GUERRILLERO THE CHRONICLES

I started the practice four years ago by the train station abandoned areas, planting seeds and four or five trees, twelve inches tall at the time, 2008.   Shortly after, everything was destroyed by
the dark forces with trimmers and machete yielding, municipal workers.  Only the Tamarindus indica in the photo, around thirty feet tall survived that first attack.

The activity took place before I learned abut guerrillagardening.org.  The group, based in England defined what it is conceptually.  If interested, go there and find out.  Yours truly,  not inclined to follow trends expanded the concept. Guerrilla gardening, besides being the practice of planting in spaces, private or public without a permit, could be expanded with a little vision.

I am not only interested in improving the appearance of any urban areas visible to  pedestrians and drivers, but to create an inventory of plants, trees, bushes that will overcome the seasonal  municipal butcher raids described above, including evident use of herbicides lately.

The plant selection is preferably self sown or those that will survive trimmer attacks as is now the rule.  The photos show some examples with their botanical names.

Developing the concept for our  horticultural situation in Puerto Rico, may or may not be significant for others, unless a wider scope in terms to my mantrra: flora and fauna.  Plants from nurseries will not do.chose

The  chosen ones have to tolerate drought/ heat in addition to the constant threat of the killing macheteros with trimmers.  Vines are perfect since most destruction does not reach the root system, coming back after some time.

Two weeks ago I decided to experiment with creatures like Polyscias and Sanseverias, the trunk of the first can be ridden of their leaves surviving, the latter can stand the attack due to the fibrous nature of their thick leaves.

So what?  Well, I am convinced by this silly activity in the eyes of the complacent segment of the gardening blog scene, that it is useful.  Some of the vines have shown a possibility in terms of erosion control, Erosion takes place not only in soils used for agriculture, but those disturbed by construction,  the number one murderers of flora and fauna in the urban and not so urban context.

EDITORIAL

That being written, lets move to the Caribbean. There are two blogs by an obscure Barbadian nincompoop.  One about her garden, the other, pure aged nostalgia of what herself  claimed Fashionista lost dreams.  Buahaja bilingual laugh! Check them out. 

I visit her blog for kicks, as I do with others.  I thought something was wrong with  her gardening practices/trajectory/credentials and egg shell ego after reading, observing a post about a Ficus pruned Puerto Rico fashion in her South American blog....buahaja...

This English blogger from Barbados--http://barbadosfromanotherview.blogspot.com-- has given me an intense mood of hilariousness. IF anyjuan paste and copy my criticism/view to the stupidity of  any gardening practices--check her photo above--thinking that it will hurt me without any credentials/criteria worthy a grain of salt, you are mistaken. Anyone will achieve the opposite.....YOU MADE my day!

Not only was it published it in Random Post 7/31/12, http://antigonumcajaneveningpost.blogspot.com/2012/07/random-post.html, forever laughs, but here I present my own words and hers below.
 

Frangipani and Palms! The organic matter, seeds and fronds from the palms, eventually will decapitate the Plumerias, FOOL!

You are nothing but a bigger asshole to keep coming to my blog and leaving rude messages that I will never publish.

I  visit many blogs, too many, once in a while I leave me comments.

Fifty percent of the time, they are compliments, the rest are as in these lines above. But I never say/write anything that I can not justify with a reference, photos, research, practice, credentials and criteria. This banjan garden lady has made my day, believing that I could not take her words with flying colors.

If I declare you are a fool keeping a blog/garden and putting airs without arguments, as in this case, planting a stupid row of palms with Plumerias side by side, it demonstares, that you, islander fashionista jaha, Best South American Blog according to BLOTANICAL,  have never observed seriously how palms grow or what they will look like with time.

Her photo shows a vast lawn area= pollution with gas/oil/diesel/propane, C02, trimmers, blowers and lawnmowers, fumes and noise.

Why would anyjuan in their right mind plant palms with Plumeria pudica (Frangipani pudica in Barbados) as seen in the photo, believing something of great value has been accomplished and proud of the aimless act?  Not to write about that brown streak on the ground: either use of herbicide or trimmed too close to the ground. 

If anyjuan is offended by any comments, mine or those from the people, the least you could do is to question why or what is the criteria for the questioning.  To do what the Barbadian Fashionista has done, just serves as an injection of joy to your humble servant. 

 You be di judge. .

that is that 

 



  





   

INTERVIEW: REFLECTIONS WITH ME TILLEY HAT

THERE are not many blogs with interviews. I know of one by a British female fool with a fushia pink head, that is about it. Here we go with host interviewer Currutaco el Mistico or CEM.

CEM    Thanks for inviting me to your place in the blogosphere, it has been a while, since my last intervention.  Lets get into the nitty gritty, what the hell is a Tilley hat?

AC        The coolest hat, for a cool gardener.  You can find it advertised only in certain magazines.  I remember the faces of two jerks I used to work in the LMM Plantation, when told the cost.  The idiots, forgive me the repetition, could not understand that gardening for me is something I will do until I pass away or can not move any longer, in consequence a hat should be chosen with similar qualities.

