GARDENING BY NUMBERS IN THE NORTH GARDEN

DISCLAIMER

This post is about numbers. Some readers may be able to expand their view and/or concept

of what this one quarter of the whole represents

THE AREA  beyond the arch is 8' 7" wide.  I do not have any idea how anyone could park those living room automobiles in 1940, when this house was built. Is a pain in the ass to enter, for the lack of angle and so is to exit for the lack of view. It is totally useless. We park in the street.

The high beds to your right, have five inches thick concrete walls,  a depth of eleven inches and seventeen inches wide. with a total length of 23'.

From the arch to the fiberglass garage door there are 30.2 feet.

The five holes dug with chisel and sledge hammer are between 13 and 25 inches wide.  Every vine mentioned in my previous posts is there, I will not get into that.  The highest point vine wise is 9' 2".

A close approximate number of species in the high beds is 51. This includes an original Croton, (the only one), left by the original owners lichens and all, a good environmental sign. It is probably 20 years old.

The north garden has an area of 262 concrete square feet, or 30' 2" by 8' 7". The planting area on the other hand is 34' 5".

All the numbers exclude those species in holes and pots.

Finally I thank all of you who drop by and read, leaving or not feedback.  Planting in every context requires some thought and effort. Aesthetics are there or not depending on the education and exposure of the viewer reader.  As I have mentioned before, when a garden is planned with flora and fauna in mind, anything else should take a second place.

Nevertheless I feel certain satisfaction when I compare my garden to others here and in foreign lands.  This feeling become joy when others in the distance share some of the pleasure, that is not always an accident.  Thanks.

apaga i vamonoh.

if your calculations are different, 

Bravo!

A CAMPAIGN PROMISE POST

 I dedicate this post to ALL those bloggers, the one percent, out of  every one hundred, sharing their wisdom,  expertise, theories and practices in all the issues discussed in this blog and theirs. I take my hat off . You know who you are.

SOME TIME AGO, I promised to share some aerial views of me garden. This time I concentrated on the north and east sides. There are not many blogs offering aerial views of anything. Another notch for the road.

I have also some pictures of my garden resident Spindalis nest in the north garden. In addition I will offer my still life with another nest that fell in my museum material photo still life: Air, water and soil. However I do not want to overwhelm my fans and foes. Next time I will provide the rest of the show. Today was a very productive day in a photographic sense.

that is that
apaga i vamonoh.

THE LAST TOMATO POST

I WONDER what would or (www), JOSY LATORRE , ingest  after a sumami, dressed on top with plutonium. This burned out singing cartridge, is the local vegetarian authority of the eating, not the planting.  IT would be interesting to research all vegetarian fundamentalists to see what the hell they plant, or if all the pose is similar to that great gone inner city comedy show, Seinfeld.  In nine years nature, flora or fauna were never mentioned while it lasted, not even by accident.


The tittle is the last tomato, because the last Solanum lycopersicum, would have caused less or no impact to the reader. By the way, I visit other blogs, less and less, since they exist like news smedia parasites. Not an original concept, not one, or creation or anything...Just chit chat and dull small talk predominates in the local arena. Their lack or originality include the tittles. These posts all may suck, but some tittles are remarkable.


The first meaningful  tomato I ever ate was planted by a Rumanian, Ms. Dascalu, the nail technician wife of the Mr. our landlord and tool and dye maker, in Queens as ugly, flat as Staten Island. It was the first of 3 boroughs in our peregrination for a 'better future'. It was followed by Brooklyn before Smith street became another Manhattan, and ending in the beautiful Upper West Side, 186th street and Broadway, next door to Fort Tryon. 

However, the Mets territory has a lot of Colombians, by 82nd street, taking the Oriental Express, the 7 train. These are my favorite South American segment for their speech patterns, vocabulary, humor, music (salsa, cumbia,ballenato, llanera), literature, films, narcos series/soaps and gastronomy.


Tomatoes look more weedy than many or most weeds. It is unbelievable so many people in the blog world are so infatuated with tomatoes. Last year, I probably saw, a hundred blogs with photos of tomatoes and or sunflowers with bees.


The story of this plant is simple. I put one cherry tomato from Super Max,  to dry under the sun for the hell of it.  Now I got this weed with 15 cherry ones. Getting what one wishes...That was the last gardening obstacle I had to overcome to be the best there is in the Caribbean.  I guess now I will have to move to grafting, after that there will be no more, I have covered the whole court, unless one reader could provide or remind moi of anything I may have forgotten.

BONUS

SOME people may be thinking that I have mellowed.  Just in tone.

To show the people I have not check this out.

What the HELL are motivators, life coaches for?

