endemismo trasnochado

GARDENING WEEDS AND YOU

2010-04-20T03:05:00.000-07:00

OF ALL THE CREDIT hours taken in the NY Botanical Garden for the Commercial Horticulture Landscape Management Certificate, 18, to approve the Turf Management course, were the most exasperating or enlightening. The text book:
'Turf Management Handbook,' by Charles B. Schroeder and Howard B. Sprague could not be more boring and dull. Even if the information is useful the photos and format lack imagination.

If you are the type of inquisitive gardener/person, you could not help but wonder how much stupidity regarding, lawns, grass, turf , planting and management has dominated the whole world for the last 100 years.

Think of turf or lawns, playing fields and parks, golf courses, private residences all around you. I accept that some sports require/demand turf: baseball and cricket to name two. Besides that, I can not tolerate the waste of resources, energy and money required to keep up grass, unless by goats, sheep, cows or horses. Or perhaps a push mower.

Turf management involves growth, health, diseases, insects, shade, sun, heat, cold, soil acidity and liming, fertilizers, weeds, herbicides, insecticides, fungicides and irrigation. The majority of these activities require fossil fuels, gas/oil/diesel, propane or electricity. That means pollution and C02, ( Global warming comes to mind), smoke and the annoying irritating noise of trimmers, blowers and lawnmowers.

Is there something more senseless than using drinkable water to irrigate anything, grass on top of it? Imagine for one second the billions of gallons of water wasted in turf, golf courses around the world. In Nevada, USA, a desert, there are 35 golf courses! These are the people, crying wolf for lacking water for development. Now they are trying to divert/rob water from the environment and communities one, two hundred miles away to waste in residential turf, new housing projects.

The opposite of turf, weeds are often seen as a hindrance rather than enhancing. Weed are defined in this context most of the time. A nuisance, unsightly and unwanted. I have embraced some in my collection for their beauty, being uncommon or rare, in the garden, aesthetics. But also for pragmatic reasons, since I keep the connection between fauna/flora when I plant.

Many, lots of creatures depend on weeds. They provide food, shelter and protection to many species, besides protecting the soil against erosion. Some weeds grow in the most unimaginable places, including cracks in concrete, rocks, asphalt.. There are seeds
and grasses for everyone. Is there anything more attractive, stimulating than watching a bird balancing on tall weeds against the wind to grasp some seeds?

WEEDS IN ME GARDEN

Commelina elegans
with elegant intense
blue indigo flowers,
a favorite of chickens
and rabbitts

Datura stramonium
Jathropha gossypifolia
Merremia quinquefolia
Clitorea ternatea
Trimezia caribea
Urena lobata

Dipterantun prostratus with one
of the most attractive pure white flowers in the Caribbean wild.
I learned the botanical name from a fellow blogger in India,
'In art lies my life'
who happens to own similar plants in his collection.
I have also a light purple variety. Discovered while
taking Diva, our pet in residence to her fetch training.

These plants have a funny habit for self seeding.
In the afternoons, when I irrigate the collection I can
hear them popping, cracking open, when the water
hit the seeds, a real trip.

Enhance your garden. I have vines, trees/bushes, plants and climbers
Embrace the weeds...Time to go...

NEW PASSENGERS ENVIRONMENTAL BANDWAGON GUERRILLA GARDENING UPDATES

2010-04-18T09:32:00.000-07:00

EARLY BONUS
For the last week, I was noticing this intense
feeling in the sweet subtle side of attractive fragrance.

Could not figure it out, until today. I look up, and there
it was, the yellow flowering Pterocarpus in Sagrado Corazon property.
Another fragrance
in the top five.

THERE IS A LOT, to go through. If you are in a rush move on. Lets start with Feisbuk,

with the Spanish, pronunciation. Taco the Clown, a contemporary character from Savarona. He grew up among Baptists, while yours truly was a Catholic crusader.
Taco shot from the hip recently in that forum. As some readers may have noticed, I do not have much reluctance to express my views, mostly on environmental issues, the whole court, if I may.

PAYASO TACO, somehow thought/expressed that I should not throw pearls to the hogs, in that forum. Considering the line of work/vocation I follow, and I am willing
to accept any duel with words, sword, fist, sticks as in EL TIO LA VARA, a new superhero from Spain. I found the comment irritating and unnecessary since every hog deserves an opportunity.

To end this subject, I wondered if HIS hogs, went to some refinement school or academy, considering that he does try to educate with his out of context inspirational quotes from esoteric philosophy, budism, and god knows which other sources. This is for you: Throwing pearls to hogs may/may not be useful as some figure of speech. But check this out mate, if you throw them pearls to some Iberian Hogs, the result could not be surpassed. The best probable ham on earth.

Moving to more terrestrial things.

Guerrillagardening activities.

After a pleasant trip to Fajardo City, a couple of purple Bouganvillea
stems were collected, along some Thespesia populnea seeds.
The ten Thespesias were planted in the former Hospital San Carlos
Guerrilla theater on Ponce de Leon Avenue.

IINVENTORY AT THIS SITE

\Pumpkins 2
Cosmus sulphureous 10
Suculents 2
Sanseveria
Agavacea
Tabebuias 2
Tartago 1
from Thailand,
sweet Tamarindus indica 10

Most are planted from seeds except
Tabebuia, Sanseveria, Agavacea. Alive and kicking.

If you are to practice guerrilla in Puerco Rico, USA
do not plant anything not resistant to heat/drought
particularly if not available to irrigate. Plant what is
available in the surroundings, do not buy crap from
nurseries.

BANDWAGON ENVIRONMENTAL
NEW ARRIVALS
Agrochic
Arboles de Puerto Rico
Boricuas identificando y reconociendo
Arboles de Puerto Rico
Mercado Ecologico de San Juan
and my favorites
THE DUNES SAVIORS FROM
ISABELA CITY

To all the above I wish you the best.. and character
to take what I will certainly will say from my observations and what I may have said/written already.
If not mentioned, do not worry, I will
keep you posted, later.

Critics criticize...

GARDENING AT HOME NEWS

Perhaps you remember that I mentioned in an old post
how Phd Alberto Areces Mallea and Gabriela Ocampo,
those yellow bellies trash, children of beaches stole some rooting
hormones from my storage area, some time ago when I was
a trend setting groundskeeper with
the Luis Munhoz Marin Foundation.

I did not have the chance to propagate with hormones since then.
Well, I just got some rooting gel in the mail. It is much better than the previous
dust rooting ones. Four stems of Guaicum officinale,
six of yellow and orange Hibiscus, collected in the UPR and calle
Sagrado Corazon and the two from Fajardo mentioned in the beginning
have been planted.

That is that..Time to go...

