How the Yard is Looking

The hedge like line of green is vetiver grass that I just gave a haircut to. It has filled in nicely and seems to be doing its job although we won't know until the rain comes. The flowers are the top of the false orchid tree that we did chainsaw pruning job to.


Vetiver grass is great because the roots go deep (holds a lot of soil) but it stays very contained unlike other grasses. You can let it go or trim it. I just trimmed it so I could weed beneath it and keep the good grass from intermingling with the bad.

The garden wall is looking good. The ornamental grasses have matured (didn't I just plant them?) and the flowers reseeded and are now taking over making perfect cat resting spots.

We are up on the roof moving the satellite dish and prepping for the solar panels. From the roof the mangoes (tree on left) are looking good.

Cats cats cats. This area is their personal playground and nap-taking area.

From the roof the arboretum is taking form. It all looks well managed but in reality the grass is 4 feet tall and I trim circles around the little trees. It is a huge difference from 1 1/2 years ago though when we couldn't even see horses up there and it was all the crappy "plague" trees and vines. Glad we have photos and the blog so we can look back when it seems like we aren't making progress!

Progress

Sometimes it is easy to forget that we have really done some things here. We've been here since October 25th and have made some good progress in the yard. Here is some vetiver I planted in March maybe? Note the eroding soil.

Here is the same vetiver keeping things from eroding further. It has reached its full height at about 5 feet or so. I will probably cut it back so it looks like a mini hedge pretty soon. It is a nice looking grass that stays as a nice line so far.


This was what the top area looked like when we moved here - a big tangle of "bad" trees, vines and more vines. Vines on stumps, vines in trees, vines overtaking bushes. You can kind of see the big mango on the right.

Jeff did some weed whacking and we cut some small trees and bushes and let the horses in.

Then we pulled vines and cut trees and removed sticks and stuff and booted the horses out. I left some trees for shade while I started better things under them.

I took this photo today! Freshly weed whacked the area is a lot more uniform without sticks and stumps and fallen trees and bad trees. The tree on the left is a canistel, to the left of the red bush is a pomegranate, to the right of the red bush is the ylang ylang and the agave has grown. Everything I plant is around 6 -12 inches or from seed. Any fruit that I purchase and eat (canistel, mamey, papayas, rambutans) I plant the seed. In general grafted fruit trees will fruit much sooner, but in the case of rambutans the ones you purchase are from seed so what the heck...it is 7 years if I buy one and 7 if I plant the seeds and seeds are free and fun! We bought a mamey de pais (country mamey - smaller fruit and supposedly not the "quality" of the sapote) but I planted a couple mamey sapote from seed. It is really fun to watch them sprout. Some seeds take months to germinate so you have to be patient. I was surprised to have the rambutans and some mango seeds germinate.

Here's a different view that shows my vision of an arboretum kind of happening! Most things are planted at 20 foot centers so there should be plenty of space so things don't compete. Some things like the peanut butter bush, cashew, pomegranate and coffee bushes are 12 feet apart because they are much smaller shrubs. Now I need to work on the paths - a nice flat trail would be wonderful to walk on! I've started trails below in papaya/banana land and really need to do some up top but it is a lot of work. I try to make them after it rains when the soil is soft. Much easier. So that's how things are progressing. Now I am motivated to go out and do more!

Chicken Little's BIG day -- Cortar los Pelotas!!! Ahora!

It looks like he knows what is about to happen! We gave Chicken Little a nice meal last night around 6 (he and all his friends). In the morning when he was peering into the rejas with the 5 other faces I let him into the Big House - a dream come true! However, while his buddies had their morning meal we got the cat carrier and he had his first car ride! How exciting is that? Somersaults and rolling and general noise making all the way to the vet.

