Hi, Here is more information: The Nagami or Oval Kumquat (Fortunella.margarita) is the most common variety in the United States. It was introduced into Florida from Japan in 1885 and has been grown commercially in the "Kumquat Capitol," Saint Joseph, Florida since 1895. The Nagami Kumquat is oval in shape, 3/4" to 1" in diameter and between 1" to 2" long. The tartness of the fruit makes them great for use in cooking and/or for marmalades and jellies. The tree is shrub like and is similar to an orange tree in appearance. It is a prolific bearer and very decorative because of the dark green leaves and brilliant orange fruit. The fruit lasts for several months on the tree in warm winter climates. The trees do very well when planted in the yard or in larger pots. They can withstand temperatures as low as 28 degrees and require about the same care as other citrus. They can be grown throughout Florida, but produce larger and juicier fruit when grown in the sandy soils on the hills of eastern Pasco County in central Florida. The kumquat tree is highly resistant and possibly immune to citrus canker.  The word KUMQUAT is Chinese for "Gold Orange" because of the color of the fruit. How to eat a Kumquat! Click here to view the video Kumquats have been called "the little gold gems of the citrus family". They are believed to be native to China and were included in the genus Citrus until about 1915 when Dr. Walter T. Swingle set them apart in the genus Fortunella. (in honor of the British horticulturist, Robert Fortune who introduced the kumquat to Europe in 1846). "Cumquat" is the common British spelling of the name for the fruit. There are four varieties (species) of kumquats. They are the Hong Kong Wild (Fortunella hindsii), Marumi (Fortunella japonica), Meiwa (Fortunella crassifolia), and Nagami (Fortunella margarita). The two most common species of kumquats grown in the United States are the 'Nagami' and the 'Meiwa'. Kumquats have a very distinctive taste. It is the only citrus fruit that can be eaten "skin and all." The peel is the sweetest part and can be eaten separately. The pulp contains the seeds and juice, which is sour. When eaten together, you get a sweet and sour taste which is unlike anything else. The seeds, however, should not be eaten. They are similar to the seed of the orange and have a distinctive green color. The seeds also contain pectin, which can be removed by boiling for use in making jams and jellies. Nutritional Information  The Meiwa or Large Round Kumquat (Fortunella.crassifolia) is grown extensively in China. In Japan, it is also called the ninpo or neiha kinkan. It was introduced into the United States from Japan in 1910, but is still somewhat rare here. Meiwa kumquats are more round in shape and are often referred to as "sweet kumquats". They have few seeds and are best eaten whole. While they are very good to eat, it is not recommended that you use them for cooking or for marmalade as they lack the tartness of the Nagami kumquats. The Meiwa kumquats are not normally available commercially. However, we have had some requests for them in the last few years. Call or E-Mail for availability and pricing.  I extracted this from a good reference site. My personal choice will always be the ornimental Hindsii with all of the thorns, like the rose, yielding the most beautiful fragrant flowers and the perfect visual fruit. Of course many say they are inedible, sour with large seeds. The asians flock to these wild fruit trees to pick and jar in sugar water so you can pop the whole thing in your mouth like candy. I could go on. Best of luck to you in your selection. If you need any more help, just ask and I will give what I know. Tim Kumquat guy

I thought my place was small - we have total land area of 285 square metres - that includes our little 2 bed home - - here's a list of what I've got in that bit of dirt: She Who Must Be Obeyed and I are happy to try and grow anything we can get our hands on, though she is starting to wane in her enthusiasm: silly girl thinks we have too much planted already...LOL cyprus pines - x 2 - they provide privacy from two neighbours and have a love seat and fish pond underneath them. There's a black elephants ear in the fishpond along with some twisted bamboo and a couple of other plant gifts that I can't name. The pines have two baby stag horns, mini split leaf philodendron, a lime leaf philodendron and some old mans whiskers growing on them Boston ferns, king ferns, a couple of different coloured periwinkles, vietnamese mint, taro, cardamom, five spice plant, coleus, ivy, argaves, hoya, more black elephants ear, cycad and some mosquito breeders (bromeliads). There are a couple of "invaders" - again unknown - that provide some blue and purple flowers during the summer. They seem to like it there, so they stay. This is the boggiest part of the garden - we get a lot of run off from the neighbours and the upper part of the hill