THE ONCE AND FUTURE FOREST....the end

2010-04-15T04:21:00.000-07:00

WE undertake to restore indigenous communities and ecosystem function in the face of great uncertainty. We do not know very much about how natural systems work, and we do not even have all the component pieces.
The concept of restoration, taken literally, might presume that we can replace missing parts or remove added ones. But while we can eliminate invasive alien species on a specific site, we cannot necessarily take away all new elements. How does the restorationist, for example remove the large amounts of nitrogen raining down the landscape from air pollution, seriously modifying one of the most basic processes, the nitrogen cycle?
Not is it any easier to add the lost pieces. Where do we find the huge flocks of migratory passenger pigeons whose numbers collapsed from billions to extinction with the first great wave of deforestation or the once numerous but now extinct Carolina parakeets of the eastern forest?
We simply do not know enough about our ecosystems; nor are we yet
able to modify our lifestyles and land use to recreate those conditions necessarily to truly restore a prior state, extinctions aside.

The management of complex living systems necessarily involves many
interrelated natural processes and functions. Some of these natural processes and functions we may seek to replace or emulate; others we may try to rehabilitate or reestablish. The cumulative result is intended
to more toward restoration. This is a heuristic process in which we will
learn as we go along. If we are committed to sustaining indigenous plants and animals, we will, over time, discover new approaches and techniques that cannot be implemented or even imagined, today.

We have written this guide book primarily as a stimulus to those individuals and groups who want to do something constructive about our deteriorating forest patches. We hope it will assist in this restoration process providing an approach for assessing each site, guidelines for determining management goals and an overview of appropriate management and restoration techniques. The objective

is to provide a framework for action rooted in the idea that those who use and care for a landscape should be responsible for sustaining its value over time. The goal is to develop programs to ensure that most of our actions will be restorative and not destructive. We have set ourselves on a critical path and the direction will be shaped by our goals.

The Once and Future Forest
Leslie Jones Sauer
Introduction

Perhaps now that once again the horses have been taken to the water stream, they will taste the water. Maybe not in Puercorico USA, but in your country far away, things will be put in the correct perspective. Every jerk/jerkette bored to death decides to 'restore', plant, reforest,
save this or that in this concrete/asphalt isle.

The result is tens or hundreds of ignorant fools with good intentions, without information, credentials or experience doing at will, what they think is correct or helpful to the environment.
In the case of Alberto Areces Mallea and Gabriela Ocampo is the contrary, people with college
degrees making the most stupid mistakes in the name of the "species in danger of extinction" or
endemic ones. They are not the only ones, the municipalities, government agencies: 007 Recursos Naturales, Fideicomiso and Parques Nacionales are under the direction of ignorant
fools, with similar employees destroying with foolish management practices the whole environment, but with futile attempts to protect, save, enhance it. Even worse, spending such
amount of money as in Parque Donha Ines, is a real waste considering that soil, Flora and Fauna was totally destroyed without any serious inventory, soil analysis, plan, or vision to protect the land and living creatures. That is that.

BALL/BURLAP REPORT

I want to inform that the Calliandra has officially
survived the relocation, the Guaicaum officinale is still
under observation, but not in danger of passing away.

The Malpighia is also doing great, not mentioned before.
This one went from a pot in the north side to the ground
in the south.

THE ONCE AND FUTURE FOREST...PART ll

2010-04-14T03:43:00.000-07:00

Human induced disturbances to the landscape are now of such great scope and scale that they overshadow the patterns of natural disturbances. Natural disturbance is,
of course, part of a natural cycle, the result of climatic extremes, fire, the death of a tree, a flood, or countless other phenomena. Indeed, these cyclical events are a vital
stimulus to change and integral to sustaining regional diversity within great forest
expanses. What most distinguishes natural disturbance from human induced disturbance is the extent to which it falls within the historic range of its occurrence.
Events at the limit of the natural range shape the landscape profoundly, such as the
blowdown of 1938 in New England or the fire of 1963 in the Pine Barrens of the New
Jersey. Events that extend well beyond their naturally occurring variability, however, exceed the recoverability of many plant and animal communities.
Complex, long established ecosystems are collapsing after repeated disturbance.
For example, repeated clearcutting inflicts far more serious and long term impact
of natural forest regeneration than was previously recognized. At the same time,
a few supercompetitive and generalist species are thriving at the expense of almost all others in the landscapes created by human settlement. Now unchecked suburbanization and resource extraction are consuming ever more of the remaining wild and rural lands. The living systems around us are losing their
richness and resilience, and we sense the implications for own lives.

Few of us can fully imagine or appreciate the grandeur and intricacy of the original forest encountered by the first settlers. But mos of us remember a forest we knew once that we have watched decline or disappeared all together. The lands we saved for their rich landscapes are changing before our eyes as the impacts of the last few centuries become more visible.

While park users and land managers are becoming more aware of the urgency of the problem, they are hampered by lack of information and experience in dealing with the management and restoration of disturbed landscapes. Natural resource
managers typically study intact ecosystems and may have little experience with disturbed landscapes, and horticulturalists are usually inadequately trained
in large scale natural systems. Ecologists and biologists in the past often devoted
relatively little energy to solving on the ground management problems and sought
instead to find and document the most pristine sites. Today the scientific community is shifting its focus toward restoration, but there is are no consistent policies or proven methodologies that reliably result in restoration. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of all is that restoration is a long term effort requiring a high degree of expertise and commitment rather than a quick fix.

Despite the challenges facing them, many landscape managers are attempting forest restoration and getting some good results for their efforts. These concerned
managers are developing the art and science of caring for fragmented forests by monitoring, studying, maintaining, replanting, and experimenting in woodlands and forests. They are aware that restoration is an going job and that natural systems are often so compromised we cannot expect them to recover if they are simply left on their own. Progress is not necessarily smooth and transformation
are not instantaneous, but these landscape managers are monitoring the landscape, limiting further impacts, and initiating improvement in the management of the natural systems under their care.

I will leave it here. There is one more part of the introduction left. In Puercorico USA, any jerk
with/without academic titles, politicians, community leaders, and jerks/jerkettes, opportunists of all kinds, banks, public/private agencies believe that taking care/respecting the environment is just: collecting garbage, recycling, or digging holes like mentally retarded without supervision and planting trees without much else, any
thought about maintenance. That is my stance. and that is that....

THE ONCE AND FUTURE FOREST

2010-04-13T04:40:00.000-07:00

SOMETIMES, I wonder when will this prevailing anger, intolerance at the insular feeble mindedness will subside. Now in Feisbuk, there are some
environmental DUNE SAVERS, in Isabela. The ignorant savers announced
with great fanfare their great endeavor, but I noticed a remarkable error.

Dunes need something to grab, hold the sand in place. Ground covers and/or grass. Their selection? Cocos Nucifera. The retarded ones, instead
of doing research, under erosion, sand, decided to plant palm trees where there were none. These not only will not stop/decrease the erosion, the DUNE SAVERS fucked up the landscape scenery/view, obstructing it with the vertical barriers. JERKS!

The tittle of the post is also a must have book. If you are into the offering unsolicited opinions as I do, you have to read and have references available for the ignorants, illiterates, and Phd's, as ALBERTO ARECES MALLEA, and his aboriginal Mexican Olmec wife. If they had taken the time to read the essential chapters on forest/habitat restoration, the eco-environmental crimes against FLORA/FAUNA/WATER/SOIL, committed in Parque Donha Ines, would not have taken place.

