Spring Treasures

I am fortunate to have several garden mentors. Those that have encouraged me and helped feed my ongoing knowledge of plants and gardening. Marion Jarvie would be one of these Its always a pleasure to go help out in her incredible garden. So well designed,tended and cared for. Here are some pictures of the garden in this long cool spring we are having. Flower power is still abundant !! The Jarvie Garden is open to the public several times a year the first one this season is April 27 - 28 10 am til 4 pm check her website for the remaining dates this year.....enjoy.

 

Lonicera fragrantissima

The sweetest smelling harbinger of spring.......

Starting to fill in.......

Well my time in Barbados and this garden project is drawing to a close....Now into my 15th week and coming home to Toronto next week. Its been a challenging go of it but rewarding none the less. Several pounds lighter and several shades darker I prepare to hand over the garden to mother nature and the capable hands of a gardener neighbour to look in on things. Here are a few pics of how things are looking these days. Its amazing how quickly plants grow and mature here. And how quickly they can be destroyed by munching pests too!!!

In the Home Stretch.........

Its hard to believe that I've been in Barbados now for just over 3 months.....the time has flown by from being continually occupied with building this garden from scratch. Ive had some help but it has mostly been done by yours truly. The dry season is well underway now with several weeks of no rain and searing temperatures. The 200 gallon and 400 gallon rain barrels have now been emptied this week. The rainy season usually doesnt begin until april or may. This was me returning from the annual garden and farm show "Agrofest" it was a treasure trove of plant vendors and prices very reasonable. It sort of like the CNE, Royal Winter Fair and Canada Blooms rolled into one. This new cultivar of Gloriosa rothchildiana given to me by Anna Leggatt has grown from a humble finger like tuber out of the ground 5 feet and blooming in 2 months!!! This cultivar has a much darker wine coloured flower from the usual yellow or orangy/red. Thanks Anna !! The dry garden is really doing remarkably well. Ive only watered sparingly a few times in the evening i will top dress with some more sand and compost mix then gravel on top.....most of the plants here were brought in as cuttings from ontario. But I have found some interesting specimens here in Barbados.

My Apologies to the Slugs

I must make a formal apology to all slugs in my garden project here in Barbados. As you will see the damage I suspected from slugs was indeed after closer inspection a much more damaging creature.

All of the Cannas had alot of leaf damage

But after closer inspection the undersides of the leaf (Canna "Tropicana") had pieces folded over???

Strange silk thread bound down the leaf folds.

The culprit revealed !!!! some sort of hungry caterpillar ? not sure....

even more troubling are the microscopic eggs on the leaves...are they from this creature?

The other annoyance is my Weedus horribulus... what they call here nut grass(Cyperus rotundus) its throughout the garden and in the soil deliveries as I've found out ofter watering the garden and plantings. In the first picture on the post of the canna you can see it in all its glory to the left of the canna. Very robust, and the only solution seems to be roundup at full strength with an eye dropper or small paint brush. The 2 nuts are visible in the picture above. Its near impossible and very time consuming to hand dig without breaking the very fragile tether and then leaving the nut to regrow. Trials and tribulations......

Moving Forward.....One plant at a time

The beds were defined by the raised roots of the Golden Apple tree (Spondias dulcis) and filled in behind with soil. Ive dumped 7 yards of compost/manure to raise the beds and now added more of a light compost mix to each of the planting holes.During this first stage we have received alot of rain over christmas and new years. This made for a heavy job as inches of mud clung to each shoe adding pounds of weight....not fun...

In the foreground of the pictures above I placed new soil where the new savannah grass lawn will be planted with individual plugs!!!

Booty from one of the many plant buying trips at various local nurseries

Enemy number one !!!

My secret stealth weapon on the war on slugs...to give some scale hes larger than my clenched fist !!

The Project Begins........

The front of the house. Renovations are ongoing inside with a blank slate for the yard except for some backyard fruit trees and the stunning multi-coloured bougainvillea to the right of picture.

The house Bougainvillea adorning a bottle of 2004 Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame, one of the best Champagnes I've tasted.

The before picture of the backyard. To the right a large mature Golden Apple tree and left a Mammy Apple.

8 Yards of compost delivered just before the fencing goes up. An attempt to amend the extremely heavy clay "soil" roughly 2 feet above solid limestone. A challenge.

The first delivery of very valuable mature palms for free!! via the clients old school friend that had to remove them from a project site being developed.

Me admiring the second delivery of palms, 10 in all !!!! A true blessing.