Steady as a Rock (A Rocky Garden Update)

It has been over a year since my last post but to me it seems like it's been several years.

In my October 2013 post, I wrote about the new garden that Mom was working on during that time. The area was abundant with rocks and so she utilized them in the garden, which made me call it the "Rocky Garden". You can read the post by clicking here.

A path inside the Rocky Garden in early 2014.

A year ago, the plantings were still very sparse because the garden was just beginning to take shape. There were more rocks than plants. Little by little new plants were added and recycled concrete slabs were laid for foot paths. Now it looks more like a garden. These pictures below were taken last December, 2014.

In our part of the country, December is always a cool and wet month. But the plants above are definitely enjoying the season, as one familiar seasonal song suggests "T'is the season to be jolly..."

A royal affair

One February morning our three dependable farmhands' daily routine has been altered for a couple of days. Although it seldom happens they are now used to this kind of unscheduled disruption. Almost always, this break in their daily routine is caused by someone who lives thousands of miles away.

Latest batch of Royal palms delivered to the farm one morning last February.

Unloaded and resting under the tall Royal palms. The palm on the left is a Golden Veitchia.

This time they have to plant ten (10) newly bought Royal palms. Some of the palms arrived bare root. They have been dug up a day before from a nursery in a neighboring province just south of where the farm is. Because of the state they're in, these Royal palms needed to be transplanted immediately.

One by one the palms are transported to the upper garden using an ever reliable water buffalo.

On their way to the upper garden. This method of transport using water buffalo is a typical rural (provincial) scene.

A few days after the transplant. These Royal palms are not out of the woods yet, only time will tell if they will survive.

Almost every plant suffers a transplant shock especially if the roots have been drastically disturbed. These palms are no different. In fact even the Royal palms that were transplanted last November have not yet completely recovered despite an almost daily dose of rainwater.

Summer has finally arrived and the forecast is a wet summer this year. If this is true then this is good for the sake of these plants which are now acclimatizing to a new life in the farm.

Garden update #10 - vertically challenged

It's been a long time since I've made an update on new plants for the garden. The last such update was "Garden update #9 - this time no new plants," which was posted in May, 2010. And even that post mentioned no new plant purchases.

For various reasons, all connected to the farm, I had to slow down with plant acquisitions. But from time to time (as dictated by necessity) I still manage to buy a few. So, as far as I can remember, below is the list of plant purchases since my last garden update.

February 2012:

• Roystonea regia - "Royal Palm"
• Cordyline spp. - "Ti Plant"
• Veitchia merrilli - "Golden Veitchia"
• Tabernaemontana pandacaqui - "Pandakaki-puti"

November 2011:

• Bambusa blumeana - "'Tinik' Bamboo"
• Bambusa oldhamii - "Oldham Bamboo"
• Dendrocalamus asper - "Giant Bamboo"
• Dendrocalamus latiflorus - "Machiku Bamboo"
• Guadua angustifolia - "Colombian Thorny (or Iron) Bamboo"
• Roystonea regia - "Royal Palm"

February 2011:

• Wodyetia bifurcata - "Foxtail Palm"
• Dypsis decaryi - "Triangle Palm"

January 2011:

• Passiflora caerulea - "Blue Passion Flower Vine"
• Passiflora spp. - "Lavender Passion Flower Vine"
• Passiflora manicata - "Red Passion Flower Vine"

Last year's batch of Triangle and Foxtail palms.

Since February, 2011 I have been concentrating on purchasing palm trees and bamboos. Two days ago, 10 Royal Palms were delivered to the farm. Today and the coming days they will be planted in the upper garden, along a portion of the left side of the dirt path. These are in addition to the first 7 that were planted there in random locations last January. More ornamental palm trees are needed to populate the sparsely vegetated upper garden.

Another part of the upper garden has been planted mostly with coconut tree seedlings. The seedlings came from the farm's few coconut trees.

Three of the Oldham bamboos, pictures taken last month.

As for the bamboos, I still need 100+ of Oldham bamboo seedlings to complete my privacy screen project. There are exciting developments with our first 19 Oldhams (with 1 casualty). But that will be for a future post since I don't have supporting pictures yet.

