Japanese Loquat

Before my Georgia Flower garden became a garden, I planted a lone Japanese Loquat; Eriobotrya Japonica. I believe this was planted in the fall of 2004 but this was prior to my digital camera days so the best "before" picture I could show you is the above being May 2005. The bench and hosta came later in the spring.

My neighbor operates an Air Conditioning and Small Appliance business from his house. I planted this bush type tree to hide his pile of dead appliances. They pile up until he has enough to load onto his trailer and head off to the scrap yard. This was never an issue for us until we cut down 8 trees to make way for the boat shed. Once the trees were down, my eyes saw the ugly. So in went the first thing to hide the ugly. Here is the same bush this past Oct 10, 2008.

It has the most sweet smelling blooms and the scent carries in the Fall air as the Jasmine does in early summer.

The blooms start out in this fuzzy looking stem. Notice the Dew drops.

The flowers seem to pop open over night with tiny white blooms.

The blooms are not so pretty when they begin to open but the smell is wonderful.

On this October morning, the long tailed Skipper.....

Monarch...

Bee...

And this spotted Skipper were all indulging in the sweet juice from the Loquat.

This year the bush had more blooms then ever and really did put on a sweet smelling show for me.

I give this plant an occasional drink of water and also fresh pine straw as mulch each spring. The only negative I can think of is, the leaves are thick as if a magnolia tree so they don't mulch up well in the compost bin. It drops leaves during drought times as you see in the above picture. But this picture was taken the same day as the others so you can see how full and lush green it was for me even though dropping some leaves.

My neighbor has since installed a wooden privacy fence so I no longer see his pile of dead appliances. But I am glad he had that pile where it was located or I might not have planted this JAPANESE LOQUAT, In the Garden...