Dont we have enough with priests, reverends, sychologists and sychiatrists? LILY GARCIA, you suck! Big time.

This fool went to Mount Holyoke, got a degree in god knows what and now preaches and writes her own gospel in a fucking vacuum. She sucks in a superlative fashion cosnsidering that she violated the client/attorney/priest confidentiality declaring  her husband hammer was not hanging adequately to amuse her readers. SILVERIO, you too are in the same bag, both of you both are ugly and toothy.

This people believe they can motivate others, with yoga, good, vegetarian food, energy, without a social context in which nature, flora and fauna do not exist, not even implicitly. 

Well try to mentally motivate my hog neighbors. Their yard sucks.

This post was brought

to you by the word sucks and  variations.

THE CONSPIRACY POST

ON 8 MARCH 2011 your humble servant and favorite blogger, denounced huge and minor water leaks in the streets and avenues of Santurce, my metro zone undisputed domain.  Puerto Rico leaks!  Such an important piece that even Myrisa from paisciego gave me a hands up like it, in feisbuk.

On 26 MARCH of the current I go for a few strolls during the day, ending in La Placita del Mercado en Santurce, where the alcoholic segment of the population goes to pick up girls and vice versa, with some interacting in between.

This spot with  attractive, ancient architecture, considering that most original architecture has been destroyed all over,  is a favorite to hang out among locals and  tourists included. It  is also, perhaps the best place to study the biped portorricensis.  The astronomical decibels from the loudspeakers, with added spices from timbales, congas and cow bell will wear you out in thirty minutes, it is unbelievable, brutal!  Sure every local biped, no matter their social/economical status,  if they make 200 K with a phd or 12K for a family of four, high school drop out, thinks is perfectly normal, civil,  to listen to shitty salsa music, and trying to HOLLER a conversation during the procedures.


Down here you could get a fine of five hundred bucks for a beer in a side walk, or cursed and fined for smoking indoors, but no ONE has ever thought of the right of quiet, god damned, of every citizen.

1. It is something biped portorricensis can not do, enjoy and respect quiet.

BACK TO THE STUDIO

The conspiracy.  Well I am afraid, I have no other explanation, someone is reading this blog and repairing not only the water leaks, they are also paving the Fernandez Juncos Avenue and restoring the sidewalks in some streets except mine. This has to be a conspiracy.

What am I  going to criticize now?

Joking aside the same problem persist. Lack of systematic maintenance. The perfect restored  sidewalks in  Old San Juan, 
an expensive and tedious work, have been already destroyed in front of the Chamber of Commerce to fix some pipes.
The exact same thing happened a week after the Fernandez Juncos water leak appeared in your favorite blog.

In brief: The leaks in front of: Ciudadela, Fernandez Juncos, Ponce de Leon and Borinquen Avenue, and Sagrado Corazon street a five year old one and not even in my pictures were FIXED. I want to congratulate with my misanthropic heart whomever took the responsibility for the well being of the people. Puerto Rico would do it better with me as an illustrated despot or plain despot if you dissent with the adjective. 

If you like this hit the link 

on top to your left, or the two blogs...

apagad e iros...

Eumir Deodato "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (1972)

   I have received an unusual letter. RF are his initials, about my same age. Same barrio, Savarona in Caguas, before the illegal plague from La Espanhola.

He wants to leave his traces on earth before passing away. On his letter he quotes as references: Carlos Vicky Morell a fifth rate attorney, Luis Aviles a  mongrel convict, Fernando Monteverde a nigger,  and Taco the forgotten clown.

Tomasa del Carmen Puchi, a judge, originally from Morovis, was one in a number of his ladies men days life during the decade when Mr. Deodato, became a well known arranger and piano player from Brazil.

On his notes RF, does not give many details except her alabaster sof and cool, skin naked at eleven am, when he would drop in his bycicle by the housing project in the out skirts of Caguas to Aguas Buenas for foreplay and pull out fornication without condoms, ganja, speed, amphetamines and/or whatever was available. 


He mentioned in his notes that he became aware of Puchi's ambition during some carnal exchange, when the judge in some guest house room, around one o'clock in the afternoon, commented: What a slim waist you got!  Apparently our heroine was fornicating with fat/married/gentleman in that world of judicature and another age range.


What is pertinent on this anecdote is that the witnesses could corroborate part of it. However, RF, is only interested in placing himself and his life experiences about to end in a historical musical context, perhaps the most relevant.


Eumir Deodato made this this record during September 1972, when our hero and heroine judge were in Cayey, undergraduate students, UPR second unit university.

Along Eumir,  Billy Cobham, Ray Barretto, Hubert Laws, Stanley Clarke, Johh Tropea and Ron Carter participated in this historical and sentimental vynil masterpiece. One of the best records I have ever  listened to  in addition to Mr. RF.

