Sunday, October 31, 2010

Kepa Junkera + Rolando Luna - Rekalde · Iturrigorri · Maume · Dantza con...

 

Somewhat sick of my stomach, when I visit any of the multiple Lame Blog Guild Productions, I place this music from Kepa and Rolando.


I would like to see a production within this context of music from: Ireland, Colombia, USA, Mexico, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Poland, Germany, Hungary, Rumania, Argentina and  Puerto Rico to name a few.


It is about time that the average islander make an effort to stop dying of nothing, with that robotic like smile so often found as if there was much to be happy about.


Gardening and music. Thank god if there is one, even if not. Juat the jeck.


Enjoy and repeat after me: Long live the music with swing, without absurd overwhelming  percussion.

ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION IN THE CRADLE

IT  is just a case of being there, done that. The state, family and church, always telling a story to keep the herd, within sight.

How many times those religious, 
and school curriculum  stories have been repeated mantra like all over the world? The people who do now their history are bound to repeat the same errors.  What a bunch of crap.


Perhaps you heard, read about the Balkans.  Remember those killing machines in the 90's? It all started with Turks or ISLAM, centuries ago. That is that for know.


Olives, the fruit and the trees have often impressed me for their resilience and strange beauty. Not long ago I mentioned here the recent trend of selling of one hundred years old trees  for landscaping. Uprooted from former plantations, sold for 1,000 euros, in Spain. Some are five hundred and even 1,000 years can be found, for some more money.  Now lets go back in time  to Greece to see what's the story.

FOOD IN HISTORY
Reay Tannahill
Stein and Day
Publishers
1973
Page 76

THE OLIVE

At the beginning of the sixth century B.C., Solon forbade the export of any agricultural produce other than olive oil.  It was a well-meant gesture, but it struck the fatal blow at the Greek landscape.
Such fibrous-rooted as remained were felled for the sake of the olive, whose deep-striking tap root soaked up the moisture far down in the limestone and did nothing to knit, conserve or feed the topsoil.  By the fourth century B.C., Plato was gloomily contrasting the bare white limestone of the Attic countryside he knew with the green meadows, woods and springs of the past.  The pure and brilliant light which is so startling a characteristic of Greece today had been bought at the expense of the trees which had once kept the land fertile.  It took thousand of years for the neolithic revolution to desiccate the flat countryside of Mesopotamia, but only a few hundred in the topographical context of Greece.

Cultivation of the olive seems to have originated six thousand years ago at the eastern end of the Mediterranean.  The straggly, spiny wild plant, poor in oil, was widely distributed even before this time, but it needed the agricultural and mercantile genius of the Syrians and Palestinians to develop the thornless, compact, oil-rich variety which was to spread all along the shores of the Mediterranean.

Oil was everywhere in demand in the ancient world, for food, lighting and medicine, as well as for the lustrations of Egypt and the perfumed unguents with which the early Mediterranean peoples anointed their bodies.  The olive was by no means the only provider, though it was the richest known during the Western bronze age.  In Greece, oil was also extracted from the walnut and the oppium poppy, in Mesopotamia and Africa, from sesame, from almonds in Anatolia; flax and radish in Egypt, flax and cameline in norther Europe.  South, Central and western North America 
had, respectively, groundnut, maize, and sunflower seed oil, while in Asia the soybean and the coconut palm were probably the richest sources.

That is that. This book is one of my favorites, with me few years after it was published, when I was interested in gastronomy and cooking.

Just thought that your humble servant, like Plato, and I bet tens of others in touch with their surroundings, noticed during their time, in my case 15 of age, the evil, stupid, for profit irreversible destruction.

The first time I wrote to a newspaper about tree mutilation, was 1969. Published in La Semana, a local newspaper in the Caguas Country. I still have the brief letter.

You can make whatever from this post, I
can not help about the remarkable, futile attempt to create bio fuels from food.  Corn, sugar cane and such. I understand to some extent oil from palm and Jathropa, however the destruction to the environment is no different from trash wood planted for paper.

I could go on and on, but let me finish here, in Puerto Rico, following the USA economic model: house, car, children has plastered as a consequence the Metro Zone with concrete/asphalt/C02, traffic jams 24/7, for what?  For a better life? Haja bilingual epilogue.

