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| White-winged Dove in my Cecropia or Guarumo Tree. |
A Walk In the Garden!
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| Step into my main garden from the driveway or back door of house. Surrounded by the trees and other flowers of neighbors. You know you are in a tropical place! |
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| Out my backdoor you are greeted by a pottery bird garden-art by Anthony. Anthony Jeroski will soon be moving into the house across the driveway since Don & Lynda just moved back to the states. Anthony & I have plans for a garden-art bird nest made of wood & wire that will feature a glass egg made by my Nashville friend Kevin Hunter. I think you will like it Kevin! |
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| Here a garden is really your whole yard and terrace and that is true for me. With watering during the dry season, my “front yard” jungle has grown, especially the Cecropia or Guarumo tree, many palms & flowers on a slope. |
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| One is a Nance Tree which by July will have little yellow fruits I can eat! |
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| Bougainvillea is blooming on my terrace and down below on the slope. There was not one here when I came and I consider it the quintessential tropical flower I got used to in Florida and The Gambia. I have two now! |
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| Once de Abril Planta or 11th of April Plant is what my gardener calls it. It is becoming very tall and full shrub, adding to my privacy screen and it blooms year around with seasonal yellow berries that birds eat quickly. It is one of my favorite plants and was a surprise gift from my gardener. The 11th of April is Juan Santamaria Day, our only war hero. He was the drummer boy who stopped the American Walker from taking over Costa Rica as his personal slave state. DO YOU SEE THE BEE ON THE FLOWER? Click image for larger view. |
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| The largest of my 4 Heliconia plants. |
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| The brightest of my Heliconia plants. |
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| The smallest of my Heliconia plants. |
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| And the most prolific of the 4 Heliconia plants. It greets you at the driveway next to the Plumbago. |
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| Red Ginger is all over my garden & prolific. |
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| Lantanas are my border and called multiple things here. Grow fast! I have to cut them back regularly or they become shrubs! That is something like a Florida White Butterfly here today. |
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| A type of Petunia that blooms abundantly every morning, then by mid-afternoon the blooms have all dropped to the ground. More the next morning! Year-around. |
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| Flame Vine in English or Triquitraque in Spanish which literally means “firecracker” in Spanish |
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| Flame Vine or Triquitraque |
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| Plumbago is beautiful and my most prolific bloomer. My background plant. But it grows so fast I have to cut it back every few months, losing some color. But it blooms year-around and especially on the new growth after trimming. |
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| “Crown of Thorns” is what Lynda called it. I bought at Don & Lynda’s Moving Sale. |
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| Aloe Vera – I’m always ready for burn! 🙂 |
Sorry I made so many photos this morning! And that is not all of my garden! 🙂 I love it!
And this is very near the end of the dry season, meaning we have had no rain since November. I water most everything every two days. It is work but worth it! I even have green grass which is rare here this time of year. And it has been especially hot this summer or dry season. So my garden has been a lot of work! That is what it takes to have a piece of paradise! As Rudyard Kipling says . . .
“Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful!’ and sitting in the shade.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Complete Verse
yigüirro in guarumo tree
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| Yigüirro (clay-colored thrush) The national bird of Costa Rica is one of many landing in my fast-growing guarumo (cecropia) – hoping it will soon be a toucan! |
I Love My Trees!
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| Strangler Fig Tree by the road in front yard. |
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| Palm Tree behind my Guarumo Tree in side yard which is my front yard, balcony |
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| Guarumo Tree leaf, up close. This is a type of cecropia tree. Leaves are the favorite food of sloths, and the seeds of Keel-billed Toucans! Mine has to get a lot larger for animals though! |
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| Yellow Bell Tree is the name I choose from many it is called. My front yard will be beautiful with 4 of them come February-March! |
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| Ylang-Ylang Tree, is known for its wonderful smell or aroma! Mine is new, but hope for the aroma before a year is up! A source of perfumes! |
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| Unknown Tree (for now) I see out my kitchen window. |
Want to improve your health? Go Live Near Trees says an article in The Washington Post.
A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.
~Hermann Hesse, Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte
Colobura Dirce Serendipity
I reach for a paper towel in my kitchen and there is something alive on it!
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| Colobura Dirce butterfly, Atenas, Costa Rica I read that they like Cecropia leaves and I have a new Cecropia Tree! But not inside my house! |
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| I don’t even have to go outside to photograph butterflies! 🙂 But he startled me at first. |
The only other place I’ve seen one of these was at a butterfly farm a few years ago. My Guarumo Tree is a type of Cecropia and that may be why he is at my house. This is what happens when your doors are open without screens during the day. The book says this butterfly does not eat the nectar of flowers like most but the above leaves and rotting fruit and for some reason likes to get on wet clothes drying on the clothes line. The top of his wings are dark brown with a yellow stripe. He hadn’t moved when I went to bed, but saw him by the sliding glass door the next morning and observed the top of his wings, but couldn’t get a photo.
ser·en·dip·i·ty
ˌserənˈdipədē/
noun
-
the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.“a fortunate stroke of serendipity”
synonyms: (happy) chance, (happy) accident, fluke
And all my butterflies at Costa Rica Butterflies by Charlie Doggett photo gallery
Guarumo Cecropia Tree in Symbiotic Relationship with Ants
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| Guarumo Cecropia tree in my front yard |
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| Guarumo leaves are some of the most interesting in the tropics. |
When my personal gardener told me the Guarumo tree would attract Toucans with the seeds, I told him I wanted one! And I have it! It grows naturally only in Central America and is one of several kinds of Cecropia trees. I panicked this week when I saw a stream of tiny ants crawling up and down the trunk of the tree and called Cristian for help! He stopped by after another job today and explained that this ant is the friend of this tree. They help each other in a symbiotic relationship, providing food and housing for the ants who in turn protect the tree from leaf-eating predators. It was also used by Amerindians for medicinal purposes and is now used by pharmaceutical companies.
All of the cecropia trees are the favorite food of sloths, so you most often see photos of sloths in large cecropia trees, but not usually the Guarumo though. Mine will have to be a lot larger to hold either a toucan or sloth! Right now it is just a special kind of symbiotic ants! It not only looks cool, but is a great lesson in working together with smaller, sometimes hated creatures!
A sustainable world means working together to create prosperity for all.
~Jacqueline Novogratz
And by the way, I just this moment realized that today is my 6 month anniversary in Costa Rica! I moved here December 24, 2014. I’m glad I came! Maybe I will eventually figure out a symbiotic relationship with Costa Rica. 🙂