planting starts

bags of dirt and plants separated

Stuff never happens too quickly down here but we are finally starting to plant in the new beds. This is the absolutely worst time to plant here, it’s the beginning of the hottest and driest time of the year. Ah well, I will water a lot and hope for the best. I don’t want to wait 3 months to have some greenery out there.

Henry and I went to a nursery the other day and bought a bunch of plants and a lot of good dirt. I forgot to take the camera but I’m going back and this time I will. Nurseries are different here, I can hardly remember what they were like NOB but I think they are a lot more organized up there. I seem to remember neat rows of plants and everything having a little tag that says what it is. No tags here, if you don’t recognize it then you need to ask. There are some things that you have to know what they are to recognize them and then you have to ask if they will dig it up and sell it. Yes, some of the stuff is just growing in the ground but they will hack up a piece and sell it to you.

one section done, several more to go

I had 2 guys here working all day, my back is shot and I don’t want Mimi to do hers in too. So, I took pictures and directed and they did the hard work. Forty bags of dirt were delivered at 8am in sacks, remember that everything has to come in our front door and get carried down the hall to the back. Not the most efficient set up but it works here. They started emptying the sacks into the back planters and dividing and spreading out the existing heliconia. I love heliconia and I now have a lot of it. We got 3 of the really tall ones at the nursery, Henry had to talk them into digging them up from their little plot in the ground. The guys spaced those with the ones I already had in that back bed. The bed is higher now so they had to move them up anyway. I think we have too many, so some of them were pulled to go in another bed. Smaller ones, a red torch and a variegated rose were put in the bed in front of them.

Mimi expecting the whole shebang to fall in the pool

Those 3 beds used up all the soil we had so then the guys moved some palms for me. We had moved the dwarf date palm out while the concrete was laid in that corner and now they had to get it back. We borrowed a long board from the workers at the house next door and two of them plus the two guys working at our house got it back in place. No one fell in the pool and they didn’t drop the palm in the pool either. I think Mimi was sure that was going to happen at one point.

ready for more dirt and more plants

I’m happy with the results, tomorrow I need to arrange for more soil and see about the palms for the middle bed.