BONUS
 
Flowering down this mean isle,
Gloriosa rothschildiana. Meanwhile, the pink and the white Plumerias are getting naked, for later blooming.


Apaga i vamonoh.



Friday, October 29, 2010

BOTANICAL NAMES POST

SOME experienced gardeners, and that feeble majority, or the uninitiated, stay away from botanical names as if bubonic plague.  I understand worries about pronunciation or spelling.  Your humble servant does not care about these issues. If you can not spell, the computer will suggest the right thing.

But one thing I tell you, knowing them botanical names, separate the amateur from a pro, the first division player from one in the second.
That is that, in my intercontinental opinion. 

Botanical names tell tales

Latin plant names are usually chosen by botanists because of some connection with the plant.  Botanical names such as Claystonia virginica, Viola misouriensis, Pieris japonica, 
Linnaea borealis and Aquilegia alpina reveal where this plants originally grew in the wild.  For example, Linnaea borealis--borealis meaning northern in Latin--grows as far north as USDA Hardiness Zone 2.

Some Latin names signify bloom times. Thus, vernalis means spring, so Hamamelis vernalis would be a good witch hazel for spring bloom.  Adonis aestivalis, which is commonly known as summer adonis, provides good summer color, while Colchicum autumnale brightens the garden in fall, and Eranthis kyemalis produces, its bright yellow flowers in late winter.

FROM
Fine Gardening
Magazine
August 1999
Page 16

Back in the studio, some readers may remember a previous post about some
'Dipterantus prostratus', a wild plant I domesticated and the two are to your right with Roman numerals.

I went to davesgarden.com. They have a section for plant ID, placing a picture with a rather brief description, including the exploding firecracker like habit of the seeds when hot and irrigated.

What were the responses from these 'educated' gardeners? Chatarantus and Ruellia, believe it or not.  Which brings an issue for pondering..

How can anyjuan presented with a bad/good picture, speculate in such a stupid fashion if the description informs, TELLS, what the mystery plant is not?

The situation is remarkable. Those gardeners getting their plants from nurseries habitually, will show a limited repertoire of known plants, often the available, common place ones in Home Depot or near by nurseries.

In brief, I got irritated as hell. If anyjuan ask me about this or that, I do not speculate, I will research or accept my ignorance...These old farts are like many people in Puerto Rico into collective monologues. They talk  aloud in a group to see if anyjuan engages in trivial, meaningless chit chat. That is that.

Apaga i vamonoh.


Thursday, October 28, 2010

GARDENING IN STEREO

The receiver, a Teac AG790, just arrived. Lets go back in time for some short music related notes If I may.

The first long playing record in our house was brought home by dad, after he won it in a raffle.  Like some bones in Ten Decades of Solitude, it went from one closet to the chiforobbe and so forth.


However, there was no record player,  until two years later (circa 1965), when me sister the avaricious adventist, bought one Magnavox, with the income from her part time job while in high school.


This record player had the appearance of a coffin for a child, but adequate bass and treble sound.  It was automatic, and one was able to stack five records to avoid the exercise in getting up for changing.


In those days, looking back, seems like prehistoric, others  were adults coffin size, with television, radio, huge ugly monsters in the living room.


That first record, was Llanera music from Venezuela, with some legendary singer vocalist whose name escapes my memory but her voice is still around.


My first buys at the record store were, "Equinox", by Sergio Mendes, in AM Records, and "Acid" by RIP, Ray Barreto on Fania.


The first serious stereo component I was able to check out in those days was a Pioneer, in El Verde, a housing project for the upper middle class and hand to mouth wanabees.


Fernando Monteverde was his name. His family were the only negros around.
An oddity not like USA, but weird. This family of professionals, had excellent music at home and knew how to take care of records.


The paraphernalia, D4, discwasher, Record Care System included the velvet wood/velvet cylinder to clean the surface of the records with the cleaning fluid, and small brush to keep the stylus clean.

Their children there were four, listened to War, Vanilla Fudge and Santana not very common music among the natives then. I got the skills to maintain and care for the records and stereo from these people by watching them.  That made possible to listen to some of my first records forty years later.