The Once and Future Forest
Leslie Jones Sauer
and
Andropogon Associates
Island Press, 1998

For many of us, urban and suburban forests are the closest we can come to nature. Sadly, these beloved places are deteriorating throughout the country. Some forests are destroyed in a moment--cut over and built upon. Others, especially urban parks and remnant woodlands, die more slowly, their destruction is caused not by a single act but by an accumulation of daily assaults--by public use of the landscape as well as by the public agencies responsible for their care.

Protection of the land has not necessarily protected the landscape. We all contribute to this deterioration--from the mountain biker gouging a
rutted trail up a steep slope to the birder who steps of the path for a better view. Damage occurs when a police car, for example, compacts the soil on either side of a woodland trail meant only for pedestrians or when uncontrolled stormwater careens downslope, eroding the forest floor. Less visible but no less serious is the damage done daily by atmospheric pollutants from vehicles, industry and other energy
consumption.

For many species of wildlife, these forest fragments are habitat vital to their survival. In our sprawling, developed landscapes, every patch of green has become an increasingly important remnant in an ever more tattered fabric. Today
those responsible for the care of protected landscapes are expressing growing concern about the accelerating deterioration of this resource. The negative impacts of use and abuse, already apparent in urban parks, are becoming more visible in suburban and rural areas as well. For millions of people, contact with
the natural world is a progressively diminished experience. Our own observations
confirm the gravity of our environmental condition: We are losing the rich variety
of native plants and animals that once typified our regional landscapes. The biodiversity crisis is here in our backyards and parks.

Biodiversity is the variety of forms of life. In addition to the 30 million or more species of plants and animals on Earth, the term "biodiversity" embraces highly specialized subspecies which may be far more numerous as well as more suited to
a world that is becoming increasingly homogenized. Indigenous species, those that were native to an area before the European settlement in this hemisphere, are
dying our at about the same rate that exotic or alien species, those introduced by
people to a region, are establishing themselves.

to be continued...

Back to this world..If you want to do something about this, verify, or prepare your own rebuttal, go to Facebook, under SEARCH, go to Luis Munoz Marin Foundation, give them a call 787-755-4506 or 787-755-7979. Or do something better by writing: info@flmm.org.

Ask for the inventory of FLORA/FAUNA before the works in Parque Donha Ines started and after the destruction of all vegetation and soil. You may also REQUEST the botanical list of ANYTHING that has been planted in Parque Donha Ines. Talk to Zuleika Vallenilla or Julio Quiros Suazo your hosts down there. That is that.

BALL AND BURLAP

2010-04-10T05:01:00.000-07:00

IF YOU COVER the whole horticultural court, once in a while you will have the chance to practice it with expected results. There is no more difficult task in gardening than Ball and Burlap. IF you are successful, not with digging or pulling out,
but with survival stats, WELCOME, you are now in the Big Leagues. If you do not, bear up.

My B/B training lasted for six hours, during 2002, in the New York Botanical Garden as a requirement for the certificate, under the supervision of an expert, Mike Ruggiero.

Ball and Burlap consists on digging around the trunk of a tree to the necessary depth to find surrounding roots supporting the patient to be removed/relocated without harm.

You need a taper mouth spade, trowel and a hand pruner. I will not get into much detail except that in the tropics, if you know what you are doing, it does not matter if the root ball brakes or not. That is why no burlap was involved here. However, let the record show that I am writing about Guiacum officinale and Calliandra haematocephala even if the theory is correct for any species. Be aware that many trees will just pass away, it is not in their spirit to be removed. Research if in doubt.

Guaicum oficcinale

This beautiful tree, was a gift from a former co-worker at four inches tall, seven years ago. It is
about six feet and a four inches diameter. It was planted in the south side, not foo far from the
wall.

Lets get to the digging. Since the space was tight, I started digging with a trowel, not a problem
in mostly sand soils. When I reached eight inches, I noticed a couple of roots the as thick as my
index finger. I cut carefully and kept digging, finding only some adventitious roots. I moved the trunk and gave away some. Proceeded with the spade to go around, deeper as in an oval to make sure no other roots were left. Once I was certain there was nothing left I pulled out the patient.

It was placed immediately in a three feet tall, two feet diameter plastic pot with my secret soil and compost formula. One third of the pot was filled. When I placed the tree it was too low. I added
some more soil, making sure it did not go over the previous depth. Watered it and put a thick string around the canopy to avoid too much movement as a tutor would.

Calliandra haemathocephala

You probably saw the picture here and read some anecdotes of insects and hummingbirds previously about this tree. I brought it from the Luis Munhoz Marin Foundation. I was probably eight inches tall then, now is six feet tall, but not as wide as the Guayacan. Like the first, it spent most of its life in pots. Both have been in the ground for the last two years.

Unlike the first, white flies and some pyramid shaped insects have been a problem, but not a headache. The roots of this tree were deeper in the ground, thin and spread evenly. It was easier to dig around, there is much more room than in the first case.

The Calliandra was dug and placed eight feet from the original spot to make room for the Guaicum. The hole was about twice the size of the roots, in diameter. Remember the depth
has to be the same or higher, otherwise it may pass away by drowning. I put some of my compost/soil at the bottom, and filling the rest with the sandy ground. A string was tied around
the trunk (not too tight) for support and around the canopy for two days.

Why now? May wonder the inquisitive reader. If you live in the tropics, the perfect time to do Ball/Burlap is after it has rained for a day or two, if in sandy soil. The ball has less chance to brake, the digging is easier. In clay is another story. However, the most important reason, is that much less stress will be inflicted in the patient.

If you have transplanted anything in your gardening life, you may have noticed that most plants look as if in agony after the trauma. With these trees was no different. The Guaicum looks like crap, but not the Calliandra. Their leaves have turned yellowish, but look healthy and recovering. The second is showing flower buds in their in their infancy, a sign of sure recovery.

Make sure you water profusely after planting. Good luck in your projects. If your trees are

taller than those here, get some help, it will make it easier for you and the tree. Time to go.

BONUS FOR THE FAITHFUL

ANYTHING
YOU
NEED TO KNOW
about the subject

PERHAPS TOO
MUCH

in Youtube.com
under
Ball and Burlap

ADVANCED GARDENING THE BALL/BURLAP POST

2010-04-08T05:33:00.000-07:00

UP FRONT BONUS

I DROPPED by perhaps the dullest park under the umbrella of beyond feeble minded, PARQUES NACIONALES, Parque Luis Munhoz Marin,

on Pinhero Avenue. There are trees, but so sparse, that one can not write

about shade. Just grass, poorly kept, poodles, bare ground and a jerk,

illiterate with a stupid looking face in charge of the nursery.

William the illiterate, poor soul, had told el Nuevo Dia, that 3 of the employees had been fired, and he was 'alone' working in the shitty nursery with '25,000' plants. Your
humble servant left a message to work as a volunteer about a month ago...The hick almost freaked out when questioned about the number. Said that maybe it refer to the whole park.

I insisted that the article mentioned the nursery not the park.. William, a little stressed by now, indicated that maybe '8,000' plants hang out in the nursery. After looking carefully there are not even 1,000 in the whole park but such is life in Puercorico. The blind leading the blind.

