Christmas in the Garden
What is Christmas in the Garden???? I have been thinking about this, as there is something very like Cherry Plums out on a street tree I have spotted. They cannot be real Cherry Plums, as those trees are huge.
And years ago, they were the Christmas fruit. Every house had a Cherry Plum tree, as they were so easy to propagate. Just grab a seedling from under someone's tree.
And they came into fruit right at Christmas, and were just the right colour. I knew a lot of oldies in the bush, who knew Cherry Plums as the Christmas fruit.
The others are the flowers. For some, it is they must have a bunch of Hydrangeas in the house for Christmas. For some - Lavender, which is at its peak too, and wonderful everywhere in my garden.
For some it is Agapanthus, which are at their peak now - here are mine, which are a wonderful, deep blue. Surrounded by self-sown Larkspur.
Must move them - They were stuck in the Veggie garden as a sort of intensive care, to make sure I kept them when I got a small clump. But there are enough to divide now, and I need them to go somewhere else. Maybe along the back of the veggie garden, where it is too dry and shady for veggies.
posted by Linda at 9:08 AM
3 Comments:
Reading your blog brought home to me how it's the ordinary things that we need to photograph. You talked of Cherry Plum trees, and on the farm we had a row of about 10 trees, which were already 60 years old when we went there. I think the current owner of the property has cut down all but one or two and they would now be about 120 years old. I wish I had some photos of them.
I can't estimate their height but I know they were taller than the big electricity poles that carried the power lines across the farm to the one next door. The trees could be seen for miles when in blossom and the sound of the bees at that time was almost deafening.
I loved the fruit, too. Mum stewed the plums when both ripe or only half ripe and they were always delicious. She made so much jam that she cooked it in the copper in the laundry and, in the early days, bottled it in beer bottles with the necks cut off. Of course, with the trees being so large, we only ever got to use a mere fraction of the fruit - that which could be reached from a ladder or gently shaken to the ground. The rest just fell to the ground, and stuck to shoes, tyres and everything else. For weeks we would have to rake up plums and cart them away by the barrowload, and we were always glad when they had finished.
The plums in your photo are very much bigger than the ones on our trees, so I wonder if they are another variety? They look delicious just the same.
It may be just the picture - the plums are about the same size as I knew Cherry Plums - but the tree is downright stunted, nothing like the huge one still left where we used to live. It is just a small street tree.
But just imagine the trouble there would be now with them with European wasps - we didn't have that problem when we were young. Now I think the trees would be almost dangerous, the way they would attract wasps.
I hadn't thought about European wasps being attracted to them, but I suppose they would be. Ah, the 'good old days'!!!!!!
Post a Comment
<< Home