Chacala gardener

Watch for it!!

2010-03-19T08:38:00.004-06:00

We have some really dramatic before and after shots I'm preparing in a special photo montage to add. Thank goodness we took the before pictures! How many times have you finished a big project and then realized you didn't take before pictures. And, it's amazing how quickly you forget how bad the before was!! So check back, pictures will be here soon! Here's one of the front of the house, before...

Fiesta at Tortugas, and gardening with what's available

2010-03-08T17:14:00.002-07:00

Just returned from another wonderful week in Chacala. We had our official "Grand Re-opening party for Casa de Tortugas. Turns out this property was made for large parties and it was the best one I've ever given or been too. Throw in a great Cuban band, perfect weather, incredible ocean views from 3 levels, a full moon, 100 amiable locals, margaritas and great food from Chac Mool, and how can you go wrong?

Most areas of the garden are doing very well and look quite lovely. My "Bodega garden" is struglling, as it is inundated with 3" of water each time it rains, and it has been an unusually rainy winter. This trip was supposed to be a true "vacation" this time, but of course I could not resist adding to the garden! I am, after all, a hortiholic! And when you own a property in Mexico, as all my kind advisors told me, there is ALWAYS work to do.

So this trip I went to both Viveros la Penita - twice! - and picked up a few more things.

Gardening here has been a bit frustrating as the plant selection - initially dazzling for those of us who can't grow tropicals at home - is actually not that great. Lovely perennials that would do quite well here are not available. I want some variegated agaves! Cannas! Sweet potato vines! Fancy ferns! Sun Coleus! Red-leaved Banana plants! New Zealand Flax! Each time I come I show pictures of what I want to the owners of the nurseries and suggest they bring them in. I can't be the only avid gardener in the area that craves other plants.

This time I brought a favorite garden book - Shocking Beauty by Thomas Hobbs (http://www.southlandsnursery.com/booksandpress.html) - which is filled with wonderful tropicals that he has grown in the Pacific Northwest in complete "zonal denial". They would all work so well in this zone 10 (?) garden, but no luck finding them. I'm working on getting my import permit so I can bring in some of the lovely lovely plant material that I need.

There are not a lot of choices here for groundcover, and though I hate planting usual and typical varieties in the gardens I create, I've had to do it here just to get soil coverage. The soil is much better than I'm used to in my Colorado gardens, but wood mulches are not readily available here so it never looks quite as pretty as it could. There are some nice stone mulches I've discovered that I may add in spots next time. So many disadvantages with stone mulch, but at least it provides a finished look.

This time I added some "grasses" - really a type of garlic - for a soft border, though not the Hakonechloa Macra Aureola I was hoping to find. I added in some burros tail and small cactuses to the dry section. They were pitiful looking, potted in soup cans, but the best available. Heck, the only available! I can only help they thrive in the well-drained area I put them in.

I found some more nice Portulaca in little teeny plastic bags in the Mega parking lot plant stand. It has done extremely well so far as a ground cover in some other spots. Not usually my favorite plant, but it looks wonderful here and is covered with flowers. Added more Lantana too, as the plants I got last time are thriving and my front garden area is perfect for them - hot and dry. And assorted others. It still doesn't look full enough for me, but the real growing season is still around the corner so I'll be patient! I'll be back there in April and will get some close-ups of the plants that are doing very well. In the meantime, I look at the melting snow here in Colorado and dream of Spring here too!

They looked good at first...

2010-02-06T14:20:00.000-07:00

Bought 30 vinca plants at Home Depot in Nuevo Vallarta last time, probably a Cora major variety. They were lovely and there were several very mature vinca already in the garden so I assumed they'd do well. Got them planted, they looked wonderful in the garden. Until they died.

I lost all but 3 or 4, which are really struggling. So I studied up on them. Every article says they are tough, not particular about soil, and don't need tons of water. And yet........ turns out they don't like soil on their leaves, and they don't like water splashing from the ground onto their leaves. And right after we planted them, we had 5 days of heavy rain. So there you go! I replaced them with geraniums. We'll see how they do. They're hardy, tough..... so perhaps they'll die too!

I don't feel too badly that even with many years of hobby and professional gardening and training under my belt I still killed 26 plants. You know the definition of a perennial? It's " a plant that, had it lived, would have returned year after year".

Getting Started

2009-12-31T19:21:00.000-07:00

After years of installing gardens in cold, dry mountain climates, it's been so much fun to install a bonafide tropical garden in the delightful little town of Chacala, Nayarit, Mexico. As someone who has always learned about new things by devouring every possible book on the subject, it was disheartening to find so few really good references avaiable about gardening in coastal Mexico. Most are lovely coffee table books designed for the hands-off owner who doesn't need to know plant names or habits.

So I've determined to turn my experiences into potentially useful information for those who want to garden in Mexico. I learned so much from a fellow blogger, Andee Carlson, who passed away before I ever had the chance to meet her. But truly, her blog (about gardening in Chacala!) is what brought me to Chacala in the first place, and has resulted in a large home and garden renovation project here. And possibly more down the road!