name Phoenix dactylifera and take five to seven years to mature enough to fruit, so it's a long-con. But I'm germinating half a dozen for her (and a few for myself) and they will produce 70-140kg (150-300lbs) of dates every year each.

Best Beloved isn't pleased; he doesn't like dates and he does like our roof garden the way it is, i.e. a roof.