A Little Work, in Chacala

The is a squash vine, a Luffa sponge-type vine.It's on the side of Juan Luis's rental units. You dry the squash and break the outside skin off, and there's luffa. I just used my last one, so I will have to go pick some soon.

Due to my lack of attention, my Chacala garden has gotten kind of out of control. It’s rainy here almost every night in August and September. And it’s warm and humid, often overcast during the day. Everything is growing wild. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours pruning and hacking away in my little garden area.The succulents seem to be doing okay, even in the rain. And the cacti also seem to be doing okay. I am starting to clear out their little beds too. When I first planted them last March I wanted to fill them up with plants, but they are too full now.

This garden definitely looks different from other gardens around Chacala. I don’t know if that’s good out bad. And really, the beds are just places to hold my cuttings and baby plants. Not very organized.

The one yellow Lantana I planted in one of the little dirt pockets in the rock wall has burst in blooms and is growing wild. I am going to do cuttings today.
And the red Zinnias, which seem to re-seed and grow wild here, are growing all along the roadside.The Portulaca’s are blooming every minute there’s a bit of sunshine.

The arch I am trying to create over the front sidewalk seems to be taking shape. I tied a Opoema tree "trunk" to the trunk of a lovely purple vine that isn't blossoming at the moment. And started twining a jasmine around up around one side of the arch, and the purple vine up the other. It seems to be doing okay.
Now I just have to hope my landlady's husband doesn't decide to machete it down in a moment of whatever. Yesterday he broke the main branches off my young hibiscus plants. Ones I grew from cuttings and were now almost a foot tall. No longer. I actually heard the sound of him breaking the little twiggy branches. But I didn't realize was it was until I down to turn the water off at the road. And there were the remains of the bigger branches. lying on the walkway.

This is one of Aurora's roses. The plant has about a dozen blossoms.

It's hard to be motivated to work in my little garden when I don't know what he's going to do next. I am going to try to talk with my landlady about it again, but I am not optimistic that she can do anything.