Notice that most of the new purchases are plants with the ability to grow tall. With blessings from above, many more of these will be planted in the future.

A royal treatment

The seven new Royal palms.

Whenever I go to the farm, two things never escape my notice: that I always sleep in my brother's bedroom and those four imposing palm trees across our house.

On my every visit I temporarily use my brother's vacant room. That's because I have no room of my own; it has long been converted into a storage room...sigh! Somehow I understand how the "Holy Family" felt when they were told "there's no room in the inn." Maybe next time I'll bunk with the goats, or better yet, with the sheep. Talk about royal treatment!

Now when it comes to royal, those four imposing palm trees across the house aptly fit the title. I was told they are called Cuban Royal palms, Florida Royal palms or simply Royal palms (Roystonea regia). Although it's now a very common landscaping plant, I never really cared until I saw them in our own place. They are impressive in size, height and stature, fitting to be called 'royals.'

The trunks of the original four Royal palms. Picture taken on my visit last February, 2011

Since we only have four Cuban Royals in the farm, I thought of getting some more and randomly plant them in the 'upper' garden. In the future as they grow tall, these should help this struggling garden look more like a true garden and not just an open field with scattered plants here and there.

With the money left from the botched purchase of bamboo seedlings and the purchase of two Labrador puppies they were able to buy seven Royal palms. The palms they bought aren't very tall yet. That's fine since the really tall ones with visible trunks I'm pretty sure would cost thousands and thousands of pesos, if not more.

Except for the second picture, the rest were taken on a very dreary day. It has been raining almost daily for the past three months. Taking advantage of those hours without rain they immediately planted the Royal palms in random locations.

Seven is still not enough. There should be more of them in the farm. But with no budget yet, the rest would have to wait... until I win big in the lotto.

A corny joke

I haven't been posting much lately about the events in the farm and garden even if there are many to report. I've kinda lost interest lately. The truth is it's my fault.

The flow of resource for "Solitude Rising" has gone down to a trickle so some adjustments have to be made. I asked my dear parents if they could find a way to help make the farm-cum-garden a little bit more productive especially in these lean times. Well, they did find a way to help stretch the budget --- by planting corns in several open spaces. They said the yield, no matter how meager, will help augment the costly commercial feeds for the animals. At first I thought this was a great idea. But when I saw the result, let's just say I fell off my chair. See for yourself.

Had the bamboos been shorter they would have been completely hidden from view.

Some garden plants competing with the corn plants.

It's a jungle of corns up there and the garden plants are somewhere in there too.

A young Cigar plant (center, bottom of the picture) is almost unnoticeable amid the tall stalks of corns.

If this is a joke, I don't find it funny at all.

There are so many open spaces in the farm where they could stick these stalks without destroying the look of the still emerging and struggling garden. It would have been more aesthetically acceptable if they designated a spot exclusively for growing corns. That, I would have gladly acceded to. For now, I'm just taking it in stride.

The eternal struggle between the garden plants and Cogongrass in some areas of the farm has given way to the fight between the garden plants and the corn plants. At least corns have commercial value.

Claw me, claw thee

It's been over a year since I last gave an update on our Lobster Claw heliconias (Heliconia rostrata). Back then they were still growing in the nursery and have responded well to the extra attention they've received so much so that their area in the nursery looked more like a Lobster Claw plantation (Their claws are showing). So what has happened since then?

Weather permitting they were slowly transplanted in the upper/back garden. As expected they experienced transplant shock to varying degrees. Some seemed to have died completely but new growth appeared after a few weeks. Others only had minor shocks, losing several leaves.

Some of the Lobster Claw heliconias already established in their new home in the upper garden.

A solitary clump of young Lobster Claw begins to bloom. With surrounding weeds cleared it looked even more alone.

More Lobster Claws in the upper garden, some displaying new blooms.

These Lobster Claws are competing for attention amid thick, persistent weeds.

With all the weeds in the background, this heliconia is a sight for sore eyes.

