Plants Around Chacala

In my other blog My Life in Chacala, I showed some photos of Euloia harvesting Mata, the plant from which the make a tea drink called Jamaica here in Chacala. And maybe in many parts of Mexico. And I am showing a couple more here. Euloaia is the novio, esposo (boyfriend or husband), not sure which, of my landlady. He let me take photos of his processing Mata plants, the blossoms of which are used to make Jamaica tea. A sweet, ususally cold drink that is very popular in Chacala. I don't know if the name Mata is a local name, or a formal name for this plant
We also looked at one of my plants. Well, what used to be one of my plants. Actually a bucketful of my plants. When I was giving plants away in preparation for moving to the beach, Lupe came up to pick up her choice of plants, she put these plants together in one of the buckets, to make it easier to carry home. And they just stayed there. They look okay though.
I am happy I didn’t move to the beach, although I am visiting at Esparanza’s, my beach landlady, almost everyday. I kind I wish I had held off giving my plants away, until I knew for sure where I was moving. But it’s working out okay, and I can get suttings from my old plants whenever I want.

Today some visiting Canadians went to the tianguis in La Penita. They asked if I wanted something from the market, and I asked a bag of dirt. I didn’t expect them to remember. Or thought maybe the Vivero/nursery would be closed for a couple hours for lunch before they got there. But they remembered!!! Hooray. Time for some more transplants. I will be in Las Varas tomorrow, and will get some more cheap pots. I can’t wait to shift things around, and also to plant some stuff in the ground.I got some plant seeds last week, Coleus and some peppers, and something else. Maybe I will plant them tomorrow.I love it that there is so much to learn about plants here. Today a women visiting from Utah showed me a seed pod from a tree here. She wondered what it was called, and I couldn’t remember. We looked in my PV area plant book and couldn’t find it.
And then she and I inspected a tree near my house. It seems to have giant seed pods growing on it . I am going to take a photo tomorrow, and ask my neighbors what it’s called.



While we were taking photos of his drying racks he also showed me a small stand of Cana, which seems to be Sugar Cane. He cut me a piece and it seemed like Sugar Cane, but who knows.

Visiting My Plants at Their New Homes

I was over at Socorro’s today. She lives in the part of Chacala near where I have lived the past three summers. People call this part of town “arriba”, as in when they are asking the collectivo driver to take them all the way home. It kind of feels like home to me.

Anyway, I was leaving Socorro a note about a woman who has changed her arrival dates. She wants to come to stay at Socorro’s about a month earlier than originally planned. So far it has taken six round-trip walks and three internet trips to get the change arranged. This is another person who somehow can’t afford to pay $9 US a night for a room with a private bath. Anyway……Guia lives next door to Socorro, and is one of the people I shared my plants with when I moved to to my new place. Today Guia showed me how my old plants were doing. The vine with the mauve flowers had grown about six feet in that last couple of months.And the coleus had tripled in size and colored up very nicely.The Bird of Paradise has grown alot, with about 10 new stems coming up. Looked great. And so did the other plants.Guia was very sweet, explaining to me why the plants were looking so good. Water and more or less sun.

I really like being around Guia. She works hard at various jobs and always manages to have a smile on her face. And she knows and sings all the songs that are sung on the various perinigraciones around town for special days like Guadalupe’s Day and San Rafael’s Day. And the Posada too.

I also spent some time a few days ago with my neighbor, (and original landlady in Chacala), Aurora. We pruned her roses and tidied up and watered her plants. She does a great job of keep the plants at her place looking good. She has four rental units, and everything always is nice and tidy, inside and out.

My landlady’s plants are looking better than ever. Her husband has been watering regularly and everything is growing quickly. Her roses look wonderful this season, and so do the other plants.

My plants are looking good, but I don’t seem to be very focused on plants right now. Today at the Las Varas tianguis I bought three plastic pots, 8 pesos each. They are very vivid colors. I don’t know what I was thinking. I need to get some nice soil, but I will have to wait until my next money comes in.

Then I will transplant all the plants that are doubled and tripled up into their own pots. They are all growing very quickly, and I think I will separate them out so each pot has only one kind of plant.

I am hoping to get some more plants next week, from the nurseries and my neighbors. Plus my landlady has several pots that can be divided, and we are going to do that next week after I get the dirt.

