Camellias, Grapefruit

Growing season for some things and not for others. On advice, we cut the camellias way back and no blooms, maybe next year. The White Empress we did not cut back.

My mother would be horrified at cutting back camellias. 

Grapefruit are prolific again, both pink and ruby red. The pink are regular size for the most part. The red are small, about orange size, and they don’t seem as ruby red or as sweet as were the original fruit from whence came the seeds that sprouted the trees.

Linda’s mother Lucile Peters has all the credit for the grapefruit trees. When she finished her breakfast grapefruit, she would take a few seeds and go out into the yard, punch a hole in the ground with her finger, insert a seed, and smooth it over. That was summer 1997 through fall 2001. 

We have four large grapefruit trees now, two of them bearing. We picked a hundred pink ones a week ago and there are more up high to be picked. Haven’t picked but a few red yet.

Bees burrow deep into the blossoms. Fifty-odd years ago I was carrying Malinda around in the Peters' yard and let her grab a red camellia. HIdden deep in it was a bee, which stung her hand.

T