Years later during my first migration to Northampton, MA (1977), I got a Harman/Kardon receiver with Epicure speakers and a Sanyo turntable. That stereo lasted until the fabric on the speakers became brittle and I had to glue them with silicone, at least 15 years.

One of the ironies of life now,  with digital music, is that young and not so  people, some with stereo equipment in their cars with a 1,000 watts is the shitty hip hop, regueton and rap they are in the habit of listening.

Why can't some of them listen to music with lyrics, melody or just instruments?
Why can't these retarded fellows balance the bass/treble controls? That way their cars will not vibrate with the annoying distortion while driving by me house?


Time to go.  Connect the system Dario.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

INVESTIGATIVE REPORT MISTAKEN IDENTITY

I was going to write about some plants, considered weeds by some people in some contexts, however, while verifying botanical names I found a surprise.

Plants I and II were collected during the last two years and propagated at home.
Chandramouli S, a gentleman from India, in his blog: inartliesmylife.blogspot, identified the white species as, Dipterantus prostratus.  The violet one did not appear in that post long ago.

So I have now two varieties of one plant I thought correctly identified, wrong.  This is evidence that one should not trust blindly regarding plant identificationDipterantus prostratus does not appear anywhere, in any search, in the web, believe it or not.  Either this plant is a total unknown in educated botanical circles or the name is wrong.

At any rate, III, Barleria repens is one of the top twenty in me garden. A clone from the Luis Munhoz Marin Foundation, planted by him or Ines, the mistress turned wife.  My Guaicum and Calliandra are from those days among money launderers. No, I was not in the laundry, but ground keeping.


This plant of multiple personalities since it self seeding, also grow roots when it makes contact with the ground as a stolon. Even though it tends to prostrate it also moves vertically, becoming a hedge with adequate support and once in a blue moon trim. 

IV. Asystacia gangetica, is a herbaceous or shrubby, often climbing or trailing, like the one above, producing white, yellow or mauve (mine) colored flowers.  Cultivated, escaped and naturalized in moist districts. 

So there,  four plants not for the common place gardener, depending solely on nursery stock.


Which reminds to share this. The dull aesthetics predominantly in ALL gardens of Puerto Rico, is a result, of idiots and feeble minded nursery owners, just selling what they find  in FLORIDA.


Our Flora/Fauna needs propagators taking into consideration our own vegetation, endemic, native or whatever. Sometimes the concept is irrelevant since eyes are there to see.

Regarding other gardening fronts, I think foolish that urge to hybridize constantly to get new plants every damn year, a total waste of time in my opinion.  However, let the record show that if you are a scientist, I could understand the issue. But just for money,
it sucks.


Your humble servant practices what he preaches. The wish to squash idiocy, permanently within.  


Apaga i vamonoh.





A

Saturday, October 23, 2010

LAWNS CIGARETTES FUR JUNK FOOD=DEATH

I HAD A DREAM. The truth is that it felt like a nightmare.  The environmental claque around this concrete/asphalt meadow ALL of them,  finding ways to be in the news.

Yet, they are blind to problems I have photographed and appear to the right of this column.  If you can not solve simple, evident, problems in front of your not so Roman nose, how can you write, holler and self anoint to claim anything? Fool.

The tittle? Well, it is time to grab the bull by the scrotum or horns, take your pick.  Lawns, turf, may be attractive in the eyes of many. Picture a warm, sunny day, a blanket, a picnic, Central Park, pick your favorite scene with Satie, Debussy or Ravel in the background.

If on the gluttony mood, hamburgers, hot dogs, corn, you name it. But be aware.

Trimmers, lawnmowers and blowers, use gas/oil/propane or diesel. In USA,
54 million law abiding citizens use/have them. CO2, global warming, have you heard of it? 
Add now water waste, fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, organic waste and NOISE.


Now, I declare that if there is a hint of a little despotism and dogmatism once in a blue moon in this blog is not my fault. Society made me what I am. Bilingual laugh.


When I was in high school, I ran for  class president. I lost 400 to 100, even in my home room. In college it was closer, 50 to 49.