Looking at my Neighbors Gardens, Around Chacala

I walk around Chacala alot, doing errands for reservations and this and that. My favorite walk is down to the south end of the beach, wading barefoot in the warm water, and then up into the vegetation on the hillside above the beach.This unusual palm is potted on a terrace. And surrounded by palms growing in the earth.Then I walk down a trail thru the "jungle" and back on the beach road toward town.
These plants are Esparanzas. These hibiscus plants have flowers that are ten inches across. Very beautifull.The bouganvillea plant is just covered with blossoms and it a different color. I love it.

This cacti plant is getting bigger everyday.
It hasn't really rained for about seven weeks and things are starting to die out. I feel sorry for people who are only here during the dry season. It's so lush and green in Chacala during the rainy season. Blossoms everywhere. But there are lots of butterflies here right now, so that almost makes up for it.

Gardening in Confusion

I had been wondering how it is that my potted-in-plastic-bucket plants aren’t drying out very quickly. I discovered the answer when I got home from Las Varas today, while the town water was running, and discovered my landlord watering, actually over-watering, my plants. I have asked him not to water my plants, because some of them are plants of the desert, and need to try out between waterings.

He thinks I am wrong, and waters them anyway. I am afraid I will have to move them up onto my patio. Which might work out okay. This afternoon, the landlady’s daughter, Blanca, was helping her Mom clean up their old bedroom, so they can rent it out. And while I was over next door she started watering the succulents and cacti. When I returned, I tried to show her which plants she would water. She is somewhat learning disabled, and we didn't communicate very well.

Neither Blanca or her Dad seemed to be able to comprehend the idea that over-watering could be a problem for potted plants. I’m not sure what to do next about the watering situation. I think I will play it by ear.I know I don’t want them coming up and watering plants on my teraza. It’s difficult to maintain a comfortable (for me) degree of privacy here. I think privacy is not an issue for most local people. They have never had it, and maybe don’t understand the urge to be alone. Don’t know.

I thought I would be going to the vivero/nursery in La Penita today, but I just didn’t feel like it. I am still feeling tired and headachy. Maybe next week.

Seeing Things in Chacala

These are poor photos of a tree in Chacala, one which I have never seen before. Actually, it’s the blossoms I have never noticed before. Chapina, the woman who lives under this tree, told me the blossoms are actually from another plant growing up through the tree. But I couldn’t see that separate plant, so who knows.Esparanza is extremely proud of this light purple rose, which grows in a pot next to her home on the beach in Chacala.

And this is a deep purple flower that seems to blossom annually, on a small shrub in Aurora's garden. It looks like a mini-purple maple. And I haven't been successful at photographing it. Today, when I was walking home from Majahua, I was amazed to see how many plantainas or Musa, or whatever, where growing in the wild. Majahua is little hotel in the jungle at the south end of the beach, and there are many birds, butterflies, and wild plants there.

I stopped at my landlady’s restaurant to rest and get some tortillas, hot off the grill. Lupe and I went out back and looked at her little garden there. Some of the desert rose plants I have given her were looking great, but no blossoms. Probably because they were less than an hour of sun a day. She gave me two plants to bring to the garden at this house. I don’t know their names, and neither did she.And we admired her cacti.Walking over to Majahua this morning, I had a strange and pleasant visual experience. I was walking thru the palm grove, and suddenly I was very aware of each object as I approached, came even with, and each of the many plants that surround me: palms, grass, shrubs, and so on. It was such an odd experience. It took several minutes to think of a description of the visual effect

It was kind of like seeing the world thru those little flip books they used to make. When you flipped the pages with your thumb the little images, like a juggler, or a dog leaping, for instance, seemed to move about. Or seeing a new change of perspective, as the plants kind of move past each other . The change of perspective happened every 1/10th of a second, or something like that. A very odd and pleasant experience.It happened again when I was walking down the little back trail from Majahua to the streambed. Very odd experience. Actually very beautiful and kind of serene feeling. I can’t even think of how to describe it. The light was wonderful. I don’t know if it was the result of brain damage from whacking my head, or just one of the those amazing moments in life.

Butterflies in Chacala

This morning, when I went out to take some garden photos for the following post, there were butterflies everywhere. I stood very still, and soon they were ignoring me. My photos didn't turn out very well, but it was fun to watch them


First time i tried to photograph butterflies. I am sort of pleased, but i have alot to learn about close-ups.

Puttering Around in My Chacala Garden

Woke up at my favorite time, as the sun was coming up over the hills behind Chacala. Maybe 6:45am. The obscured glass in the door to this room gets the first light from the sunrise, shining right thru the glass onto my bed. I love it.It’s such a nice way to wake up. Everything is glowing.

