Tag: tropical

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Tropical Blossom Haiku

In My Home Garden
Atenas, Costa Rica

-o-

INTERESTING NEWS FROM COSTA RICA: 
Environmental agency orders suspension of pineapple farming project
which means that the American imperialists (Del Monte) cannot destroy any more of our wetlands and forests. Yay! I’m glad that the government here is defending our environment. This particular case is on the Osa Peninsula near Corcovado where I just traveled. Costa Rica is recognized internationally for protecting its land and environment and has 25% of the land set aside as national parks or reserves. And don’t feel sorry for Del Monte. There is plenty of legal land they can build pineapple farms on with plenty of cheap labor to make them rich!

The Dollar is at its highest value in Costa Rica right now, meaning a good time for U.S. people to visit or vacation or buy property here when you get more colones for the dollar, as much as C581 this article says. It had been at around 530 for a long time which was good, but this is better!  🙂 Best in the last 7 years says the article!

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Rainy Season Garden

Rain Makes the Garden Grow! Thicker & More Lush!
Note that I replaced my Lantanas flowering border with red caladiums which will get fuller soon.
The other taller plants shaded the Lantanas and they require sun to thrive and bloom. New color in the shade!
The Maraca or Shampoo Ginger plant
has multiplied and grown very tall with
several blooms.
Heliconia
Across from the door I added a row of 20 of the small Heliconias with
little bright red & orange flowers that will bloom constantly
year-around when they mature. They help the “tropical look.”
One of the little Helconia up close,
like adding little jewels to my garden!

I’m always trying to improve my garden and during the rainy season is the time for new plants as the rain helps them to take root and thrive. Life in the tropics just keeps getting better!  🙂

¡PURA VIDA!

More flower photos in my FLORA & FORESTS GALLERY which is still under construction. 

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Exotic Flowers Hiding in My Garden

In the back corner of my garden beyond the big Heliconias and
behind these Red Gingers are some tall green, leafy plants, not flower-like.

If you get close, you see they kind of
look like tall, leafy stalks, similar to corn,
but that is not a corn cob in the back!
It is the flower!

If I stand on the hill above my garden and look down 1 of 4 is peaking out.

This is one full-grown Maraca or Shampoo Ginger Flower

Another Maraca or Shampoo Ginger

And a Baby Maraca or Shampoo Ginger

In my pre-move travels all over Central America I saw these unique tropical flower and always thought they were the most unique. Thanks to my gardeners and especially Alfredo, I now have a plant that has grown well and spread in my garden. I can now walk out my back door and see them, well, with a little searching!  🙂  They are somewhat rare and not available in all the Veveros (plant nurseries), but my good gardener Alfredo found one in his uncle’s yard for me! Be nice to your gardener and he will be nice to you!  🙂

I’m just starting my garden photo gallery but it has quite a few photos already!

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Birds in the Yorkin Bribri Forest

We heard and even saw hundreds from a distance. Two club members had big lenses on their camera and I’m sure got much better photos. This is what I could do with my cheap 300 mm lens. Many have been cropped and enlarged to the point of almost seeing dots, but I’m still happy with these 13! 🙂

Montezuma Oropendola
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica
Long-tailed Hermit Hummingbird
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica
Scarlet-rumped Tanager
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica

Rufous-tailed Jacamar
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica

Violaceous Trogon
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica

Boat-billed Flycatcher
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica

Long-tailed Tyrant
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica

Pale-billed Woodpecker Male
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica

Blue Ground Dove
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica
Gray-capped Flycatcher
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica

Paltry Tyrannulet
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica

Short-tailed Hawk
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica
Black Vulture
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica
White-fronted Parrots
Yorkin River Bribri Indigenous People Forest, Costa Rica

And the Blue-headed Parrots photos were even darker silhouettes than these, plus another 10 or so bird photos that are not very good and/or unidentified. It was an effort to photograph in mostly poor light of a dark rainforest with overcast or rainy skies while wading through mud. So with those conditions and my amateur camera, I’m happy to have gotten these photos! I’m easy to please!  🙂

They will eventually be added to my Costa Rica Birds PHOTO GALLERY, so check it out sometime for a lot more bird photos collected over the last six and a half years in Costa Rica.

“Sweet bird!  thy bow’r is ever green, 
Thy sky is ever clear;
thou has’t no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year.”
–  John Logan 

And yesterday’s post on Bribri Insects has been updated with a correct identification on the unsure one and three more butterflies added! 

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Maraca Plant Added to Garden

Zerumbet
Zerumbet Ginger, Maraca Plant in Costa Rica, and in other places
Shampoo Ginger or Pine Cone Ginger (links are to Google photos of flowers)
It is the tall plant, two spears now with the
little yellow flower on ground at base.
They grow 7 to 8 feet tall and can have
a large cluster of flowers at base.
Click photo links under top image.