But everything should be in context. Remember Sadam, and Tito? They were cruel despots, but their countries were in check. There was law and order, the necessary killing and jails, no human rights but, is it better now?


The Palestines are the best. Their democratic ways allows to elect terrorists! Any difference in views, arguments, solved with machine guns,
bombs, and shitty home made rockets. What a trip. Fortunately,
the Hebrews are there to protect our civilization or barbaric ways.  The middle East will make life miserable for the innocent, us, their own...A Crusade for a primitive teocratic rule. Blowing up themselves in pieces, preferably when gathering to pray....to reach the 76
virgins?


Back in the studio, it is getting tiresome.
This indifferent posture of society in general regarding the tolerance of LAWNS.  The stance can, should not be different that those against smokers, fur,
and junk food.


If it is not politically correct to smoke even in open spaces, wear furs, eat junk food habitually, why should the state allow some to pollute air, water, soil, sound waves with their ways?


Every environmental spoke person, their followers should present pictures of their properties, place of residence, just like politicians present their tax records.
Pharisees should be punished in public.


It would be like old Christian/new Christian from the past, that never seems to go away, when I look at my surroundings.

For this same reason you have nothing to worry. There  are too many silly blogs pretending to be original,  newspapers, commenting, repeating to death the same common place shit as the next, it is like a choir. They all seem to be in tune.

I will try to remain in my course. My dislikes for the common place plants and gardens in this context will not fade. And or yours. Time to go...

Apagad e idnos...

OBITUARY

My ONKYO receiver, 1992-2010, has passed away, as my Tecnichs cassette player months ago.

The Teac replacement is on its way, the second, a Sony, is already home.

I belong to that generation watching how long playings have survived all the attempts for a final solution.

Music, playing a record at home was a different experience. It was visual, the smell of paper/cardboard, reading the notes, and exercising. You had to get up your ass to place the next record.
Now  is just a matter for the ears and fingers.



In the garden everything is fine. The pine needles solution worked out well. I can declare it now after exhaustive observations. If you have snails and slugs eating away your vegetables or hornamentals give it a try.

Friday, October 22, 2010

GARDENING BY THE YARD UPDATES

A COUPLE  of days ago I felt this incredible racket in front of the house,  while watering the east garden in the back.  I moved to check its origin.

It was Raul Rodriguez.  Talking as in a fit, mentioning el palito o little tree.  When I asked what little tree, he mentions the canopy.  I knew then what it was. A Guaicum officinale that I pruned pro bono months ago from the inside, below.


After giving some thought to the incident, I will not do it. Shotgun beggars are hard to swallow. I believe that he should have dropped by, walking, not talking to me as in a carry out window in a fast food, or he could have called, screw him, for lacking manners.


On another similar front, human contact,
Don Miguel, the 84 years old neighbor, found me irrigating in the south, from the sidewalk.  Gave me the update regarding Lucy Laborde's Bouganvillea by the sidewalk.  He got cut by one of the ill pruned branches, informing her firmly to solve the problem.

Anita la huerfanita has a similar condition with a botanical variety. She has Allamanda, palm trees fronds and Bouganvillea. In this concrete/asphalt island, most people think of public areas as if their own.

My Bouganvillea got one of those once in a while pruning.  The branches rubbing against each other and those growing with the intention. I do not see how people keep hedges, it is silly, a waste of time in my view, considering that is just for aesthetics.


That is my blunt opinion of formal and high maintenance gardens.  Zen gardens?  Too much pruning if you ask me. STIFF. However, I love the sand and gravel areas and above all the essential assymetry in the installation of rocks, stones and such.


The weather  feels like June/July.  As years go by, plastered with concrete/asphalt, left and right, cool breezes are as needles in haystacks.


Even when this garden is thought for drought, salty breezes, some plant indicators look really stressed. When that happens, I attack on all fronts with a hose, the drip irrigation one and Dramm watering can.  


Later it was sweeping of dry leaves. I get between 8/12 ounces every other day. Some go directly as mulch on the south, the rest in the compost pile,

I received a batch of shredded paper added to the compost and great happiness for me earth worms.

Best environmental news for the end.
I had to call again Waste Management, for daily noise from the dumpster in SAGRADO CORAZON, the university back door, neighbor from hell.


