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Interesting plant from a recent home inspection

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Since I'm a gardener, and I live in a moderate Mediterranean climate where just about anything will grow if we meet its needs for water, I love visiting the gardens of other people to see what they are growing. After all, the only native San Diegans seem to be those of us who moved here more than two years ago -- LOL. Many people, then, bring plants from their native homes and grow them here.

Being a home inspector allows me to visit many gardens each year without having to climb over their fences when they are not at home -- LOL.

I was out at a bank-owned vacant foreclosure for a home inspection a couple of days ago when I came across this plant:

Probable papaya growing in a San Diego back yard

Probable papaya fruit

I'm not totally sure what plant it is, but I'm leaning towards a papaya. The leaves kind of match, and the fruit kind of grows off the trunk like that, but if so, this is a papaya that needs a little more water.

Of course, it was growing on a foreclosed property that has been vacant for six months. I felt kind of sorry for the poor little plant. I just hope the new homeowners take good care of it.

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Posted by Russel Ray, San Diego home inspector on 03/03/2009 10:28 PM

Comments (9)

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9 Comments on Interesting plant from a recent home inspection

MAR

That is one funny looking plant, Russel... I had no ideas papayas grew that way, I think I need to look that up or go to a papaya farm or something.

MAR

Hey Russell- It's a papaya! They're pretty common here and much much larger. Most grow 6-8 feet high the first year and then onto 10-12 feet as mature plants. I'm sure with your climate, like South Florida...stick anything in the ground and it'll grow!

Hey Russel, that is really interesting! I never knew that papayas grew off of the trunk of the tree! Thanks for the knowledge, I can always use "food for thought"!

Looks like you called it right but we don't see them here in my part of Texas. Sometimes we come across "foreign" plants that people try to make work in our climate. I laugh when I see the tall palm trees which are not native but have been planted in a new development that is suppose to give that tropical paradise atmosphere. I watch them die out too and the look is not so great then. Looks like the papaya, although small, has survived probably due to tender loving care. Nice photos!

Hey, Joanne.

I also didn't know that papayas grew off the trunk until I went through my gardening library trying to identify that plant. I'm not a fruit grower so I don't have a lot of books on the various fruits so it took a while for me to determine that I thought it was a papaya.

Hey, Greg.

It is sooooooooooo good to have you back. Hope that vacation was wonderful.

Thanks for the confirmation. Anything will grow here, and we can get it to grow well, but we do have to water it since we live in a desert. I remember when I lived in Texas and was so proud when my schefflera and Norfolk Island pine grew to be as tall as me. Out there they grow in the canyons and get to be 30 or 40 feet tall. And the schefflera blooms! This is gardening paradise for me.

Hey, Caren.

Glad you enjoyed having some food for thought -- LOL. Out here in San Diego, I sometimes feel like a star on CSI: San Diego Plants because of all the stuff that people plant and grow that I've never seen before. Then I get to take a picture and track it down. It's a nice avocation and hobby.

Hey, Connie.

Ah, yes, palm trees up there in McKinney. Whoddathunk?

I'm not a big fan of palm trees because it's just a telephone pole with a lot of green stuff stuck on top. I think it's funny how people here complain about telephone poles blighting the urban landscape but then they have five 50-foot tall palm trees planted in a row with the telephone pole. And from their living room, they can't see the tops of the palm trees anyway, so when they look out the window, how do they know which is the telephone pole and which are the palm trees?

Now that I dictated that, though, I bet those people have never looked up in the sky to see the tops of their palm trees. I bet they think that have a row of telephone poles -- LOL.

It looks like a papaya. I have never seen them growing in the states. I have seen them all over in Costa Rica.

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