What I love about Lobster Claws are their colorful flowers that look interestingly unusual and that they bloom year round at intermittent intervals. So you never know where in the garden the next blooms will appear and when. And even though this plant is now widely and sometimes over cultivated, to me its exotic appeal never diminishes. A proof to this is the existence of more of this plant all over the upper garden.

"Claw me, claw thee" is an old German/Dutch idiom which means "stand by me and I'll stand by you" or sometimes "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine".
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The beehive state

Every state in the good ol' U.S. of A. has a nickname. For example the state of New York is called "The Empire State", California is also known as "The Golden State", Texas is "The Lone Star State", and so on. Utah, which celebrates its 115th year of statehood today, the 24th of July, is also called "The Beehive State."

Utah has been my "adopted" home for the past several years now, from the day I first set foot in America. Currenly I have no plans of moving to any other state as I've come to agree with Brigham Young¹ when he declared: "This is the place."

Happy birthday to the Beehive State!!!

Similarly, the state of our Beehive ginger (Zingiber spectabile) leaves nothing to be desired for now that I know it has adapted to its "adopted" home i.e., the farm.

Last February of 2010 I asked Mom and Dad to buy another Beehive ginger. There is already one in the farm which was purchased last December of 2009. However we were not sure if it's the real thing so the second purchase was just an insurance just in case it's not. This more recent purchase we're sure is a Beehive ginger because it had a flower when it was bought.

For over a year the gingers just grew but very slowly and did not produce any flowers. I was beginning to think that they may not be suited to our local climate or maybe they were planted in the wrong area. Maybe the soil is lacking in nutrient, perhaps they are not getting enough water and nourishment.

Then in May two small knobs began to appear at the base of the more recent Beehive. I was so excited when Mom mentioned this development during one of our long distance phone conversations. Finally it's doing something more than just converting carbon dioxide to oxygen.

It took more than two months before the knobs turned into what they are in the picture below. They are now past their prime and will very soon be a part of history. Hopefully this is the start of a new era for this species of plant in the farm.

I suspect one reason why our Beehive gingers are sluggish is due to deficiency in nutrients. The upper garden was once a cornfield and as such the soil was subjected to much stress in growing corns, amended with chemical fertilizers and lacking in organic nutrients. The soil needs to heal from decades of mismanagement which could easily be remedied by applying composts. But despite the availability of materials they are not utilizing this eco-friendly means of soil amendment. Yet there is a glimmer of hope, as exemplified by the emergence of these two Beehive ginger flowers.

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¹ Brigham Young (June 1, 1801 – August 29, 1877) is the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (commonly known as the Mormon Church) who led his flock's migration from Illinois to the current state of Utah.

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Passion for passion

Around late January 2011, the construction of the steel pipe pergola was finished. With that done, it was ready for some vines to climb over and hide the criss-crossing metal bars, an alternative to the more decorative rafters and purlins.

My plan was to use four Blue Passion Flower vine, one on each of the four corners of the pergola. Then I remembered about the unfortunate fate of our Blue Passion in the nursery, I thought it would be best to get some spare as well. That's when we decided to get seven. Four will be used, and the three will remain in the nursery as spare, just in case any of those in the pergola dies.

One of our Lavender Passion Flower vine is in bloom.

My idea of having a spare was based on our previous experience with the Blue Passion Flower. It was already growing well in the nursery when a storm came and snapped its main trunk just above the ground and it never grew back.

ABOVE: Two more flower buds of the Lavender Passion Flower vine. BELOW: A young Red Passion Flower vine. The Lavender and Red look almost the same when not in bloom, but the Red has notches on its leaf edge.

When my mother called the garden store to place an order, the store owner said they also have other colors of the Passion Flower vine, red and lavender. Mom relayed this info to me via text message. I already know how the red looks like so I was intrigued by the lavender. And so I had another change of plan. We got four of the "Blue", two "Lavender" and one "Red".

One of the four Blue Passion Flower vine crawling on top of the new pergola.

As to where the "Lavender" and "Red" will go, still remains unknown. They will have to slug it out in the nursery for the mean time. As for the "Blue" in the pergola, hopefully they all survive because there is no spare. But then again, the plant store is just a phone call away.
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