3 Years in Puerto Rico (tomorrow I think) - Some Old and New House Shots

2 acres is a lot of land especially in the land where everything grows wildly fast. I wanted to plant everything in the first few years so that 1) you can live to see them big 2) after a couple years you start doing fewer big projects (novelty wears off) 3) it is very rewarding and I love working outside. Some of what I have been doing though are things that will make things easier - reduce some of the work. This slope is impossible for Jeff to weed whack so I planted some agave and am planting mani as a ground cover under it. The mani is going a little slowly since I am making cuttings from what I have and not buying it to do it in one swoop. The agave are a spectacular thing to drive up to but in the beginning, like everything, make weed whacking an obstacle course.

The driveway is a place we stop on the way in and the way out. It was sad.

I wanted a hedge to hide the pipes and ground cover to stabilize the slope so the driveway wouldn't get muddy in the rain.

The addition of the wall was a nice thing and now the plants are looking good too! The other side of the driveway was difficult to mow since it sloped and it is a long way to get the mower down there. I don't like the trashy house on the other side of the fence so I planted croton cuttings from our upper hedge and have replaced the grass with mani. We can water down there but this is a good time to plant stuff since it is the rainier time.

The hedge is getting taller and filling in and the mani is nice and dense.

For my upper arboretum I keep expanding the spots under my little trees and have begun to put plants under them. The understory plants are doing well under this moralon.

Here's the arboretum from above on the trail. This is the Ylang Ylang now - note the mani below it and the little red bush to the right.

Can you spot the Ylang Ylang here? Look to the left of the red bush.

So there has been some progress. It seems like it is taking forever until I look at the photos. 3 years isn't all that long especially since these plants haven't been in for that long since clean-up took a good 6 months. We are getting fruit off of some of the trees already (canisteel, longan, buddah's hand (citron), pomegranate, parcha and on and on. I haven't run out of steam yet - when the vision is completed I don't know what I'll do!