The receptionist was professional, efficient and kind, responding to the email and solving the matter.  In the concrete/asphalt queen of the Caribbean, ladies and gentlemen this is a MIRACLE.  


Time to go apaga i vamonoh.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

GARDENING RESEARCH

YOUR humble servant was described as a snob, by two obscure bloggers of the common place, green areas,  tropical hotel entrance gardening.

I admit that I am arrogant and dogmatic, with some airs of superiority, hostility toward the fools, (like them), every once in a blue moon, but I am not sleeping on laurels.  Every day is a chance to show my colors.  Here it goes.


My previous post mentioned, described 3 vines in my collection from a book by Edwin Miner Sola.  There are some errors in the book dealing with wrong botanical names, but essentially is a good reference, since there are no other.


Except perhaps this one from the New York Botanical Garden: 
http://sweetgum.nybg.org/uh/narratives.php.?irn=184, which in turn was found in the most unexpected source: www.pragroecologico.info.


Puerto Rico Agroecologico for its friends. A blog for the edible gardening
fans in that exclusive bag, and no other!
I try to cover the whole court, carrying the ball, with no one to pass.


BACK TO THE STUDIO

Ipomoea aegyptia L.
Nathaniel Lord Britton
Frances W. Horne

Flora Borinquena

Ipomoea aegyptia
Palmate-leaved Morning-glory
Family Convulvulaceae

"Characterized by leaves completely divided into 5 untoothed and unlobed segment of leaflets and rather large white flowers,  this twining vine is frequent on thickets on hillsides and in fields at lower altitudes, in moist and dry parts of  Porto Rico, growing also on Mona and Vieques islands and occasionally planted for ornament.

It has very wide distribution in tropical regions, both in the New World and the Old.  It is not known where the species originated. We regard it as indigenous in Porto Rico, but this may be open to question;we have not observed it above 150 meters elevation." 

I brought seeds of Ipomoea aegyptia from one of my yearly trips to Marylee's by the Sea in Guanica, my favorite desert like town in the south west of the concrete/asphalt isle.

I confess to be totally inclined towards vegetation grown in desert, dry geographies and a total dislike for rainforests, like El Yunque. Do not ask why, I can not explain it.

That is why Cesar Manrique Cabrera from Lanzarote, Spain, kicks both butts,
Roberto Burle Marx and his horrendous installations in Brasilia or Raymond Jungles and his palm trees jungles in that tortilla flat land of Florida. Very subjective the whole thing, but that is what the river brought.

Back to the studio. Why is all this bullshit in the eyes of the uninitiated important?  To me it is, since I searched for two years the names of : Passiflora foetida/pallida l. and our protagonist today, having lost hope until by accident I found the reference for the NY Botanical Garden, my alma mater.

As a misanthropist, it is necessary to find, investigate, research alone. I find absurd the type of questions asked in many blogs and sites from people gardening as a hobby.  Incapable of investigating subjects proper from elementary school. 

Blogs themselves, comments from some readers are also a tool for research if one takes the time to read them.

Titania, Rambling Anne, One, rohrerbot, Stephanie and Beato have offered information from experience that is not necessarily found otherwise, pragmatic and credible. Thanks to them.

Now you will find, maybe, odd, Porto Rico, the spelling...Well Lord Britton and wife did their relevant research for two decades in the early 1900's.  Descriptions are pertinent when one has no pictures, in those days there were masterpiece illustrations, more fun to observe than many pictures today.

Once in a while I have had a hint of what I am looking for from a description only. Pictures may be worth more than a thousand words, if you have it...

Time to go..Apaga i vamonoh!


 

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

NOT IN YOUR NEXT DOOR NURSERY

ONE of the rules for setting trends in this neck of the woods, is to own, collect plants of any kind, research and investigate,  including weeds with or without aesthetic values out of context.

Meaning that beauty and/or originality in the composition, beholder apart,
will be the result of the installation as a whole.  After known elements of composition in gardening as you probably know/or not, and follow with your own skills without the need to classify it. Meaning formal, prairie, cottage for example.