The bonus does not stop here.. I found some seeds from a not particularly attractive
tree, never seen before in books, catalogs or live. I asked three employees, including
the mentally retarded William, if they knew the name of it. NO ONE KNEW. That is the reality in every context, regarding plants, trees, and else in the public/private sector. A bunch of followers of those words, Ignorance is bliss. Sorry, the burlap
for the next time. Time to go....

AEROPORTS DE PARIS DIDIER VELU

2010-04-04T16:18:00.000-07:00

I HAVE FOUND, such an article only once in my life. What you are about to read appeared on Aeroports de Paris Magazine, March 2010. It is a bilingual edition an
it deals with landscape management, not the crappy one done in Puercorico but in
that city airport.

The height of the grass bordering airport runways and taxiways is important for air traffic safety. Mow it to a height below 20cm. and what you get is a perfect runway for birds. Leave it to grow taller than the regulation 40cm. and risk serious interference with radio frequencies. The key growing period for grass is between 15 April and 14 July. For those weeks, the 850 hectares of grass at Paris-Orly are mowed every
night by staff using amazing machines that can cut an 8.30 metre wide strip in a single pass.

Didier Velu (59) is a technical key member of the team. "Once it has been mowed, we clear the cut grass alongside runways to avoid the danger of it
getting blown all over the tarmac by jet engines. If that happened, the following aircraft wouldn't be able to take off. The cuttings are then recycled into compost in the green waste centre. Then, to make sure the engine exhausts don't destroy the grassland, we staple hessian and wire
mesh to the ground. This covering also protects underground power
cables from any soil subsidence caused by burrowing animals".

As he explains the aspects of his job, Didier Velu leaves no detail out. He
lists the species of bird - "magpies, rooks and crows" - whose droppings seed unwanted plants, which then have to be weeded out selectively.
He is also quick to add a caveat on the use of chemical weed killers.
"Their use is highly regulated".
The environment has never been more effectively protected. But the many and varied responsibilities of Didier and his team do not stop there.

During the bird migration seasons, Didier leads the hunt to prevent the danger of bird strikes and keep down the rabbit population - thanks to ferrets. Around 2,500 are caught every year. He also helps with runway
snow clearance when required, provides plants and flowers for the airport terminals of Aeroports de Paris, removes litter and keeps the joints in runway and taxiway surfaces clear of weeds over an area of 200
hectares.

Didier Velu approaches nature and the cycles it imposes on us with a mixture of humility and technical skill. Both qualities are vital to success in a job that combines air safety with respect for the environment.

What is wrong with this picture? Using a lawnmower for an hour in your residence
leaves as much CO2, as driving your car for twenty miles. In Paris-Orly is done every
night, 850 hectares! Multiply the number for every, or most airports in the world, with grass. Add all GOLF courses in the world. All the commercial/residential lawns.

The result is CO2, tons and tons....But if you read carefully they are concerned about the environment regarding chemicals, weed killers...Is that ironic or what? That is my beef with everything... The living contradictions....

Want to follow up? In Puercorico, the Scubba Doggs, (some environmental scheme that is certainly making a buck somehow) picks up garbage under salty water and sand, in local beaches with volunteers. However, my concern is the water sewage and ECHOLI thrown in every possible context water wise, salty or not in Puercorico...by the AAA. How many times these exemplary citizens have addressed this public health/environmental issue? ZERO. That is that......

MEMORIES FOR THE FUTURE

2010-03-31T03:51:00.000-07:00

YESTERDAY, Ms. Laborde's landscape butchers, returned to the neighborhood. This time to 'clean' the front yard of the abandoned house that yours truly managed for the
last two years without thanks from the jerks who live next door. The butchers are not
her own, she just hired them first.

This hicks left the soil bare. Tecoma stans, Cestrum diurnum, Turnera, Asparagus, Alocasia, Tradescantia, and the wonderful vine, Vitis vinifera that you can appreciate in the pictures to the right. I do not understand the rush, these feeble minded characters could have waited until the many bunches of grapes were ripe. After all
eating a Puercorican grape could only happen once in a lifetime. I had the chance from this exterminated vine.

This ignorant fools were not only paid, they were congratulated for the barbaric act accomplished..with the dreadful primitive machete. They finished with golden link, a blower! In a space less than 15 square feet. And every one...happy as a clam...

Now getting into the tittle.

When I was in third grade me mom used to take me to visit her friends in town or far away. In those days houses were mostly wooden. I remember
when the first ugly, match box concrete/cinder block house was built in our street. A huge event. At least 15 guys were involved, passing the buckets in Indian file through a ramp, to the roof, with the laughter and the noise of the cement mixer of those days.

But this is about plants. There were not many nurseries then. I can not
remember one. Gardening was a women thing. Housewives, spinsters or widows. Those with the skills required to propagate, diagnose and care for the plants were the envy of the uninitiated. Only the skills and imagination counted, since you could not go to buy plants as it is done now.

From the list that will appear below, Diffenbachia and Pothos were present in 7 out of ten houses, indoors. Pots then were anything available. But mostly cement, and metal oil/cracker cans. Puercorico,
was at the time a tobacco, coffee, sugar cane agricultural society. The connection with nature, soil was still around.

Allamanda cathartica
Aloe vera
Anthurioum
Spathiphylum
Alocasias
Hibiscus
Gardenia

I am sure that herbs, edibles were also planted in many houses, but that
required more knowledge, skills and will not get into that since the memories are not there.

This period of my life was marked terribly when witnessing the abrupt fast as hell destruction of that agricultural culture in the name of progress. The connection with Nature was lost for ever.

It was the beginning of the concrete/asphalt ERA. It started with highways,
hundreds of factories moved down from USA in search of cheap labor and not paying taxes of any kind.

The shot of grace was the concept of housing projects cookie mold like that Levitt and sons had developed in Long Island, New York and other places. Pendejismo paisajista, a concept I coined, was born. The house
came with postage stamp yards with turf/grass. Palms and hedges came later, following the image of those properties in USA.

After sixty years, in Puercorico, imagination, creativity in ornamental gardening/horticulture in general are dead. Twenty species or less in every possible context, wet or dry, cool or hot, mountain, seashore.

Perhaps that is why I remember with certain nostalgia, those childhood days. Memories then should be useful for the future. And that is that.

THE AVERAGE JOE SIX PACK NATURE AND VINES

2010-03-27T16:13:00.000-07:00

JUST returned from one of those unavoidable visits. The subject at
one point spin around a palm and tree. These are hiding the facade of a two story house across the street. The Joes, opinion, was for eliminating both. Your humble one, the palm, in a blink of an eye.

I stated that the ugly, overgrown palm was a liability, since the fronds weight between 8/15 pounds. You need a saw, a fifteen feet ladder and good luck to avoid a fall. Besides that, the mess by leaves falling from the
Thevetia peruviana is easily solved with a broom and dust pan.

However the intelligent argument that never cross the Joes minds, is that facing east, this house receives a lot of radiation heat. Eliminating both, will demand to have the cost of air conditioning on for long periods...For what?
So the fools walking or driving by, could have a better look of the shady house? The reaction to my arguments? You have too much spare time!

