Tag: tropical garden

Garden doings

~ Maggie ~ 3 Comments

After trying to put things into words for over a week now, I decided to skip an update about the past two months. The good news is that we did get to have a family Christmas, we went to the Zoo with our grandson (and his parents), we visited my father a few times and we were able to be fully present at the wedding of our youngest. Let’s treasure that. The rest… not worth documenting.

I’m planning to write a longer post about my resolutions and/or goals for the new year, but one of the things I really want to focus on is the garden. It’s been doing very well the past few years, mostly since we water it automatically, but it’s a bit (ha!) overgrown. Up to a point where it’s no longer a garden. It’s a jungle.

Before. Just ignore that I already cut off a branch before I remembered to take a picture.

See that Moringa tree on the right? I planted it way too close to the house. But in my defense… a friend of ours had the same trees in his garden and they were tiny. Like only about 2 meters (6.5′) high. Ours are all at least double that height, probably even higher. And since this one is was so close to the house, the top branches hit the roof every time there was a little breeze. And that’s most of the time here. It also blocked a lot of light from our office. I already trimmed it back a few times, but it grows so fast that we decided to cut it down completely this time.

Sad, but necessary.

And then we had to clean up that mess and cut back some other stuff. It took me a while, but hey, look. There’s a path!

Isn’t it funny how patting yourself on the shoulder for results like this (although it’s a far cry from the perfect path I hope to have one day) gives you energy to work on the next thing on the list?

So I worked on this mess next:

Hmn, the photo’s don’t do it justice. But here’s another before and after:

And this one is the most visible improvement:

Far from perfect, I know, but that’s the way I tackle the garden when it’s getting out hand again. First I get the bigger messes done, then I go back for “fine tuning”. Well, that’s the plan anyway. The past four years I never got to finetuning, because there was always a reason for things to get out of hand again. But I have high hopes about this year.

Oh, and if you’re wondering what’s going on with the blue tarp and the partly white gravel… That’s where I got stuck last year with making the paths beautiful and easier to manage. We had a big mountain of gravel delivered in June (you can see it if you scroll up a bit – it’s next to the car) and we were trying to move at least a few loads in the wheelbarrow a day, but fell off the bandwagon when temperatures got abnormally high. I would like to have it all done by the time our daughter, son-in-law and grandson are coming to visit (in March!), so I need to get back to it.

But first there are lots and lots more big messes to tackle. Not to mention the fact that I need to remove that Moringa tree stump. These trees don’t give up so easily.

To be continued…

In my garden :: small steps

~ Maggie ~ Leave a comment

Such a nice picture to start this post with, isn’t it? But to be honest, this is what my whole garden looks like right now. Lots of rain, combined with the gardener (that would be me) being sick all the time makes a very good combinations for all the weeds.

Of course, as an (aspiring) herbalist and a nature lover, I really don’t see any plant as a weed.

I mean… how beautiful are these?

Look at that beautiful leaf!

But this little square space is more or less our front garden. We have a weird layout, but if you walk up the steps to the front door, this will be what you have to look at. So I really wanted to clean it up a bit and I thought this was the perfect little project to start with now that I’m feeling a bit better. You know, small steps.

Don’t worry, I made sure there were other specimen of the same species growing somewhere else in my garden and I replanted some of the ones I pulled out somewhere else.

So this is what it looks like now. I (re)planted (dug them up from elsewhere in the garden) two bromelias and some lemongrass to add a little bit of green. I am very happy with it!

Oh, for those of you who have been here a long time: yes, that’s the little palm tree we planted four years ago.

It now looks like this:

In my garden

~ Maggie ~ 1 Comment

In my garden…

:: my lantana really benefits from watering twice a day. It looked almost dead and now it’s flowering again

:: berbena is growing like crazy too, benefiting from the wastewater from my kitchen, shower and washingmachine. Those were never connected to the cess pit, but the water ended up on the path. I finally extended the pipes into the middle of my garden.