However, if you have a lawn, palms, bromeliads, Strelitzia reginae, gingers or heliconias, Ravenala madascariensis, I say, declare your garden sucks big time, looking like a hotel or golf course entrance down here or Fort Lauderdale, gaudy.


I will speculate also. You are environmentally/horticulturally incorrect, since you are not a nimby, or not in my backyard.  Unless you have a push mower, goats or sheep to do the lawn, the life of your neighbors, alligators included, is hell on earth with noise and pollution with: gas/oil, propane or diesel.  Herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and fertilizers.
In addition water waste. In brief you and your garden suck, since biodiversity our surroundings are destroyed with your selfish ways.

Join me in this crusade, you yellow belly backward fool. Repent. After you pass away, you, your groupies, will reach the milk and honey so often mentioned, not along Antigonum, among your own. Amen.


BONUS FOR THE FAITHFUL

You may skip this section if you depend solely on plants from nurseries.

Merremia quinquefolia
Convulvulaceae

Herbaceus vine with twisting stems from a woody base and palmately compound leaves by 5 elliptic,  lanceolate or oblanceolate leaflets. Found at banks, thickets and over fences in low medium elevations. Flowering all year long, mostly November to May.

Clitorea ternatea
Papiliodeae

Woody vine 1 to 3 meters long, with slender cylindric stem covered by hairs when young. Found in thickets, roadsides and over fences.  Very much planted in the tropic areas of the world for its beautiful flowers. Naturalized native of Europe. With flowers through out the year.

Merremia aegyptia
Convulvulaceae

Common vine in fields, river banks and thickets of lower elevations of dry humid districts, covered with dense yellow-brown patent hairs.

Taken from: Flowers of Puerto Rico and The Exotics, by Edwin Milner Sola

On the next episode I will provide a source from the New York Botanical Garden for you to investigate on your own if willing: Ipomoea aegyptia, PPassiflora foetida, Passiflora pallida l. and gratis, Dipterantus prostratus. s.

You can garden like a gaudy nurseries, hotel entrance, or aim higher, is up to you, not a command.

Apaga i vamonoh.

Post Partum Bonus

A way to measure popularity is to assign five species by follower, visitors, countries, cities or comments.

Since this is no feisbuk competition to gather the most followers, I remind one dear reader, the inspiration for today post, that the garden itself, not I, nor the blog is what matters.

Monday, October 18, 2010

100 POSTS AND 100 SPECIES


I appreciate all those readers who drop by once in a while, writing or not what they think. There is something to be learned when I visit other blogs. It is a matter of writing skills, photography, concepts, ideas,  information and/or opinion.  If what you read here in the Puertorican context,  displeases you, too bad. There are 150 million to pick from.


After 100 posts the compromise is still here, with 100 species to match below.

I perceive gardening as a creative, critical activity that should be focused in terms of nature, flora and fauna, not the self, the I.  Be willing to take the heat or get out of the kitchen.

Here is the inventory revisited.
Allium
Alocasia cucullata
Aglaonema commutatum
Allamanda cathartica
Antigonon leptopus
Arashis hypogea
Amarilys
Anthurium
Asparagus
Aloe vera
Alternatera brasiliana
Asystacia gangetica
Andropogon citratum
Antigonum leptopus
Bryophylum pinnatum
Bauhinia monandra
Brunfelsia pauciflora
Barleria repens
Buganillea buttiana
Bixa orellana
Cestrum diurnum
Cannavalia maritima
Calledium hortulanum
Capsicum 
Citrus sinensis
Citrus aurantifolia
Clitorea ternatea
Codiaeum variegatum
Costus malortnaus
Chrysothemis pulchella
Carica papaya
Coccoloba uvifera
Clorophytum diurnum
Calliandra hemathocephalla
Catharantus roseus
Cosmos sulphureous
Commelina elegans
Cuphea hyssophifolia
Crinum amabile
Caledium
Datura stramonium
Dracaena marginata
Diffenbachia amoena
Daylilly
Dipterantus prostratus
Eucaris amazonica
Euphorbia tirucalli
Epiphylum oxipetallum
Gardenia augusta
Guaicum officinale
Gloriosa rothschildiana
Hibiscus cannabinus
Hemerocallis
Hippobroma longiflora
Ixora
Ipomoea aegyptia/quamoclit
Jasminum undulatum
Lipia micromera
Merremia quinquefolia
Mirabilis siciliana
Malpighia glabra
Myosotis
Nephrolepsis
Ochna mossabisencis
Origanum vulgare
Oxalis
Occimun basilicum
Phalaenopsis
Petroselinum crispum
Passiflora
Pandanus utilis
Pereskia bleo
Proiphys amboinensis
Pithelobium dulce
Pseuderantemun reticulatum
Pleomeles reflexa
Polyscia fruticosa
Plectantrus amboinicus
Pedilanthus tithymaloides

