Smell of milkwoods prevails

Day 308 – it’s Thursday and it’s that time of year again.

That all-pervasive overpowering scent is the milkwoods flowering - though scent could be the wrong word (at least you know you may not have the virus).

Tiny milkwood flower petals pepper the entire garden, and the berries aren ’ t far behind.

The berries are the real problem. We have one male tree which bears no fruit but the other four are all female, and do. In profusion.

They’re sticky and they stain – and ruin your shoes – and floors.

But milkwoods are protected. You need a permit to take one down, and even to trim them back.

And out of sheer self-preservation, you do need to trim them – they grow so tall and spread so wide, and every now and again, a big branch just drops.

We’ve had two taken down – it was that or goodbye house foundations. All that aside, it’s a particularly beautiful tree.

The branches form magical shapes –I would love one as a bonsai but apparently that’s “verboten”.

Heaven knows why since I spend considerable time and effort pulling up the seedlings.

Without their shade, we would die of heat on our deck and we couldn’t grow clivias, plectranthus or bromeliads. Evergreen, they shed leaves throughout the year, in a constant autumn. So there’s always a layer of mulch.

So in spite of the odour and the mess, I wouldn’t be without them.

See you at Cherrywood Nursery.