our street is on. Next to the bog we have a gardenia, snow bush, lemon grass, yesterday today and tomorrow and a little buddha garden - - A ceramic smiling buddah, some gypsophila, pansies, petunias, gailardia, a camelia behind and some wormwood. We have a little concrete patio with a pergola over the top - about 5mX2m - strawberries planted outside and nasturtiums, lemonbalm and apple mint growing where it can. There's a jasmine growing up some of the trellis. Inside the pergola we have three bird cages - - a pair of green peach faces without the peach colour, their mum and a new chick (dad was escaped by a cat) and a pair of bengal finches. Half a dozen hanging baskets with a mixture of ferns, tahitian bridal veil, a New Guinea flat tassel fern, zygocactus and variegated philidendron/spear leaf thingy; pots and pots of lilipili, cane palms, scarlet croton, cardboard cycad, small tree ferns, pony tail palm, birdsnest fern, calla lillies, cordyline, diffenbachia, an orchid and half a dozen others that were given by friends - they look good but I don't know what they are. At one end of the pergola is an eight month old clumping palm and at the other a 4 metre tall tree fern - probably cunninghamii - it has three or four orchids growing on the trunk and day lillies, asiatic lillies and a pink and white leafed thingy that pops up every year. The next structure is the grave - it was a large pile of compost that is now planted with rosemary, beans, silverbeet, soursop, gerberas, sweetsop, surinam cherry, petunias, african daisies, gotu kola and a beatiful little red climbing rose grows along the fence. Then comes the guinea pig hutch - it follows the side fence for about four metres and has beans growing along the outside - bit of tucker for the animals and strawberries surrounding the first of the lady finger bananas. There's five bananas in total, four of them flowering/fruiting, the first hand is ripe now. In and around the bananas are strawberries a small purpley/red coloured bush that was an indoor plant but which thrives since it was taken out of the pot and given the option to live or die. There's a couple of sorghum plants growing to give the birds a bit of variety. Between the grave/bananas and pergola is a small bit of earth with these growing: In pots - bok choi, choy sum, pak choy, silverbeet, english spinach and anenomes. and hollyhock seedlings. In the ground - a mock orange, midyim berry, jabacotiba, silver beet, california asters, nicotinia, day lillies, chocolate pudding fruit, pansies, some flower seedlings that I forgot to learn the name of, horseradish and a calemondin (star fruit) . Behind the calemondin are some more gerberas, licorice basil and oregano. In behind the bananas - between them and the guineapig hutch is another bad piece of soil - sand on top of clay - that's where the cane toad trap is and where the cat trap will go. Theres also my experiment with theobroma cacao - the plant used to make chocolate. There's more silver beet, some sweet potato, some scotch bonnet chilli, a small native daisy - that has yellow or red or white flowers and is starting to sprad like a ground cover, a lychee, a dizzygothica that was also given the option of grow or die after surviving my pathetic attempts at keeping plants indoors, a candy striped hippeastrum, a custard apple (methinks) that grew from a seedling, another red climbing rose, a cutting of a plant that She Who Must Be Obeyed found on a walk and which is now growing quite well in the back corner, more sweet potato and pumpkin, the worm farm and the compost heap. This brings us to the other plant that was there before we started planting - the 10 metre tall fish tail palm. About half a dozen canes a foot across play host to a very large stag horn, a couple of philidendrons and a couple of monsterias, a dozen or so bromeliads, more old mas whiskers and something that SWMBO insists is a native orchid - about half a dozen different colours and they are thriving there - so who am I to argue. Another unnamed varigated little shrub with pretty white flowers and more strawberries. In front of the palm is a mulberry seedling - it was sprouted in March or April 2004 and is now 5-6 metres tall. Then come two roses - Angel Face (named after She Who Must Be Obeyed) and our prized Blue Moon. Some more california asters, strawberries, day lillies, crinum, hippeastrum, tansy, blue boy, a wisteria which I have the job of trying to make into a standard, goji berry, a rather permanent capsicum - it fruits so it stays, a camelai - again no name, some gerberas in pots, a cumquat seedling, a mangosteen seedling,beans, jap pumpkin, a potted philidendron - large palmate leaves, nother gift - blue and white flowers with a miniature orange fruit, more hippies a naked lady, mondo grass, as a bit of a border, some basil, marguerite daisies, some green and white thingies that I forgot to keep the name tag from, a little purple