Sunday, October 15, 2006

Sharing Plants in Chacala, the End

This is a volunteer squash or cucumber or something plants.
They grow all over the places around here.
Anywhere someone tosses a squash or pumpkin or whatever, I guess.
They rarely set edible fruit.

Well, except for a couple of plants each for Narcissa and Gracia, I am finished with the plant giveaway. Oh, and the Mandevillea for Esparanza. It's an incredible red/coral blossom that looks so good with the Desert Rose, I want to try to keep them together. I have asked for the buckets/pots back from people, if possible. We'll see what happens. Containers for plants are a pretty valuable comodity around Chacala.

Now all that's left of the patio and teraza of this house are the homeowner's plants, and my succulents. And Narcissa, Esparanza and Gracia's plants. It looks really bare right now. But that's okay. I am trying to get in gear for moving. Mostly because I don't want a repeat of last years frenzied move. When I waited til the last minute to move, hoping my original choice would be completed in time to move in.

And also, apparently there is some serious snow up North. I'm afraid my landlord will decide to show up early. He left last spring a month later than they had told me they were leaving, and it ended up being difficult to me to be on the beach during Easter week. But I am lucky to have this place all summer and can't really complain.

Tomorrow I am going to try re-organizing the succulents, and getting them each into their own little home pot, more or less. The rain is continuing and it's really very heavy rainfall.

Guia and Beatriz came up to get plants a couple of hours ago. We had water, since I don't have a Coke supply at the moment. And then we carried Guia and Beatriz's plants down to their houses in a pouring, drenching rain. Beatriz's significant-other, Gabi, brought the wheelbarrow up for the rest of the plants. Thank God. Those rain-soaked pots can get pretty heavy.Little tiny cactus starts, growing off the older Nopali leaves.
How cacti propagate themselves is new to me, and kind of mysterious. I will have to start reading up on the topic. Or, maybe in another life. Being a prickly person myself, I already have enough prickly friends. I don't know if I need any prickly plants.

I have been out of fiction books for about a week, so I am studying my "Tropical Gardening" book again. Learning alot. And reading more of other peoples' gardening blogs. Especially the succulent and cacti lover's blogs. And the Neo-tropical Savanna blog, currently my favorite.

I seem to be over a crabby negative space I was in for awhile. Thank god. I was sick of myself.
I have had a stream of company today, and that probably helped too. Although, really, I am kind of a solitary person, so company is sometimes a mixed blessing, but not today.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're so incredibly generous with
all that plant giving-away. I hope
at least some of them find their
way back to you next Spring.

We had our first hard frost here
in central VA last week. It kills me to have to part company with my
passionflower and bouganvilla and
others that I cant squeeze inside.

Hope the rain is letting up for
you there.

Teo

Anonymous said...

Hi Teo, re some plants coming back to me.
Last year I stashed about 15 plants at my favorite landlady, Aurora's, garden, intending to come back every other day to water. And after a month or so, her kids took over the watering for me because i wasn't making it up to her place from where I was staying at the beach.

So I ended up just leaving them there, at Aurora's, when I moved off the beach.

The plant-giveaway is a new strategy to find good homes for my babies. I don't expect any plants back. But I am hoping to get some of the pot/buckets back.

Is feels so good to be able to share the plants, and to add new plants options to Chacala's plant "palate", which is pretty limited.