I thank the lord, for that. Spare time allows to view things beyond what is convenient to ME. Thinking just of a structure, without other variables, is silly. Most people seem to be in that trip, screw them...now lets move to another front...

VINES ET ALL

I do not remember if it was mentioned, but another way of learning about plants

regarding botanical names, collecting, propagation and grafting among others, is through catalogs. Some are really wonderful, to keep through the years as reference.

Today's catalog if from The Plumeria People, the 1995. A jewel. I will share a list of the fragrant
department among the offers they carried then.

Cestrum nocturnum (Shrubs) *
Crinum americanum v robustum (Bulbs)
Crinum asiaticum *
Eucharis grandiflora (Bulbs) *
Gardenia jasminoides (Shrubs) *
Gelsemiun sempervirens (Vines)
Hedychiums, especially H. coronarium (Gingers)
Jasmines (Vines)
Murraya paniculata (Shrubs) *
Osmanthus fragrans (Shrubs)
Pancratium zeylanicum (Bulbs)
Pandorea jasminoides (Vines)
Passifloras (Vines) *
Plumerias *
Polianthes tuberosa (Bulbs)
Stephanotis floribunda (Vines)
Tabernamontana coronaria (Shrubs)
Trachelospermum jasminoides (Vines)
Zephyranthes chlorosolen (Bulbs)

* In my collection
I will add Cavennala maritima (Vines)

Mirabilis siciliana (Shrub)

and that is that..until then

GARDENING NATURE REPORT

2010-03-26T03:20:00.000-07:00

A FEW DAYS ago, I was invited to the residents association meeting. I would have been my third in two years. Your humble one stayed home. If you look at the pictures in the right side, you will notice a mutilated Bouganvillea, in the next to the sidewalk 'garden' of the president. A somewhat strange character NEVER seen in the yard or walking around anywhere.

Most of the people living around the vicinity do not WALK or tend the plants, trees, bushes with the needed care. The vegetation looks like crap most of the time, as a necessary evil.

Lets start again...The first picture is a Zamia. (Editors note: RIP. Friday 4PM.) It made her debut here sometime ago. That picture is further down if you want to compare the growth for the last twelve months.. I changed the soil recently and the trunk snapped at the base either by my clumsiness or the wind...Only one third of it is still attached. To my surprise the new
leaves are still looking healthy as if nothing has happened. I speculate that it should
pass away, I will keep you posted.

The next picture presents my Bouganvillea, contrary to anyone else, mine is not pruned foolishly. When a branch gets on the way, not following the designed intention, it is eliminated at the base in angle, to avoid the opened scars shown in Ms. Laborde's, mutilated bush, by illiterate gardeners for hire. The difference is evident.

The ugly aspect of mutilated branches is only the superficial one. The stupidity is ever lasting. Every single branch will probably produce five more branches, add and multiply..I forgot the amount of times I have mentioned the issue of improper pruning
and this will suffice at the moment.

The fourth and fifth pictures present a Vitis vinifera. Believe it or not. It grows very happily from the right side of this abandoned house. I assume it was planted more than ten years ago, when this vines became fashionable in some segments of the population. If you look carefully, you may notice a bunch of grapes growing in the middle of the picture.
I doubt very much there is any such vine growing in the concrete/asphalt isle with telephone/electricity wires as a trellis.

All this may seem irrelevant, except for one thing...If an abandoned grape vine
can grow at this length, Puercorico could have had a wine industry if anyone had thought about it. Even if the grapes are good enough just to make sweet Boones Farm or El Canario (for bums or cooking), grape juice, or raisins. After all, no one is writing about Cabernet or Pinot Noir grapes....nor competing with Australia or Argentinian wines.

Everyone knows those beautiful self seeding plants by now. They will make any
garden more complete with the bright intense yellow/orange, making bees very
happy and content...And that is that...

ETHICS LA CEIBA Y EL TITO

2010-03-21T02:44:00.000-07:00

FORGIVE ME, for addressing issues that even if related to endemismo, are mostly on the news, and as I suspected not of the interest of bloggers that once in a while jump in the painted green environmental bandwagon.

If you are one of those fearful of God in the Christian mode, you may remember that
impressive scene (one of my favorites), when his son drops by the TEMPLE and observes it has been converted into a street market...His anger is pretty cool if I may...

Puercorico is pretty much like that temple, the whole society from top to bottom as you will soon see.

Ceiba pentandras are magnificent trees of the family Malvaceae and subfamily Bombacoideae. A Bao Bab is like a Ceiba a hundred times heftier as if in steroids,
for comparison sake. Ceibas are our endemic champion...

In some neck of the woods in the Puercorican wild west, some mayor, requested
permission from our BOTANIST/BOTANICAL EXECUTIONER, 007 Recursos Naturales, the government agency that cares and protect our TREES, SOILS, and else,
to execute the 23 year old. This one had left four hundred years left to live, judging from other ancient Ceibas around the isle. As ALWAYS it was granted.

In the concrete/asphalt isle the populace kill or mutilate trees for fun, when bored,
to avoid picking up the leaves, to stop birds from shitting on their windshields,
to annoy the neighbors, because the roots lift the side walk or wrap around the pipes, and they are living creatures. One recent anecdote puts Ivan Sanchez, a soberanist, anti colonialism zealot, destroying without remedy a 2o year old Bucera busaris, to get a signal for a satellite dish. Believe it or not! People like to kill, or at least that is the way I perceive it.

Your humble servant wants to offer the whole show..bear up.. These are individual trees in specific urban/country conditions. But the greater amount of trees, flora and fauna are executed with permits from 007 are HOUSING/HIGHWAY DEVELOPERS,
millions of them, for the last 7 decades in the four cardinal points of the isle of concrete/asphalt enchantment and beyond our shores island municipalities.

Back to the Ceiba from my story...This one was in the city...The reason to kill it in the dark of the night when no one was watching? The roots were growing incorrectly, as
the expert interviewed declared to the news! The truth is that some building is being
constructed, and the tree was in the way.. What is the problem with this? People are
angry because they were attached to it...And they feel it should have been killed during
daylight...And I agree with them...Impunity as the one saturating this forsaken, dirty
isle would have made no difference.

NOW it is TITO TIME. He can wear a suit elegantly, a former boxing champ with the elegance/style of KID PAMBELE, just a little bit better, but not like Macho Camacho or Muhamed. Made some millions, invested unwisely and lost some with regueton, the shitty genre for mentally retarded music aficionados.

Bought some land, deciding what else? To develop. Unfortunately, this squeaky voiced
fellow, with a great people person personality, unlike myself, was denounced by the vicinity for DESTROYING the land, flora and fauna without a permit! Since he is black, or darkie, if you prefer, I would not doubt that is part of the reason why his project was stopped. The permit, historically is/has been academic.

Among other things he is accused of creating erosion, diverting water streams with pipes and destroying flora and fauna. EXACTLY what everyone else has been doing for the last seventy years in the name of PROGRESS.

