It is such a rare thing that rain is welcome here, though it does tend to be accompanied by stormy weather. High winds are forecast for tomorrow so I have been out checking that the fences are solid and nothing is left to blow around. Rain also means that the power in the house trips out due to poor electrical insulation somewhere outside, and this is when we discover where the roof still leaks! Ho hum.
The great thing about this blog is the ability to look back to last month and see what has changed. Because I look at my Christmas trees every day they hardly seem to be growing. But seeing how they were on the 12th September, hey, they must have doubled in height!
The great thing about this blog is the ability to look back to last month and see what has changed. Because I look at my Christmas trees every day they hardly seem to be growing. But seeing how they were on the 12th September, hey, they must have doubled in height!
Over the last couple of weeks have had some stiff easterly winds and it seemed prudent to offer the trees more protection. To do this we tied brown shade cloth onto the eastern boundary chainlink fence and sandwiched it in place with livestock fence mesh.
I started watering the new transplants at weekly intervals with about 4 litres of water each, but some of them were starting to look unhappy and they are now on fortnightly watering. Where they are grown in the southern US they recommend watering every week until established then every two weeks extending to three weeks with time. Mature trees may need water once a month.
I have decided to try sowing the Pinus eldarica in time for planting out soon after Christmas so that we are in a position to replant immediately after the ground is cleared. Last year the earlier sown seedlings were slow to develop but it is possible that can be improved upon by tricking the plants into thinking it is summer by using night interruption lighting.
The seeds arrived last week from the US and Wendy and I spent last weekend making up planting poly bags from tube which we cut into 20 cm lengths and heat sealed their bottoms and punched drainage holes. These were filled with compost (a tedious job) and stacked in boxes. I also used some rootrainer pots to compare the two systems.
But there has been a problem. Last night a rather greedy and pesky mouse wandered into the greenhouse, bypassed my carefully prepared trap baited with tasty peanut butter, sat on the planting bags, dug out each seed one by one, split them open and ate the tender insides.
I am guessing the little b****r will be back for more tonight, when he will discover some special mousy treats in the mouse traps which will lure him to a sudden and instant demise.
I am guessing the little b****r will be back for more tonight, when he will discover some special mousy treats in the mouse traps which will lure him to a sudden and instant demise.
A few weeks ago I found some garden trellis panels in Ideal (our B&Q) in Puerto, and these we stained and set up to provide extra windbreaks, and which will support Bougainvilleas.
In other news, I have been building a drystone wall. This is the landscaper´s cliche of `bringing the landscape into the garden`. I also thought this would be a good way of using up the great pile of rocks and rubble we still have. But, as I discovered, it is easier to build walls with large stones which we have had to search for. Enrique has been helping me. Enrique is the husband of our cleaner Rosa and he is a good worker. Though he did not make a promising start. His first job was putting compost on the beds. He did this so thoroughly that he completely covered all my smaller plants and it took me the rest of the day to find and uncover them. But he is great at weeding and finding rocks.
This I had to do under the watchful eye of my mother-in-law. She was wearing a stern expression and seemed to be fiercely concentrating and it looked as though she was taking notes of my slow progress. Fortunately she was just painting a water colour of the garden.
One thing Wendy is not, she is not squeamish. She was weeding one of the beds recently composted when she found this horror and showed it to me with apparent delight.
I reckon it is a Death Head Hawk Moth larva which I understand will metamorphose into a moth with a 5" wingspan.
We have shelved plans for a swimming pool. It is not often that the weather is so hot that we would welcome having a pool. And it is a faff cleaning a pool every week. People we have spoken to with pools here invariably say they are not worth the hassle. Also, being an agricultural holding, it may be tricky trying to get permission for one. So the area we had reserved for a pool is being planted with ground cover succulents and a few more shrubs.
Many of the plants I have tried fail due to the wind, or attack from mealybugs. The purple flowered Osteospermum of which i have planted quite a few are, unfortunately, regularly killed by mealybug. But I have found that this pink flowered Gaura lindheimeri grows extremely well. This is one to grow more of.
In the greenhouse I am raising Amaranthus caudatus which has the dark red tassles, and Lychnis coronaria with silver leaves and pink flowers. I also have some Dragon fruit (Hylocerius) cuttings and young seedlings which is an extraordinary climbing ´cactus´ with bright pink fruits.
To make room for this lot and the pine trees and some tomato plants I have made a standing out area in front of the solar panels where we cannot have anything tall growing. I have put in a tap and drippers to each pot. Most of these are Washingtonia palms sent over by my friend Peter in Tenerife.
Goofy, in his younger days, had a problem with plant pots. When we went out and left him he would take his revenge by throwing plant pots around. Thinking he had grown up, I was surprised and annoyed to find one of my baby palm trees had been ripped out of its pot. Goofy had a very serious talking to from me and so far he hasn´t done it again, yet...
Goofy needs toys with which to tease Pongo. He will dangle a toy in front of Pongo then run off with it. Here he is with a stick just about to run away, and Pongo is looking around for sympathy.
It is still raining as I write this. But my plants are loving it. The banana now has several stems and soon will come the day when we have our first banana harvest!