Tree of the week

Good morning. We've been arguing about L.A. on this site this week -- whether the quality of life here is worth the price we pay to live here. Here's some quality: the region's stunning and seemingly boundless variety of trees. Pieter Severynen's tree of the week:

The Orange Tree – Citrus sinensis

"Oranges originated some 4,000 years ago in southeast Asia; their name derives from the Sanskrit ‘narangh.’ Alexander the Great brought the bitter or sour orange, Citrus aurantium, to Greece and the Moors cultivated it in Spain. When Columbus returned from his voyage to the new world he convinced the Spanish rulers Ferdinand and Isabella that there was money to be made in the Indies: for his second trip in 1493 he acquired orange seeds and sugar cane cuttings in the Canary island of Gomera to establish commercial plantations. The first one was set up in Hispaniola; oranges later spread on the mainland from St. Augustine, Fla.  But around that time European sailors brought the sweet orange from China to Portugal.

"That fruit caused an immediate sensation: not only did it have the scurvy fighting qualities of the bitter Seville orange, but it also possessed a delicious taste. The new fruit tree quickly spread in the Americas.

"This evergreen compact tree is beautiful year round, in bloom or fruit or without. Dozens of varieties reflect its long history. Note that mandarin oranges and tangelos are grouped in the Citrus reticulata species.  If you want to buy an orange tree consult a good reference source, such as the Sunset Western Garden Book. Valencia oranges need less heat and can stand more frost than navels, while blood oranges vary. 

"The rootstock (almost all Citrus trees are sold grafted) determines if the tree will be a globe shaped 30’ x 30’standard or a 10’ x 10’ or smaller dwarf and makes the tree bear fruit when young. Fruit may hang on the tree for a long time before it is fully ripe. Production is heaviest on the lowest branches. Cool nights cause the orange color and increase acid content. Harvest period depends on variety. The small white flowers in spring are freshly fragrant, the elliptical leaves, typically 6” x 3” but up to 9” long, are shiny dark green. The thin brown bark burns easily when exposed to sun. The tree needs good drainage and performs best when it is irrigated deeply, fertilized several times a year and has its soil covered with a thick layer of mulch. Given good care the tree can live and produce for well over half a century."

Thanks, Pieter.
Photo Credit: From Wikimedia by Wilbanks, licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution license. Original at: www.flickr.com/photos/wilbanks/100480646/
Email Pieter: plseve@earthlink.net

Comments

[Uncle Billy]

Weeeeeeell.... the three legged stool of the local economy seems to be getting mightly wobbly. Unemployment. Dubya, you can leave california out when you talk about our vibrant, resilient, heh, heh, economy. All those people a-floodin' in, and job growth projected to be "sub 1%" going forward. It's going to take a mighty well-run village.

Times article today: http://tinyurl.com/23r4oy

Let's plant some orange groves, pronto!

[Uncle Billy]

More tempered optimism from the NY Times today:

http://tinyurl.com/33vu2o

Are all the folks driving merrily down the freeways, frolicking on the beaches, enjoying marvelously diverse ethnic cuisine today, aware of how serious things are? Or just the ones that read the "dismal" columns in the newspapers? One would think that as this giant ship begins to slip beneath the waves, we would be doing more than arranging the deckchairs. I used to think that a positive attitude and constructive optimism would help; that negativism led to self fulfilling prophecies, but now I really have my doubts. Hello paralysis, goodbye orange groves.

As long as we're blowing off steam here... nearly $40B in bonuses this year on wall street??? At whose freaking expense? Full Disclosure: Yes I wouldn't mind one or two of those billions, but I don't think I would trash my own country just to get them.

[sunsetbeachguy]

Peter:

The blog seems to have a pretty firm consensus that there was a RE bubble and it wasn't a good thing to borrow from Martha Stewart.

Even the media and government are openly talking about an RE bubble. Heck even Greenspan admitted in on 60 minutes.

An interesting angle, that no one else to date has pursued yet, is getting an interview with Daniel Gross of Slate whose book Pop! why bubbles are great for the economy to explain to LA's unwashed masses the unrecognized but great benefits of a massive housing bubble.

Thanks for considering it!

[Laura in L.A.]

The heavenly scent of the orange groves in bloom is the scent of California.

I miss all the orange and lemon groves that used to be in the Upland/Ontario area of my youth. There was nothing like it.

[Dr. Fleischer]

You are right about the citrus trees coming from a common root stock. My lemon tree produced the greatest oranges. Below the graft line,(greater than 1 foot from the ground) sent up a branch that bore the oranges. I rather have oranges than the lemons that I don't eat. The tree is over 30 years old.

[Manny from Inglewood, because its Real Estate... unlike that other Fake Estate]

i miss Riverside, my University had tons of orange trees every where around the campus, it was great! when ever you were hungry in between class you could pick an orange! they really are nice when they bloom