What .... Green Thumb?

We have been living in this house for past 11 years. But when you look at our backyard it seems as though we just moved in. It hardly has any plants. All thanks to my "not so green thumb".

We had this orange tree for so many years now. We only got one edible orange out of it. If we look over our fence our neighbors seem to be growing fruit in abundance. We also planted a lime tree at the same time as orange tree and we are finally seeing some limes. This morning my daughter was so excited to pick out a fully ripened lime. I took a picture, since in our house the home grown lime is kind of like a celebrity.

Then there is this bird of paradise plant. Apparently there are different kinds in that too. When we planted it we thought we got the usual "orange and purple" variety, but no..... ours is a super special "white" bird of paradise. It hardly ever blooms. So far it bloomed only once, a couple of years ago.

Then there are these 2 hibiscus plants (yellow and orange flowers) which I purchased from my local nursery and planted them. One with orange flowers died and the yellow flowering one barely grew in so many years and gives very few flowers. The only plants that keep coming back each year without fail are the bulbs which bloom in spring. We had these for past 6 years and each year from March to April we see them flowering.

My mom on the other hand is a super green thumb. She once got a small branch of a white hibiscus plant (without a single root) from her friend and planted it in our backyard and it grew so well and all through the year it blooms and gives beautiful flowers. How do you explain that. She also planted a small sapling of an avocado plant last year and it grew into this giant tree. You should see it to believe it.

The only flowering plants I'm successful at growing are the "wild flowers". Thank God for the wild flowers, we had some color in our garden, even if it was temporary.