I kept thinking about that tree in the little pot and I remembered that I had ordered seeds several years ago for some tree, had planted a few of them and could not remember the name of it. I cannot remember what I did 10 minutes ago but the word “olifera” popped into my head so I searched through my email and found this:
Mystery Tree
Google helped me find this:
Mystery Tree
Yay! Mystery solved! I read a bit about it and you can Google it. There are all kinds of health claims, most of which . . at least what I read . . have not been proven but that doesn’t concern me because the big dollar pharma companies are not going to waste money testing something like this. Can say that I blame them .. their brad and butter is not in homeopathy. Not only do I not blame big pharma but I don’t trust them. Call me cynical, but I’ll do my darned best to find an alternative before buying into most of today’s maintenance type meds. I understand that some are very necessary and beneficial but most are not for me, at least not until I’ve tried every home remedy I’ve heard about and so much of what ails us today, I believe could be greatly reduced with better eating habits, more exercise and weight loss. And here’s the big caveat: Do as I do and not as I say! 🙁
The reasons that I ordered it can be found on Wikipedia’s article.
- Fast growing
- Drought resistant
- Fragrant flowers
- Sun and heat loving plant
There are a few potential issues I say:
- Prefers neutral to slightly acidic soil. Why does so much of what I grow want acidic soil? Where we were in Louisiana, there were so many pine trees and we were always having to add lime to bring down the acidity. This is so opposite from what I’ve always known.
- Does not tolerate frost or freezing. Another problem with growing things not native to this area . . 110° plus here in the summer; possibly into the single digits in the winter.
All I can do is try . . right? Nothing ventured/nothing gained. I will grow it in a pot for a few years and then maybe find a good southern exposure location to plant it in the ground and hope for the best.
For now, at least I solved the mystery of what kind of tree it is and I won’t be expecting it to produce lychee fruit!