Plumeria rubra
Rhoeo spathacea
Rain joe
Rosmarinus officinale
Ruellia brittoniana
Sanseveria trifasciata
Scadoxus
Syngonium
Serpol tuymusser pyllum
Thilandsia
Thunbergia alata
Trimezia martinicensis
Tulbagia violacea
Turnera ulmifolia
Tradescantia pallida
Urena lobata
Wedelia trilobata
Zephirantes
Zinziber officinalis
Zamia

It seems that the average islander is a happy clam in the mud, regarding Nature, the environment, ecology and gardening, to name a few.
In addition those who should know better in terms of academics, position, regarding these issues show consistent feeble minds at every opportunity.
I try not to. Abrasive and blunt.
That is the way.

Time to go. Apaga i vamonoh.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

MOCKABLE BOTANICAL BLUES

I BELIEVE this narrative structure has not been tried before, but It it has, let it slide. Before getting into the matter let the record show my objection to the Widow/Matriarch of the 1000 signatures,(desahogoboricua.blogspot.com)* views on  Vargas Llosa, literature Nobel prize.

I do not think a writer should be judged by his political stance, actions and tendencies. Nor his biography should be weighed with this purpose. I do not even like his work.  But if those Swedish fellows picked him among the group, they should have their reasons. If this leftist adolescent position is correct, then persecuting and alienating communist/socialists and patriots as those around her seem to be, is also fine. 

AFTER this unusual but certainly fun beginning, lets get to the mockable palm trees.  If you have palms, turf, and/or hedges, sorry; in the eveningpost, it is political and horticulturally incorrect. 

Palms look fine, at their best from the distance.  When in standard positions to the pictures at right, just like a light post with eagle feathers in front of your nose.


I will not get into the organic garbage: seeds and fronds, a pain in the ass.  In the monster palm case, the fronds are between ten/twenty pounds.  The owner has to climb a 15 ladder to cut them seeds and fronds, not a pretty picture, believe me, every other month.  Eventually the ladder wont do, and he would not reach, then what?

The owner of the monster palm could be forgiven to some extent.  It was there already when he bought the residence.  The other 3 owners, planted them. They look absurd, out of place. I would get rid of them and plant nothing. After all, no one really cares. All these cases, a token of this epidemic of biblical proportions, polluting the whole metro area of San Juan. Particularly, medians in roads, highways and streets.  Most have been contaminated with even species intolerant to salt breeze environments, palms of all kinds, shape and forms. Bilingual laugh.



1. This blog with 2,000 visitors, should be in the Guinness, the  most awarded in the concrete asphalt by groupies. 
Excellent Blog Award
Premio Huellas
Brillante Weblog
Blog Ciberactivista
Blog Que Rompe Barrera Mediatica    

The 2nd and 4th offered by, not
5to Poder as Spanish demands,
but Poder 5.

On third place Siluz, a somewhat poet of the intimate, really.

The fifth one a character with the pen name Prometeo.

God knows about the first, probably herself, like the Intercontinental Trend Setting Blog award by yours truly.

Their blogs are about isle politics, blindfolded all the way, international politics, social, cultural, very amusing
when bored.  I visit them once a month or more when in the mood..God bless them.
 




BONUS PICTURES

This is why I decided not to stroll as I used to.  This is Puerto Rico, what tourist guides do not show, mention.

In a 2 miles circle, 4 out of ten properties 
look like these, it is almost Detroit, USA.
San Carlos is my new guerrilla gardening headquarters.

Time to go.
Dario, apaga la luh.

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