I got up and saw there were five boats out on the Chacala, and I tried to take some photos. But the power lines across the road from this house kind of cut thru everything. It’s still a lovely view to wake up to. I lean against the short cement wall that serves as a railing for the teraza and just stand there, lost in reverie and loving the moment.

Then I got down to business, tidying up. I try to alternate days where I do some housework, laundry, gardening, and general organizing, getting the trash to the trash truck, filling my buckets when the water comes on, and so on, with days where I have specific things I want to do.

I have kind of settled into a routine of doing my online internet stuff that day. I like the rhythm of “work days” with days of no expectations. Sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. I usually garden and write and draw and visit with whatever or whoever comes along. Or do beads or just make things.
My four Desert Roses are all blossoming like crazy. I just love these plants.

This morning after breakfast I pruned the big rose bush here. Just cut back the dead blossoms. That isn’t generally done here. Pruning dead blossoms. So I kind of experimented by doing only one side first. Within three days there were 26 new blossoms on that side, and only dead blossoms on the other.First blossom on my chili pepper plants, planted from seed.

Aurora came over while I was checking the rose, and she was amazed at the difference between deadheading and not-deadheading. So we went of to her place a dead headed a couple of her roses. And her Bird of Paradise. I gave it to her for Mother’s Day last year, and it has grown from a small to plant to about a dozen stems, and lots of blossoms. We deadheaded that plant too. I hope it responds as well as the roses did.

Last month, before I moved to this place, I gave away all but one of my Bird of Paradise plants , and it was a scrawny little thing, too crummy to give away. But it’s starting to look good. I just pruned four blossom with large black seeds, which I am going to plant in the same pot.
Aurora as a bunch, maybe a hundred, baby Aloe plants growing around her trees. I brought some over here, and just planted them. They’ll probably do fine. I just cleared a llittle spot along the stairway up to the house, and I want to plant something there. But I think my landlady would like to pick out which plant she’s like there.
I am getting a ride to La Penita on Thursday. It’s the nearby town with a big street market, tianguis on Thursday. Some really nice gringos from Santa Fe are getting a driver, and they invited me along. I am coming back on my own though, because I want to go to one of the nurseries and see what they’ve got right now.

Houseplants in the Wild, and in Chacala

It's really fun for me to to see what I knew at houseplants in Zone 5, growing in gardens or wild and free all over Chacala. This is the guest patio next to the pool at Casa Chacala This plant is growing like crazy up one of Aurora's trees.
This is a planter in the Las Brisas parking lot.
This gardenia is growing at Beatriz's, outside and year-round. It's about 18 months old.I can't remember what is called, but it's growing in the streambed on the way to Majahua.

Three Gardeners in Chacala

Dona Lupe and Euloio, my landlady and her husband, came up today to do stuff around the place. They have been sleeping down at Dona Lupe’s restaurant for the last year or so.

They came up today because they are hoping to rent their room, below me, to someone for the winter. Today we moved furniture around in their room and installed the bed that used to be in my room in their room. I didn’t want two beds in my space. I need the room for workspaces and tables, and don’t really want guests staying with me. Except for family.

The room they want to rent is very basic, and, shares a bath with their other room, which their youngest son uses when he's around. It’s $135US. Nothing to write home about, but the price is right.
Then we worked on the little side yard, which is shaded by the house, and two small trees, most of the afternoon. It looks pretty good. We picked up a lot of trash and broken fans, etc, and took it down to the road for the trash guy tomorrow morning. I am going the scrounge some some chairs and a table for sitting around and visiting. Euloia had put up a hammock for me last week, but I was afraid to try it. So Dona Lupe (who is tiny and weights about 80 pounds) tried in and it bottomed out on the ground. If I had tried it the two saplings it’s tied two would have bent in two.

Then we fooled around with my plants, and weeded some of their flower beds, and talked about where I could plant some things in the tierra. The water came on while we were puttering around and we filled the water containers and hand watered. The plants in front of the house look so much nicer than when I lived here a couple of years ago. Don’t know why.
I now have four blue hyacinth plants in a bucket now. Every time I look in the bucket Dona Lupe has added another plant for me.The next time she comes up to the house we are going to look around the plants she has growing out back. Where the tejones and other varmints live. We might transplant some of her plants around to the front of the house. I weeded an Arnica plant today, not knowing what it was. But Euloia saw me do it and saved the plant . We replanted it and it looked okay this afternoon.