puffball of a flower - again the name escapes me, a sub-tropical nectarine and some snowdrops coming up - they've apparently naturalised to this sub-tropical environment. In amongst all of that are strawberries (did I mention them before??), some more periwikles - escaped seeds - dozens of orange and yellow cosmos (whichthe pale faced rosellas love) an orange -washington navel I think, a seedling each of sweet and soursop, moon flowers where-ever they can find something to grow up, more agaves, strawberries, lemon eureka??, another type of custard apple seedling or a longan - I must remember to use and keep name tags. A globe grape seedling growing up one of the stumps from some more cyprus pines that we got rid of. A red grapefruit - again a seedling, an ice cream bean tree, some walking lillies, surinam cherries, mango- another seedling, and in the far back corner - a Norfolk Pine - we got a pot with three of them in it a couple of years back, two were given away and SWMBO couldn't bear jsut dumping number three - so she was planted in the back corner and given the opportunity to live or die - it was nearly two metres tall and had less than two litres of root ball when the other two were cut out of the pot. There.s a lot of baby red egg plant, chives, parsley, another crinum, a kaffir lime, a cassabanana, a pineaple - which the guineapigs discovered when they escaped and is now struggling to get any growth on it at all, some yarrow, tansy and wormwood, mint - half a dozen varieties surviving, a feijoa, tomatoes,ceylon spinach, paw paw,fennel, basil, kangaroo paw,pansies, dill, curry plant, frangipani, lemon myrtle,day lillies, more chillis, more strawberries, more mondo grass, nasturtiums, coriline australia, basil, another grape - pinot moir, naturalised fressias, 2 X prince of orange,passionfruit,. Along the southside of the house - with no sun - grows a camelia, gardenia, coleus, croton, golden cane palm, ponytail palm, blueboy, nodding violets, jade plant. Out the front is an olive, more ceylon spinach, nasturtiums, hippie seedlings, loquat. longan, frangipani, bush lemon, passionfruit, cosmos, a couple of types of self seeded marigolds, spinach and I think that's about it. Frightening isn't it. The whole block - including our little home is about 285 square metres. Maybe I should go and see a doctor??

Hi MM, If your roses are relatively newly planted, then they are only "babies" and have not handled the stress of the hot weather very well. Their root systems are not fully established to be able to take advantage of the moisture that you have put into the soil. Don't think about moving them too soon, let them mature and see if they handle the conditions better. My roses are in full sun in a very open garden, and we get some very hot days in summer here in southern NSW. Some varieties seem to be able to handle the heat, others fry on the first hot day. Usually our first hot days are late October, early November, just when the roses are in all their glory. I always pray that the hot spell will come a little later and allow the roses to flower longer. As someone said above, the spring growth is soft and not able to handle the early heat. Don't be disillusioned, be patient and coddle your youngsters a little longer.

For some reason I thought you were in 'chi'. lol! My climate is probably nothing like yours, but I'll toss in my two cents. :) I don't think any veggie/herb garden is labor intensive, so you're ok there. For me, veggie gardening is mostly about the tomatoes and peppers I can grow. I'm particular about my varieties. :) I was going to suggest 'Sun Gold' if you do grow tomatoes.... it's a large orange sweet hybrid cherry tomato and *very* productive! It's the only hybrid tomato I grow and a must every year! If you grow zucchini, I'd recommend 'Black Beauty' -- it's a bush form of plant, so takes less space than a standard vining zucchini plant. For cucumbers, I really like 'Muncher' if you can find it... smaller plants and it produces perfect straight nice-size cukes. Green beans can be bush form or pole form, if you have something for them to climb you'll save space. What about eggplant? You can probably grow them great there -- my season isn't long enough here. :( Things I usually grow -- all from seed: - about 10-12 varieties of tomatoes. All OP/heirlooms except 'Sun Gold'. :) - about 6-8 varieties of peppers (all OP/heirlooms). - herbs are always parsley, basil, cilantro, and dill - green beans, zucchini, straight or crookneck summer squash, pea pods, cucumbers. I also always grow several varieties of garlic, and perennials like chives and Egyptian Walking Onions. Depending on space and weather conditions, sometimes I'll grow tomatillos, radishes, broccoli, pumpkins, various winter squashes, ... and I'll even try eggplant again. :) And don't forget edible flowers.... nasturtiums are a must! BTW: with your climate I'd grow my own lemons in a heartbeat!!! :)