My Darling Clementine

I recently counted how many fruit trees are on our property and was sort of astonished when the number totaled 16. Three of the fruit trees are Mandarins - 2 Clementines and 1 Seedless Kishu. I look forward to the period in which those little Cuties are available at the store. We buy boxes and boxes of them and practically live off of them for weeks, fruit bat style.

Because it makes sense to grow that which you eat the most of, we decided on the Mandarin trees for the most impact. Ours are still babies and have yet to produce, but they did put forth a few flowers this past summer. Then we had watering issues, and the flowers dried up and dropped off.



I took some pictures of this beautiful Salvia 'Hot Lips' [Salvia x microphylla (grahamii)]* which has finally filled out and started blooming like mad in the past few weeks. It's far too close to the Seedless Kishu Mandarin on the left, and I plan on moving the salvia a couple feet to the right in the picture so it can cascade over the "v" of the wall. It's very happy in this little area.

Side note: this was the very first plant I propagated from a cutting! Fun times.

BUT imagine my surprise when I spotted this little guy in the salvia's overgrowth:



My very first homegrown Mandarin! Exciting!

*Thank goodness for Google, because in order to look like I have any idea abut what I'm talking about, I will start posting Latin in addition to common names of plants. Even though once here I said I would never do that. I'm purposely not linking to that post!