He will have to pay $140,000 for the damage and forget about his development
and profit dreams, something very rare, considering the damage done by others in the
past and I promise, in the future.

The moral of the story? If you have the money to bribe ARPE, 007 Recursos Naturales, you could build a housing project on land prone to floods, close by the ocean or take public land as in Paseo Caribe. That is what the Housing Developers have been doing, making billions in profits, making the island a concrete platform devoid of flora/fauna endemic or not...Or if you are politically connected as the Mayor of Aguadilla....

Tito, the scapegoat of the environmental debacle in Puercorico, USA. What should be
done since our former champion has about .005 IQ, is to put in jail the engineers and architects involved in the project. This guy is not bright at all, I can not believe he consciously allowed such stupidity. On the other hand, MOST people do not see, perceive, appreciate nature.

Why should the village idiot become the pet symbol against environmental destruction when the WHOLE SOCIETY, has swept other instances under the carpet and never, ever had the guts to judge mostly pasty pale people with power, in the destruction for profits condoned by everyone?

These are the ethics of the game in Puercorico, USA. Time to go.

A POST ON VINES

2010-03-18T17:38:00.000-07:00

I HAVE written on this subject, but this time I will be more specific.

FROM
Botany for Gardeners
Brian Capon
page 103

Most species are unable to elevate leaves high above the ground on thin, herbaceous stems. But not so with climbing vines that make deft use of their specially adapted organs, and the strength of suitable supports, to accomplish such a feat.

The stems of some vines grow in a spiral manner around upright objects such as a small trunks of shrubs or saplings, or fence posts and telephone poles. Stems displaying, such characteristic growth are called twiners. The higher a twining stem
grows, the more tightly it hugs its support.

Other species form special grasping organs, called tendrils, that are either modified leaf parts or short stems derived from the growth of axillary buds. Tendrils
coil around small objects with which they come into contact-the stems of other plants,
or garden stakes, fence wires and strings supports. Once anchored, the principal stem
grows upward a short distance before sending out more tendrils. Leaf tendrils are
adapted from leaflets of compound leaves (Sweet Pea, for example), stipules (Green
Briar), or petioles (Clematis).

In other species, climbing structures include short branches with adhesive disks at their tips. With such devices , Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus spp.) clings tenaciously to the walls of buildings. Or the climbing stems of ivy, for example, form
adventitious roots that penetrate and expand in cracks in tree bark, wooden fences,
masonry, etc. With age, some climbing stems become woody and bear heavy leaf
loads; but by then, they are so securely anchored it is extremely difficult to separate
them from their supports.

It is a good time to remind our far away readers that vines are under used in most installations. A good resource that could substitute wisely over used hedges. With vines one does not need to be on top of them as in a hedge.

With that in mind lets mention some issues that are pertinent based on
my experience/collection.

Do not plant Bejuco de puerco. This one will violate the boundaries day after day. Vines like this behave as ground covers if they reach the ground from above. It will grow roots even over concrete/asphalt.

In terms of aesthetics Cavalinna maritima, Passiflora edulis and Petrea volubilis, have a STIFF appearance. Very stiff. That is why I have an intense dislike for palms, hedges and turf among others.

Disease/insects are not a problem with these. They will require some pruning once in a while, particularly when they embrace other vegetation, trees.

Ipomoeas are nice looking, but prone to white flies, a pain in the rear.
However, Merremia quinquefolia, Clitoria ternatea, Antigonon leptopus,
are less wild than those above. All these have a soft look, falling gently,
like a cascade. Birds are fond of them while hiding/playing.

As they grow on the windows iron works, they become a screen reducing
the glare significantly. These vines have a bonus when the light goes trough them. The leaves form beautiful arabesques with the aid of the wind, on windows and walls. So there, go and get some. Time to go...

ECOTOURIST REPORT PLUS BONUS

2010-03-17T05:46:00.000-07:00

YOUR HUMBLE SERVANT, had to travel to that ghost town, El Pais de Caguas, to visit the dentist. Bad news. I will have to visit the periodontist

again. I never mentioned it. But they have something in common with auto mechanics, those of New York and Puercorico. They will charge you an arm/leg for their services. Another thing is that if you could survive with a cleaning they will go for the surgery...And never, ever will stress the cleaning, just the surgery. I have a few horror periodontist stories to tell, maybe next time.

When I reached Padial St., there he was sitting in front of a ugly red/blue painted house, Eliezer Cruz. A former basketball pall from Savarona.
Always with a great smile, easy conversation. Minutes later, in front of City Hall, Rubencito was coming in the opposite direction. Not my friend. He is just the grandson of my fourth grade teacher. She used to bring him
to the elementary school where I studied to babysit. I am 58, I had not
seen this fellow in forty eight. Brief pleasantries exchanged, he works in the Tobacco Museum of the ghost town, not far....

Gardening news? The pink Frangipani is starting to bloom, a while after the yellow. The white one refuses to do much, except for a few leaves.
Every one of these trees do their thing at their pace, at home. The first,
has leaves and buds, the second just flowers, the white just leaves.

The Orchard Department is looking good. The third lemon crop is around the corner and the orange's second too. The flowers of these trees, compare in fragrance, subtlety, elegance, with that of Gardenias, Frangipani, or Mirabilis siciliana in my humble intercontinental opinion.

The Carica papaya has fourteen of these great tasting fruits. They will probably make their debut on the fruit salad by April. This tree is the only
survivor from three seeds that Crispin, the bar owner/friend from Tapia St., gave me 16 months ago.

BONUS

In Puercorico, many talentless, useless, not too bright people,
have anointed themselves as motivators, life coaches and such, to make
a buck. They are like Paris Hilton, famous for being famous. I
will give it a try mock to be a lifecoachmotivator attempt if I may. They all preach the goodness
of yoga, vegetarianism, being humble, nice, pleasant, respectfull and such.

Contrary to the scum bags mentioned, I practice gardening.
They do not do it, because they can not stand the heat or getting
their hands dirty.

An intense June like heat in March, leaves no doubts as to what to expect in the next one hundred days. Fortunately, I was careful when choosing the collection. Salt breeze, drought and heat were always kept in mind.

When plants such as Diffenbachia, Proiphys, Aglaonema, Gardenia, Alocasia cucculata, were planted under shade with intense heat they were stunted. That changed when they moved north from south, they look lush and happy lately.

Observing the collection with a critical perspective/focus, I declare that is not really a big deal. Any juan can travel around his surroundings looking, picking here and there, reaching 120 species. Reaching a more or lesser amount.

The magic is not in question, is not even the plants or vegetation. Nor contrasts in shape, height, texture, color, leaves form/size, fragrance, flowers, foliage and everything else.

The feeling of accomplishment pops out when birds, lizards, bees,beetles, Diva, snails, and everybody else pays a visit. Most are welcome, some not as much.

It increases slowly, permanently, as the growth flows in all directions, with some plants staying put, others changing neighborhoods. Then you/I look at the garden with that sensation similar to those finishing a marathon. The job is done. Time to enjoy. And that is that.