:: I’m growing more lemongrass than I’ll ever be able to make tea with

:: the tuturutu is blooming too

:: and the flamboyan trees that were completely bold are having a great time too, making leaves and even flowers (for the first time – I grew them from seed a few years ago)

So, all is great and my garden is perfectly kept? Ha! Nope. Reality check:

:: a thorntree that I usually cut back as much as I can somehow grew a branch that is so long that it’s hanging over my path (it’s hard to take a picture of, but you can spot it in the third picture)

:: devils thread is trying to invade my garden again (nasty stuff, it kills the plants it grows on and you literally have to unravel it carefully, because even half an inch will survive and grow out again)

:: we had a big pile of gravel delivered and we were half way making paths. Right now it’s too hot for that kind of hard labor, so that project is on hold until it’s cooler (that can take a while) or until I feel like I can handle the heat again (had a bit of a heatstroke last week, so I’m a little bit more careful now).

:: and I really need to do some weeding and pruning

But that’s okay. I still love my garden!

In my garden

~ Maggie ~ 3 Comments

I’ve slowly been reuniting myself with the joy I used to find in my garden. It still needs a lot of work, but I try not to get overwhelmed by it. I really do my best to focus on just being there and enjoying the beauty.

Sometimes you have to change the narrative of your life, don’t you think?. Instead of: “I have to do chores in the garden”, I try to tell myself: “I get to spend time in the garden”. It’s only words, but words do have power.

So yeah, I got to spend a lot of time in the garden last week and this weekend and I think I may be lucky enough to spend even more time in the garden today.

Wishing you all a great start to your week!

What I did this weekend

~ Maggie ~ 3 Comments

(Gosh, it’s so hard to take pictures from exactly the same viewpoint. But it’s close – watch that branch that crosses the horizon to the right of the middle of the picture. Anyway, you get the idea.)

Yeah, that was much needed. I’m far from finished, but it’s a big improvement. We can see our banana tree!

This whole area was pretty well maintained last year. But then we spent the whole summer in The Netherlands and it rained a wole lot and I was sick and exhausted most of the time after we returned. So yeah, it’s a mess. But I’ll get it clean. Someday.

In my garden

~ Maggie ~ 8 Comments

Still very much a work in progress… Some days I’m slowly cutting back useful herbs and trees to process later, other days I’m just pulling grass and other unwanted plants and filling up my wheelbarrow. But I’m getting there. And, more important, I’m enjoying every minute I spend out there.

Working in the garden has always (even in our small garden in the Netherlands) been a way for me to ground, to reconnect with myself. I know that sounds woo-woo, but it’s true.

Anyway, it’s quite rainy these days, and a bit cooler than usual, so everything is growing really fast and blooming like crazy. So beautiful!

(Do you want names with the plants? I always wonder if people prefer that or not. I do want to mention that the orange flowers are from a shrub called tuturutu. Got to love that name.)

In my garden

~ Maggie ~ 9 Comments

So, my garden… It’s huge. Or at least it is for me. We’re on 2000 m2 (1/2 acre). The house sits in the back corner of the lot, so there’s no real “back” or “front” yard. Someday we’re going to build guesthouses on “the other half” of the lot, but that part sits mostly neglected at this point. I sometimes try to work my way through the thorn bushes, but well… my energy is limited and it doesn’t help if you’re not home for almost five months. I was actually thinking I was on top of things when we left in April, but when we got back…. Oh well, I will get to it someday.

My pride and joy though, is the part on the side of the house. Technically it’s in front of the house, but our entrance is on the side and we’ve only got a bedroom window and a small kitchen window looking out on it, so it feels like the side (does that make any sense at all?).

In March 2021 it looked like this:

Now, from a slightly different angle:

And from the other corners (I cleared a path that goes around it).

Yeah, I know. It’s a mess. I’m working on it and I will post pictures when I’ve got it under control again. But looking back at that first picture (really, March 2021!) I’m quite impressed with what I’ve achieved here. Most of the plants and trees I grew from seed or cuttings, a few were purchased, but I never buy big (expensive) plants. And look how big they are now! No wonder things got out of hand in only five months.

I have a vision of how I want this garden to be and I do believe I will get there. As soon as I pull those weeds…