Gardening in Fuerteventura

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

A favourite plant has died on me almost overnight 

In it's prime, back in August:


Today:
 

Looking underneath the plant I found the culprit pest, a form of scale:


The plant was too far gone to treat and save, so it came out and went in the wheelie bin, not the compost heap.

The Weather was perfect for spraying though so I mixed up 5L of Bayer Ultimate Bug Killer and late afternoon I had a good go at other specimens of this plant and my hibiscus that had got blackfly and my shrubby poinsettia that had cochineal, and so on and so on, avoiding areas where I've got Monarch caterpillars. I'd just finished when a swarm of hummingbird hawkmoths arrived so I hope they didn't get affected.

I also found another type of scale on the Mexican petunia:


This also got sprayed but I get a lot of satisfaction from squashing these ones by hand. Get red fingers but I take my angst out on the little buggers. 

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

I've been having a look around a couple of friend's gardens the last few days and took some pics to show examples of what else grows well here that I don't have in my garden, or they are getting better results than I am in mine.

 
I love the flowers on this but not so keen on the plant the rest of the year. Beware, one plant rapidly becomes hundreds and is difficult to eradicate if you change your mind!

 a stunning gazania - mine haven't done so well this year. Got attached by cochineal and scale 

 a gorgeous kalanchoe, I'd never seen this colour before.

  

  all sorts of peppers for the eating of, hotter the better!

 

 

 

 an uncontrolled yucca! The seedpods are interesting, similar shape to the Pitcher Plant.

 

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

cont:
  

 

  enormous Majorero geraniums!

  

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

an update from this post: https://fuerteventura.click/Thread-Garde...9#pid21119[url=https://i.imgur.com/tEnI5mk.jpg][/url]

My bananas still aren't swelling/ripening. The pups have grown back. I'm giving extra water and feed.

Latest effort: I've drastically pruned the hibiscus growing in front of the banana so direct sun can get on the fruit and tomorrow I'm going to attempt to cut the top hand of fruit off. This is following the suggestions of a friend in Florida who grows them successfully! He cuts the top hand and hangs it in full sun to ripen.



Anyone got any other ideas/experience?

[Can the Man]

Some new ideas for gardening Tamara, invite some elderly friends round to help 😃
   

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Nice one Can!

If anyone else's garden is suffering from the unwanted attention of other people's cats I have found this to be quite effective. Last pretty well due to our lack of rain!

[Johnrgby]

Bayer Ultimate Bug Killer. can I ask where you buy it Tamara? we have 5/6 Hibiscus and if anything happened to them management would not be happy

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Bayer Ultimate Bug Killer. can I ask where you buy it Tamara? we have 5/6 Hibiscus and if anything happened to them management would not be happy

Amazon, John! 
However it's not quite as good as it used to be, no longer marketed as systemic 😭 needs several applications, week to 10 days apart, to do the same job.

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

A friend and I visited Happy Plants on Sunday having vowed to ourselves we were just picking up needed compost    . 
We spent 3 hours there 🤣 , looking at everything, and of course we couldn't resist some impulse buys 
My friend bought some cacti, her hobby, and I was delighted to find a Black Mulberry tree and an orange poinsettia for the garden (and a few little oddments) - how could I resist? We didn't forget the compost but it was a good job there were just the two us in the Rav4, 10 sacks of compost and large cacti didn't leave much room for anything else.

Some pics giving an example of just a small selection of what is available there at the moment:

  

  

  

  

  

 

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

cont: