Fig, olive, lime, guava, pomello, chesic, and bay leaf

What do these tropical trees have in common?  They are all living on our patio now!  Friday afternoon Dan and I visited a nursery about 40 minutes north of Tel Aviv.  They had just what I was looking for to green our patio, and the staff was helpful beyond my expectations.  They spoke English!  The owners are German and Australian.  I was able to get 6 fruit trees, a large bay leaf bush, 20 herb starts, and at the owner’s recommendation, a strawberry start.  Who are we kidding, it didn’t take much arm twisting on that one.

They lasted exactly 24 hours in their new pots before the wind blew the pomello over and nearly snapped the trunk in half.  All trees are now securely tied to the rail in addition to the bamboo poles in the pots.   They said these trees are hardy and can withstand the sea winds here....I guess we're testing that theory out nicely now.