Monday, October 23, 2006

My Papaya Tree is it a boy or girl?


Papayas are my favorite tropical fruits you can do so much with it, you can eat it off the tree, you can mix with other fruits to make great smoothies, milk shakes and with a little rum you can make Papaya coladas. That is why since I had a back yard I always had a couple of papaya trees.
Last year I had the perfect tree, the sweetest and biggest papayas I ever had, then we had a visit from hurricane Wilma and my tree was gone. Among many of the things I needed to do in my garden after the hurricane was getting a new Papaya tree, one day while cleaning up the mess I found a little tree growing near where the old one was.
“Great” an offspring of my perfect Papaya tree. Fast-forward ten months and the tree is an adult with many flowers and no fruits.
Yesterday my 93 year old father came to visit, (let me tell you a little bit about my Dad he is 93 years young keep a beautiful garden in South Florida no easy task for anyone at any age he drives and writes poetry) everything I know about plants I learned from him, now a days our visits and conversations are all about plants and gardening.
So I asked my dad for his opinion on my new Papaya tree. “Son” he said “Esa mata es macho” the plant is a male you will never get a fruit from her. I suspected as much but I wanted the confirmation of the family master Gardner. He continued, “lets pull it out and I will help you pick a new one up the plant nursery”
I said “well Dad I don’t know if I want to pull it out, I like the tropical look it gives the garden” He looked at me like all the advised he had giving me over the years was for not, I didn’t get it. Then he said “Keeping a fruit tree in your back yard that doesn’t bear fruits is like keeping a cat that doesn’t hunt mice, what’s the point”

What is blooming in my garden? A Blomelia plus a lizard

5 comments:

LostRoses said...

Your dad sounds like quite a character! But be sure to tell him it's okay to leave something for beauty's sake even if it isn't "useful". The poet in him probably already knows that! Seems like you might need a companion tree.

Boxwood Cottage said...

Hello Rusty,

I'm popping in to thank you for your gracious comments you've left on my blog :D Nice to meet a fellow gardener from Florida!

La Gringa said...

Hi Rusty, I'm enjoying your blog and your garden looks very nice! I searched for southern Florida gardening blogs a long time ago (thinking the climate wasn't tooooo terribly different from mine in Honduras) but I didn't find yours. I'm glad I found it now and will add it to my bloglines.

I like the macho papayas becauses the flowers have a nice scent that the females don't seem to have. Why not just plant another one and hope that it will be a female.

Thanks for the tip about papaya coladas -- I never thought of that!

Anonymous said...

thanks for the help i have the same problem

Anonymous said...

thanks for the help i have the same problem