Puchi is still a judge in the criminal court in el Pais de Caguas, and goes out with Luis. 

that is that, a rather unusual post,

if you ask me...

 

T

UNKNOWNS TO YOU AND/OR YOURS TRULY

TO KEEP a blog without feisbuk like considerations require focus, perspective, and imagination, just as when planting.  One keeps priorities in their correct place, no matter what.  Some go for the popularity, amount of comments or visitors.


When I made my vows, only setting trends, kicking of butts, mattered.  Another possibility, the one that really matters, becoming a historical reference in nature, ecological,
landscape maintenance and installation issues, collecting, propagating all sorts of adequate plants for my  collection were part of the picture, the intention, motivation.


I feel some satisfaction since five years later no other blog has shown any of the above interests regarding the landscape in the urban concrete/asphalted context of Puerto Rico. Most are into the minga/petraca mode. There are about fifty blogs arguing about four shitty local newspaers. Not I.

In the past when I showed, rare, little signs of arrogance, bully like if you prefer, I thought the botanical names were pertinent to present certainty in one arguments about this or that. Now I do not care. It makes no difference locally. Most people, the non initiated, not only do not give a flying fart about nature, they are unaware and totally disconnected from it.
My impression is they live like Michael, under anesthesia, totally numb, except when earthquakes and sumamis* hit the news.


I would like to share some these DK plants, even when I got a hint about their families for the amount of similar plants in my garden or reference books.


The grey-blue agavacea is significant. Along the succulent, were bought from catalogs while living in Brooklyn, USA.  Both are over ten years. The oldest in my collection.


The plant with minuscule Holly like leaves was a present from Myrta, the domestic help in Lucy Laborde's residence.


The one with Spatiphyllum or Anthurium like leaves a present from my greatest collaborator Rengui, the inlaw.  An authority in vegetation of all kinds.

BONUS

There is one I know in the group. Ochna mossabisencis, a clone from those in the plantation luis munhoz marin. This is the first time it has bloomed in 6 years. I got it when it was five inches tall.

* Buahaja some felt like correcting it....confess! 


My next feature will set another trend.  It is going to be the inventory of a residence in Caguas where a relative of the family residing in it for ten decades  will provide moi the list.
That is one of my goals. To leave evidence of what Puertoricans planted before  the arrival of useless nurseries. These are responsible for  destroying the imagination, ability to propagate and swap plants in all sociological segments of the population.


apagad e iros....

IN THE GARDEN AT RANDOM

ITis a little difficult with age,  to sleep as in the past. After four hours I am awake, unwilling to read for the time it takes to get used to the light and focus.

That is not all, the knees are back to old habits.  A pain that was alleviated with glucosamine, is back. The walking as in Summertime,  ain't easy.  Fortunately, for some reason, there are no weeds to worry about in this concrete prairie style garden.

In this department, Sociedad Horticultural Bouret announces, the first Plumeria glabra blooms in 2011. Plumerias have no rules of engagement. Mine are almost naked, with  few leaves and flowers coming along. However, around the city you could fine some with lots of leaves and/or flowers at once.

The rare, scarce Ochna mossabisencis has bloomed for the first time in six years. Another remarkable first along the Guaicaum officinale, mentioned a while ago. 


My grafted lemon has the first crop of the year moving ahead, along with the Carica papaya and Capsicum florescens which has almost ended.


The Spindalis portoricensis one of our  aesthetically remarkable isle bird, was surprised eating whole Merremia quinquefolia blooms.
This took place once, a couple of weeks ago. It is significant, since I have made an effort to attract fauna that may otherwise would not drop by.  This bird is probably the only one with so many colors in such an arrangement.


In other related news the amount of stray cats, has decreased. Even when Farrukito, continues to feed them without any neutering efforts.  I believe Pain in Ass Tony a neighbor, is poisoning them. Since I have no evidence, except circumstantial, for some garden arrangements and comments he made to eliminate poop rights to this felines in his property, I will not offer a his description, not that anyone cares or reads this blog. 


Outside me garden, three importan issues
have developed. Believe it or not, some sidewalks around Barbe St, have been rebuilt from scratch and Fernanez Juncos Avenue has been paved. A insignificant step for humanity, but remarkable down here.


I am surprised by the US, UN, EU  abrupt love, with air bombs expressions to help them  rebels in Lybia. It reminds me of Mugabe, the Tutsis and Hutus, dismembering each other with machetes,  Apartheid,  Darfour and many others. A pity they had no oil. Perhaps some juan would had 'helped' them in a timely fashion.

time to go apaga i vamonoh.