I’m really excited about this addition to my garden which I requested in the beginning, but they are very difficult to find. They surprised me the other day! In a year or two it will be developed more with multiple shoots and multiple flowers. The flower starts small and yellow like this one and by October will be more like a pine cone and will have turned red or sometimes orange. This may be the neatest addition to my garden yet! A Heliconia plant was in that location and they moved it to my front yard for more color there! It is fun to live in a garden! Plus I start traveling next week.

The greatest gift of the garden is the restoration of the five senses. ~Hanna Rion

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Costa Rica Fresh Fruit!

On Feria Day (Farmers’ Market Day) I process some of the fruit purchased . . .

. . . and then have a fruit plate for lunch!  🙂

I cut up half or more of the mango, pineapple and papaya into little squares and put in zip lock bags in the freezer to use in my fresh fruit frescos, refrescos de frutas, batidos, jugo de naturales or just smoothies for people from the states. And there are a lot of other names for drinks made from fresh fruit, plus a rice, cinnamon, and milk drink call horchata or an even better version with vanilla ice cream called leche muella. Fruit rules in Costa Rica!

Images, Descriptions & Uses of The Tropical Fruits of Costa Rica  NEAT PAGE!
Probably at least one fruit here you have never heard of! And sorry, but I have not tried all of them yet! And this list is not all of the fruits found here. 

When eating a fruit, think of the person who planted the tree.
~Vietnamese saying

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Flowers Arrived at 7 AM!

Plumbago and Tutti Frutti in front,
then tall green palmy plant goes in living room,
more garden plants in back, palm around corner
and the butterflies have already come!

Below is a list of what Cristian says he is planting tomorrow. Click the linked name to see photos of what it looks like and the ones delivered today are in these photos here, though not all delivered yet. This will be a hummingbird and butterfly garden. Lots of photo ops!


Triquitraque (“Firecracker” in English)– an orange flowering vine planted at top and trailing down the walls. Opportunity of a house built into the side of a hill!  (not delivered yet)

Blue Plumbago – a flowering hedge along bottom of concrete wall under the orange vines (photo at right)

Tutti Frutti (a variety of Lantana) – a row of mixed colors of flowers along the sidewalk (in photo at right, on the left side, shorter – yellow, pink, orange, red)

Palma Roja (Red Palm) – a brightly colored bamboo-like palm with red, yellow & green trunks, going at the end of back sidewalk as an anchor to the far end of my garden and to block view of street (see palm photo below).

Maraca (Shampoo Ginger) – a really cool tropical flower (rare and it may take a while for him to find one but he will even if he has to take it from his uncle’s yard he says). He is really working hard to please me and have a perfect garden for butterflies and hummingbirds.

Red Ginger – a red flowering tropical plant (photo below) – There are other varieties of Ginger
but not sure if I’m getting one of the others. I’m hoping for a Torch Ginger, my favorite. 

Heliconia – truly tropical and comes in many varieties (1 delivered today, see photo below – a different variety is coming tomorrow he says) This is often associated with Hawaii, but native here.

Foxglove – 2 or 3 plants between the Palmetto and Red Palm along back (not here yet). This is for the hummingbirds.

Petunia – well, I guess every garden needs a “filler”  🙂    (not delivered yet)

Palmetto – already here in the ground, see bottom photo
Aloe Vera – already here, something the landlord plants on all of his properties – I have 2 and may end up putting them in pots if Cristian can’t work them into the garden plan.

Red Palm at end of sidewalk in back
not shown in above photo. It will block
the street from my garden and anchor it.
One variety of Red Ginger. I may get another.

One variety of Heliconia and I will get at
least one other variety he says. 
Palmetto, the only plant here now. Don’t think it was watered during dry season.
I’ll take better care of it.

You can probably tell that I’m very excited about getting my dream tropical garden this quickly, just a week after moving in. Of course tomorrow I will be showing you the completed masterpiece, I think I will call it my “Humming Garden” or in Spanish “Jardín del Tarareo ” You can walk through and either hum a tune or watch for butterflies and hummingbirds!   🙂   Pura Vida!


Some might ask why I didn’t save money and plant it all myself and get even more joy from totally creating it myself? Several reasons: 
1) I don’t have a car or truck, so we are talking many trips to and from La Garita where the nurseries are located at $50-$60+ per taxi round trip. It could possibly cost me more doing it myself!
2) It is the beginning of the rainy season and it needs to be done right now along with a lot of other things I need to do like get the stuff I shipped out of storage and make photos!  🙂   
3) The professionals do a better job in this case and at what I consider a very good price compared to the states. This kind of labor is cheap here. And I would not have known about some of these flowers or where to get them for a while.
4) I don’t have the garden tools, which would be another expense and the side of this hill is rocky, another challenge I’m letting the professionals handle.  
5) I’m retired and enjoying life and consider using the cheap labor a wiser choice at this time. 
So I won’t go on a guilt trip for not doing it myself! (Even though I enjoy gardening.) Of course I will probably add another plant or two occasionally, and look what a great start I’m getting in a new house! I’ll be showing more of the house in coming posts including the already landscaped yards, but today and tomorrow it’s the new butterfly & hummingbird garden or Humming Garden!