Wednesday, 21 July 2021

My Pal The Myrtle Tree.

 Flipping heck it's been hot over here on the Irish Riviera.  

One tree in my garden loves Scorchio temperatures and decided to flower this week.  It's my Myrtle tree.  They originate in Spain and Chile and Sir Walter Raleigh brought them over to these shores in 1586 with spudatoes, oranges, tobacco and bicycles me thinks.😊

I bought the Myrtle tree from a church fete in Durrus in 2001.  It was only about a foot high and I carried it in a plant pot back to the car.  I duly planted it in the back garden and it's now 15 feet:


It's  decided to  flower this week.  It won't (shouldn't!) grow any higher.  It's  bark is orange and peels and the flowers have a wonderful Mediterranean fragrance.  I once breathed in the orange flower blossom one April in the Algarve and thought I was in Heaven.

Myrtle trees like the mild climate down here on the Gulf Stream.  I am not sure if they would live in a northern garden though.

Have you got anything exotic or from overseas growing in your borders?



12 comments:

  1. We have got a Turkish belly dancer growing in our border. She's called Burcu which means "of sweet scent" and she looks spookily like JayCee.

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  2. Burcu- "make us a brew" in Turkish.😊 We once had a Turkish washing machine called Beko.

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  3. She did until she gave up the ghost. Now we have a Candy. She's very sweet! Even I can use it. Fourteen minutes quick wash. I am not going to take my Hoover safe handling course though.

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    1. A man who knows how to use a washing machine! That is astounding. I thought that only women were mentally equipped to grapple with washing machine technology. We have got a German one called Bosch. As you might expect - she is very efficient.

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  4. I had difficulty finding the dolly tub and posser and mangle attachments. Lady Bosh sounds like a nice fraulein.

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  5. Nope. Plain old ordinariness.

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  6. I doubt it Debby. Most of our plants and vegetables originate overseas in the Mediterranean, South America, Asia and Australasia... There's a Fuchsia growing next to my Myrtle in the photograph and they originate in Chile.

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  7. Sadly no - or not that I'm aware of - I guess a Buddleia was once exotic, so does that count?

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  8. I wonder if Myrtle would grow over here?
    YP, you wouldn't compare me with anything named "sweet scent" today. We have just returned from a long walk in the hot sun and I am most definitely not fragrant.

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    1. You're on the Gulf Stream like us JayCee. So I suppose they would grow. We had two weeks of snow in 2010 and our Myrtle survived. I could give you some plants for your new home.

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  9. Why not the bike shed. There's no better butterfly 🦋 attractant in the garden than Buddleia shrub in flower.

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