Here he is last night with his crown jewels and his little friend (maybe girlfriend) looking on. Boy this twig is fun! So we dropped him off at 8:30 and retrieved him at 3:30 a bit zoned out and wobbly. $113 later we now officially have a new family member who is worm free (had hookworms), vaccinated for everything (leukemia, rabies, respiratory stuff , worms etc etc), jewel-free and ready to lounge around with us for good. So what do we do about the others? They all are feral (we can only pick up one of the old ones) and probably all have hookworms and pass them around. A few of them have coughs, which I guess is the big problem here - respiratory problems and hook and heart worms. The moms can pass hookworms on to the little ones, they can cough them up, if they roll around or share the pooping zone (and bird spa) they can pass them around. So how much can an unemployed person do? Heart worm medication at the vet was $20 for 6 pills and they all need it every month. On line the pills are 31- but we will keep looking. Not sure about spaying, but neutering is $55 and all the shots were$35 or so. The vet will help out some if we keep bringing cats in but I don't know how much to expect her to do. Even if a shelter offers it less expensive the cost of gas to get there and back will make it cost the same. So we don't know what to do next so it is one cat at a time. Maybe the heart worm pills will at least keep all their GI tracks parasite free! So Chicken will spend at least one night in the house even though he isn't exactly happy about it!


So here's a picture of my mini Moralon tree. It is small right now but gets GIANT leaves and is a tree native to Puerto Rico.

Here is a picture of a Moralon leaf from a mature tree. I can envision using it to press designs into the cement benches we are going to make. Cool, huh? I had this in the carport and Chicken Little sat on it like a toad on a lily pad.

More vetiver - very exciting! I can't wait to see it grow! So back now to the upset kitty - we'll see how long we can keep him in the cat carrier. Until morning I suspect and then we'll have had enough and we'll set him free...

Ahhh Vetiver!!! Exciting Exciting Stuff!!!

The long story made short is...there are some spots on our property (and probably everyone elses') that are eroding. When it rains it really rains and the water will make gullies. Doesn't help that people weedwack to the ground and remove all vegetation (leaves etc). We have seen many a trench made that focuses the water making it into an erosion machine! The house has been here for 30 years. Nothing endangering anything or anyone but why have erosion if you can stop it? And the answer to the problem is Vetiver Grass! Here is a clump of this miracle grass with its root ball. I had read about it and seen photos, but we were lucky enough to know people who have real live vetiver in place along a driveway with a steep slope running alongside. It is beautiful stuff! This mass is "topped" - we cut off about half of the blades so separating and planting would be easier. I also cut off half the roots.

Using a machete (or course) I separated individual blades to prepare for planting. I got around 140 blades from this clump.

Here is my bucket full of this wonderfully aromatic hedge grass! The excitement mounts! I got a couple buckets worth out of the clump.

Here's one location warranting the use of vetiver - this gully (which is natural and comes from the top of the property). When the wet season gets here I am sure this is a water feature. There are large rocks and a fence that is crossing the gully in-the-air because the small crossing probably has been getting bigger each year. The gully is 6-8 feet deep - the deepest part is after the troll bridge. This first view is from in the gully looking up at the little line of vetiver. This line of vetiver will prevent the soil from collapsing further into the abyss.


Here is a better view from the line of vetiver itself. This thin line will make a clump about 2 feet wide and 2-3 feet tall. The roots of this grass can be 30 feet!!! (the clump we got was taken from rock basically and the roots were still well established) They are using it in many countries to prevent erosion - it prevents 70% of erosion and 90% of sediment runoff! It absorbs pollutants and is being used to reclaim mining areas. It absorbs lead! If you need another reason to love it...it is really a nice looking ornamental plant with a pleasant scent and from what I saw of a real live 20 foot run of it it doesn't die out in the middle, look "ratty" like a lot of grasses and it is sterile (won't spread by seeding). I think it has a nicer look than boxwood or lavender. Pruning it every few months encourages new shoots.

Here is the fence-in-the-air. A nice chunk of soil has dropped off to the other side. My line of vetiver should stop that!

So what is the "down" side to vetiver? None that I can see. It is sterile. Non-invasive (the real live person we got it from has watched it in her yard for 3 years - thank you Racquel and Ray).

More information can be found at http://www.vetiver.org/ and many other places. On the vetiver.org site make sure you scroll down to the picture gallery...think the first one is the award winning one. I will post occasional updates on our vetiver plantings. I already have a new thought for the area outside our kitchen door. It is an 85 degree slope that little by little washes down. I was going to build a little 2 block high wall, then decided on landscape blocks so I could do curves (nothing I hate more that everything lined up along property lines or house edges etc). Now I have decided to grow a curving vetiver "living" mini wall to hold back the dirt and provide a little kitchen garden. I just have to get my vetiver factory growing so I have clumps to divide and move around!