NOT PRONE TO PRUNE

2010-03-12T07:11:00.000-08:00

I JUST visited one of those wonderful gardening blogs from India. Unlike this one, well written, better photos.... The subject was orchids. In my collection there are a couple of Phalaenopsis, even though I have never been a fan.

The ones I got were a present from Don Miguel, an up the street neighbor and me wife. I used to think of them plants as something fragile, but the heat they tolerate in my mostly concrete backyard, changed my view.

At any rate, if people in the tropics are so fond of orchids, how come they
never mention, think, plant BAUHINIAS? After all this wonderful tree
does not grow too big. The white, pink, orange orchid looking flowers are pretty and attract hummingbirds. One would expect orchid fans to explore the possibility, give it a try. Research.

My jihad on white flies continues... Yesterday while pruning some small
bushes growing too wild for my liking, I found some Ixora remnants hidden below. Not surprisingly, a few of these were in residence. My dislike for this damn bush gets more intense as time goes by. I pulled out every one left. Success is measured
by the amount of jumping flies when I spray. Lately it has been less than
five.

I should mention tolerance. This problem is not a big deal if you watch your plant collection daily. Some flies just spend the night or morning. It is the colony that will screw up your plants. Keep this in mind. Otherwise, pulling out every plant of their liking will leave your garden looking like Iraq.

In the San Carlos Guerrilla front, everyone is doing fine. Pithelobiums,
Tabebuias, Agavacea, Merremia, pumpkin and Sanseveria. Two vines, not mentioned before, not planted by your humble servant, Antigonon leptopus and Pothos, are already coming down from a nearby second floor. These looking odd vines in that space, is one of the reasons I chose the spot to plant.

I would like to suggest a marvelous book for those of you with knowledge

of Spanish.

El Huerto
Enciclopedia de Jardineria
SUSAETA EDICIONES, S.A.
Campezo s/n 28022

If you are into history, geography, etymology, edible gardens, you will have a feast.
It presents the development of gardening, horticulture, agriculture from the beginnings of time, with a focus on Mediterranean climate/vegetation.

Olive, wine, wheat those were the pillars of ancient agriculture. The book covers so much ground, that the first chapter on the subject, the glossary at the end are worth the cost. That I do not know, since it was a present, sent from Spain.

The book does more, it puts in context the influence of the Discovery. Potatoes, tomatoes and corn among others, are discussed. Arabs, Romans, Greeks and those before them. It is really a pleasure to find such a well written book, with impressive photos on these wide subjects..and that is that....

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

You probably know my stance on pruning or weeding.
Or gardening in general.
Hedges, turf, palms are no No's.
They look STIFF, I am into the
informal/prairie looks.
I prune as a duty, when there is no
choice, not for silly hedges.
Weeds are not fond of my gardening
habits. Except in concrete, sidewalk,
gutters...For them glyphosate.

DOWN BY THE ISLE OF THE FEEBLE MINDED PUERCORICO USA

2010-03-09T16:44:00.000-08:00

SOME time ago, some incredibly stupid, alienated Puercorican, organized the greatest traffic jam in the history of this good for nothing island, where legislation can be bought, and the native Supreme Court, decides not on precedents but on party line$.

The retarded individual, mentioned above described the plan to all who were listening, as the greatest amount of 4X4 vehicles gathered at one time, the biggest caravan of such in the world, ever. The socially redeeming intention, wonders the astute intercontinental reader. Simple. To get in that book of records the Guinness.

A brouhaha in the printed media and other, about this heroic adventure
was all around including Faisbuk, where our hero one among the feeble announced it.

Unfortunately, yours truly saw it and could not help but to do what I do best, calling the spade a spade. He was informed that polluting the air,
in addition to the noise these inefficient gas guzzlers create was nothing
to be proud of. Imagine the havoc these fools by the thousands created for the Innocent drivers passing by. Not to get in the wasted time, fuel and the effects on the environment.

Was these the greatest stupid moment in vehicular history, in the Guinness? You be the judge...

PARQUE MUNHOZ RIVERA

EVALUATION
BONUS

THIS once upon a time a beautiful park, probably the best in the whole
island, still looks like shit with 50% of the trees sick, almost dead, with termite damage through out the years and living termites, mutilated or

too old. There is a huge one totally dead, the bark falling on the ground waiting for the shot of grace...But as usual no one notices...

Yours truly went to chat with the Super, Milagros Morales, who was not there (787-721-8416). The secretary with the appearance of one of those
battered alcoholic housewives does not know details about her education or credentials, something really natural in the isle of the feeble minded.

The supervisor was not around either.. However when I arrived to the park, two of the four employees, were on a break at 10:30 AM, in the dirty, noisy, ugly cafeteria. Later by 11:30 they call it quits, even though most of the park has not seen a rake in weeks. I confess that the employees appearance and attitude matches that of the park. The gravel is a mess, the lawn is in the same condition. The vines/trellises look like manure..The ancient concrete cute little benches pretendingto be out of wood, surprisingly comfortable are missing or cracked.

But your favorite critic has an eye for the out of the common...A couple of pitirres were hunting for yellow butterflies, one of them being successful.
A humming bird was observed looking for non existing flowers. Which
reminded me of Antigonum's Gospel, 3rd commandment: Plant trees with birds in mind. Those hanging out in the URBAN CONTEXT. The amount, variety of birds is significant considering the PATHETIC aesthetics and maintenance of this former masterpiece of garden/park.

One final good note. I was able to collect three seeds of Guiacum, one of my favorites, and four of Ceiba pentandra, our closer creature to Bao Babs, my number one tropical favorite. And that is that. From Puercorico
USA, where the feeble minds never rest...always rule....

GUERRILLA BACKYARD GARDENING UPDATED REPORTS

2010-03-05T01:47:00.000-08:00

IT HAS BEEN a wild at heart week. It started my jihad with the White Flies in capital letters, what a pain this cute insects are. They behave just like Al-Qaeda the
barbarian Sunni islamists. I got them in both houses near by, hanging out in the
Ixoras and Tecomas. I investigated. I got rid of a DK vine, an Ipomea in front of the house. They still visit the Calliandra, Murraya, and found out they love lemons. I am
doomed for the rest of my gardening life...But is not a big deal after all I water spray
my collection daily, know where they hang out...White flies, the gardener al-qaeda, you eliminate them in the north and appear in the south. What the heck....

IN the plant living in pots department the following: lemon, orange, Coccoloba uvifera, Chayamansa and Pithelobium dulce, were pulled out and put back after the soil was amended with one third of my homemade compost and earth worms. They all look fine and happy. Only the lemon shows a little stress with falling leaves, not the first time....

GUERRILLA ACTIVITY

IN THE original installation by the train station, everyjuan is happy as clam, except the Thevetia peruviana, looking like shit, with most leaves burned. However the DK tree, the Tamarindus indica, and dwarf Cosmos are looking marvelous even without water for most of the last thirty days.

It is really impressive, not because I write it, (try it yourself) but think of a canvas with just
green/beige/brown and now add orange and yellow spots here and there... I am glad at the
scenery, even if they will fall victims of the municipal trimmer executioners squad, soon. There
will be seeds spread by the wind and birds....On my visit, a minuscule yellow butterfly came to pay respects...

