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Money Tree

13/7/2014

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Do You have a Money Tree?

We all wish we had a money tree. How handy it would be.

You can grow your own money tree. They are very easy to grow but, alas, you cannot use their leaves to buy things.

The Money Tree is only one of the names given to this lovely plant, Crassula ovata. It is known by many other names:
  • Jade Plant
  • Friendship tree
  • Lucky Plant
  • Dollar plant
Picture
Crassula ovata, Money Plant, Jade Tree
The Chinese people use this plant in Feng Shui. Feng Shui is a system of energy that the Chinese people have worked out over thousands of years. It is beneficial to the energy of a place to have buildings facing a certain way, items in a house placed in certain positions in a room etc.

It is thought that there should be a Jade plant or Money tree at the front door of every home to make prosperity flow into a house.

The Money plant or Jade tree makes a great bonsai plant. A bonsai plant is kept to under one metre tall (3 feet). It is kept in a small flat pot to restrict its root system. It looks like a miniature plant.

I have a plant also called a Jade tree that my Mum started about 35 years ago. It has gone through dry times when it became stunted and thin, and well watered times when it looks luscious and green. You know how it is, people don't always know the correct name for their plant. It turns out the one I have is
Crassula Portulacaria, also called Baby Jade or Elephant's Food or Elephant Bush. Apparently elephants liked to nibble on the tips of it. Of course it grew a lot bigger in its native Africa out in the wild.


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Garden Near the Sea

6/7/2014

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Picture
Flowers that grow well by the sea.
I live in a quiet seaside town that becomes a resort from mid November to April and some weekends in the off season as well. It is a beautiful part of the world with the sea from the Southern ocean just a seven minute walk away.

Our daytime temperature varies from about 6 degrees C to 14 degrees C in the winter, usually near the lower end, to 18 degrees to 42 degrees C in the summer, averaging about 30 degrees. We get very cold winds off the sea in the wintertime and it is a time to rug up. We have been having unseasonably warm weather of about 15 - 18 degrees C at the moment, as it is winter time in the southern hemisphere from June till August. Then spring comes along quickly.

Because our weather is not too cold in winter I always have a garden full of greenery with a few flowers showing themselves. At the moment we have the lovely Turk's cap with its bright red flowers. This has become a massive bush and flowers most of the time. Pretty white daisies are flowering as is a lovely hebe. This plant used to be called Veronica. Every now and then, scientists decide that a plant must now reside in another family. It's a bit like adoption. The plant is still the same old plant. Oh well.

There is also an odd geranium flowering, no pelargoniums at the moment. One lavender is showing its colour and there is a lovely strong succulent that is in full bloom. It is covered in bright white flowers.

The nasturtiums take over a large part of the garden this time of the year - winter. There are no flowers yet but their bright green round leaves are so lovely. The stem of the leaf comes out of the middle of the leaf. Our three year old granddaughter found that they looked like a top or an umbrella when she spun the leaf. The leaves are big and round, up to about fifteen cm (6inches) across. They look lovely in the morning as they hold the dew, or after a rain shower.
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    Author

    I love growing flowers in my garden and sometimes make Flower Essences from them. They have great healing properties. Chickens adorn my backyard and give me much pleasure too.

    My garden is free range like my chickens, there is no order here. All plants get along happily together.


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