CEM      I got it, this hat will last for life, is not it?

AC          Sure. I expect to last two more decades or less. The hat is ten years old, still looking good, with the help of God, we both may reach thirty together, unless hit by lighting.  What is the big deal?  Any good questions?

CEM       I have gotten your drift. Have you humble one,  discovered any designer or blog worthy of merit or anything that I --the reader-- should know about? 

AC           Certainly, another fellow from the Chelsea Flower, by the name Andy Sturgeon, whose installations reminds one of  flattened fish bowls, with lots of concrete, turf and lots of silliness if you ask me. It is like here I am this is my design! Check the definition of his last name, sturgeon:

Any of various large ganoid freshwater and marine fishes of the family Acipenseridae of the Northern Hemisphere, having edible flesh and valued as a source of caviar and isinglass.
 
This may explain a couple of oval fish bowls installations, one inside the other with some pond close by.

The other 'discovery' is a blog again in the former empire of the British persuasion, a gardener that gallops, but not in horses of carriages, but probably antique Triumphs, MG's, or Morris.  His blog has exceptional quality photos, so so writing, not as cool as Hattat in those prairies for half of the year.  I wonder if they really plant anything at all. All the contant travels around gardens in the first case and interesting cities in Europe, not the common places one always hear about.

CM   Wow, have you left anything, are you finished?

AC     The truth is that I rarely have a conversation worthy its salt 
down this neck of the concrete, do not rush me you nimwit!   

CW    Fine. Please go on.

AC     As yours truly was stating, a conversation worthy of my energy and attention here is like the cliched needle in haystack, People can not follow me, or listen to what I say. They are only interested in parroting and sharing their silly, useless and boring lives.  Lets finish now. The tittle has not being discussed in depth.

CEM    Is it necessary?





AC       Yep it is one of my dear props.  While I was disposing of some organic matter in the garden in a roof next door, featured in this space in November 2011, one drop of sweat fell on the water creating ondulating circles as it happens in any quiet liquid surface when any object, in this case liquid hits the surface.  

It felt as if a hammer had hit me.  My reflection ondulating quietly and slowly.

I step down the ladder, got me hats. Took six pictures or so with my humble camera and proceeded.    

CEM     Any memories of Greek mythology, words of wisdom, food for thought or mystical recommendations? 

AC        Bilingual one, nojuan has pulled me leg in such fashion in a while. You must be thinking about Narcisus, not the flower, but the fellow so handsome, falling in love with himself, he fell in some deep pond and drowned. 

Well now that you made such remark,  I declare one thing, even though George Clooney and I could have been twins, If I had been so much in love with my appearance and fell from the ten feet ladder I could  had broken my neck, not drown.   

that is that 

 

REITERATIVE LIVING

SOME readers/gardeners, both or none, may prefer blogs for content/photos.  Style in the writing, resolution, pixels, focus, and else in the second.  Visitors avoid some after a quick glimpse and frequent others for these two reasons or their own.

Yet, another group may be part of the equation, those looking for different, not necessarily subjects/themes--any gardening is reiterative--as life, war and peace, but register and stance, at least I am part of this segment. 

Some gardening could exist without soil and water as with epiphytes, but very few edibles exist, survive without those two essential parts of nature.  Except weeds and some creatures with similar characteristics taking advantage of cracks in concrete and other inanimate surfaces with good enough conditions to live with a better or just plain future.  

One last possibility is hydroponics.  Some people believe it is such a great thing, and it is, if you decide not to consider the cost of electricity and measuring the flowing solution frequently with nutrients to keep it balanced.

This is bare gardening, I do not think of any other possibility except micro propagation for a short while in  the lab, before the planting. 

Lately, I have moved to another stage. Gardens of  the hospital hall and lobby kind.  High maintenance in most/all places equals above average noise and pollution of the whole: soil, water, air.

But nojuan has ever mentioned this or that. They are beautiful and pretty, sure, but do they improve or just make possible  the co-existence of  surrounding flora and fauna?  I have my doubts. When when I look at the majority of these gardens, I in many cases a perfect composition is evident: form/shape/contrast/texture/color...accompanied with an incredible sensation of sterility.

It is a sickening perfection, abnormal, artificial in essence. Not one leaf out of place either on the ground or lawns, totally out of nature.

Which bring this to the end 
with some words for thought.

I had my suspicions about the  notorious

Arab Spring. It is turning into an ArabMUSLIM Hell.

Syria is going into the Iran/Afghanistan mode. Again, Sunnis and Chiis

blowing each other in pieces for power. Them Arabs should meet and move each group to one or two countries and BE the majority. Just the way India was dismembered by these people in Bangladesh/Pakistan with a propensity into the blowing themselves for ideological emphasis.    

I disagree with the stance about millions of people without electricity in India.  The opposite should be the real news, how they keep 

their system at all.  

that is that