On the San Carlos site, the Pithelobium seeds, Murrayas, and one pumpkin are comming along.
I went to irrigate yesterday, since they are still fragile, but considering this week end will be a rainy one, success is guaranteed.

This site is the one with graffiti. I did not mention that many wild plants grow in the strip
24 inches wide and about 75' long. Albizia, one Dracaena, Pothos, Antigonon leptopus and,
wild Margaritas are among the inhabitants. They are slowly coming back after the back hoe squashed them, thirty days ago...

As with any gardening done in this god forsaken concrete/asphalt isle, it may go away..I enjoy it while I can. However, in the back of my mind the possibility that one or many VANDALS,
will destroy the whole or parts of it... never goes away. The satisfaction will remain in photos or memory.

Doing something is still much healthier physically/mentally, than all the bullshit read about saving the environment, the 'global warming' without any mention of the concrete/asphalt heating...and that is that...time to go...

ANTIGONUM THE ISLE TREKKER HITS THE ROAD

2010-03-03T01:03:00.000-08:00

AFTER many moons our hero left the vicinity in search of flora and fauna, some distance from home. The first attempt Parque Luis Munhoz Rivera,was closed. Botanical Garden in Rio Piedras was next.

There are no remarkable vines except the cliches, Syngonium, Pothos and
Philodendron. Organic debris was thrown in too many places, as if the illiterates machete yielding employees, (not seeing anywhere), were too busy to collect it. Evidence of trimmer maneuvers was everywhere, grass,
dust, dry leaves on sidewalks, gutters and roads. To make more interesting, right after the entrance.

The 'Japanese' pond, (what the ignorant fools think it is) just because there are some water plants and DIRTY muddy water with a painted red wooden bridge, shows that some weeding took place, with the product thrown by the edges. A couple of ducks, turtles and a few endemic birds
were observed around the dirty water in the bigger pond by the 'Manet Garden', what in their wild, maybe on ACID, may remind one of that late painter work or any of his portrayed landscapes.

All the space, the paths look abandoned. Even when something is constructed to improve, as a couple of wooden handrails seeing by the
restrooms area, the flimsy, unsteady result is pathetic. It gives the impression of total improvisation, lack of interest, absence of intelligence, as if those in charge are mentally retarded. I know
in USA retarded and nigger are illegal, politically incorrect.

Moving on our next target. Parque Central. Closed. With an unemployment of over 30% (perhaps more) these impossible to reach
on foot parks should be open daily, even if dirty, as the Botanical. Nobody
cares or notices the garbage. A depressing feeling started to invade your humble servant. What a shitty place to inhabit.

Last move. Parque Marti Coll. Right by the failed Aguaguagua, an
attempt to transport islanders and tourists by waterways. Believe it or not. What could have been a marvelous, intelligent option to get places,
mothballed. At any rate, this park is probably the only one in the WORLD, with an elevated concrete path over sewage waters. Surprising it is not yet the EIGHT WONDER of the world, I think the concept is original.

The entrance is a strip, probably forty feet wide, half a mile long, trapped between the Aguaguagua parking lot, huge and empty (visitors can not use it) and the the train station. The tree collection? Thespesia populnea, Coccoloba uvifera,
Bauhinia, Royal Poinciana and that is that. As a bonus, you will observe that fifty percent of the trees have or have got termites. They look like shit. I will not get into the other vegetation since it is not worth it. Palms and other cliche ornamentals, looking even worse and totally out of place.

The bonus? 17 nests of imported green/grey Iguanas 9 (abandoned former pets). Seven of them, between 1' and 3' gave me a standing ovation for being the only visitor, in addtion to four employees doing nothing. Even though the barren SOIL could use some aerefication, since it looks like concrete.

Across this wonder of park, there is the Jose Miguel Agrelot Coliseum, built in a classical brutalist architectural school. Huge without parking,
believe it or not...The landscape in front of this coliseum is notable for its
failure in aesthetics and health.

The ornamental bushes Silver mangrove, are mostly dead for lack of appropriate drainage and oxygen. The feeble minded gardeners/supervisor in charge, pruned these poor
creatures 8 inches short to see if they make a come back...You can observe the dead ones from the distance...These characters did not notice the green moss on the ground....a sign of water accumulation...On top of all this picture? An irrigation system....

And another day goes by in the dirty, ugly, noisy, concrete/asphalt isle...I keep trying to find one reason to feel proud, to flaunt the flag, but is useless. If there was some Greek in me, I would pull my eyes out...if there was less noise all over the place...Time to go...

ATTENDING MARVELS A PATAGONIAN JOURNAL

2010-02-28T03:29:00.000-08:00

I MET Pedro Werber Carlton aka Huevos de Carton, of the Hebrew persuasion, from Argentina, in Northampton, MA, in the eighties. Perhaps the best conversationalist
ever. Tall, ugly, swam like a fish, often in a great mood with stories about Peron, Evita,
Maradona, Piazzola but not Gardel, the humor of his compatriots Hebrews and gentiles. Also certain scorn for
other Hebrews, particularly those from USA, they are different, a little more stiff and certainly clannish...I know because I was popular among Hebrew ladies and got to
know the culture, eating habits, growing attached to them during the season.

At any rate. The tittle? It is a book written by George Gaylord Simpson, about paleontology, yep, believe it or not... As the tittle goes, a marvel of writing in my opinion. And Pedro? It was a present, since we often talked about Patagonia. I
have mentioned my strange attraction for any south, USA, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. When you look at Patagonia it has some weird, out of this world, beauty, landscapes and scenery hard to explain....but often reminds me of the moon...

If I could write well, this style would be one of my influences. I have chosen this passage arbitrarily, that some may find refreshing after reading my rough on the edges sentences and paragraphs... The subject it not really pertinent. Even if you do not care about dinosaurs and such, it is a fun book that I have read
more than five times in twenty years..

The first day out of Comodoro, we saw that the land rises from the sea
in a series of steep and very irregular terraces to the high, barren, windswept Pampa de Castillo. We went down the far side of this into
the broad Valle Hermoso, a more sheltered tableland little over half as
high. Across the Valle Hermoso the land raises again, much more gently,
then drops abruptly to the basin of Lake Colhue-Huapi, part of the great
depression known as the Sarmiento Basin, Cuenca de Sarmiento. This scarp south of Colhue-Huapi forms a belt of badlands, about six or seven
miles long in its principal part and continued eastward and westward by
somewhat similar carps. This is the great "barranca south of the Colhue-
Huapi," nameless but famous.

The shore of the lake itself is forward in part by broad white dusty flats flooded at high water, in part by low, steep banks of clay and soil, and in part by higher vertical cliffs of rock brilliantly streaked red and white. Beyond these shores lies a strip of gently rolling land covered by sand and gravel dotted with barren knolls of somber shale. Above this rises the irregular line of the forecliff, vividly banded and spotted in crimson, orange, yellow, and white. It is clearly stratified, in some places horizontally, and in others at steep angles. Beyond this bright and rugged
forecliff is the main barranca, rising to over four hundred feet from its immediate base and nearly eight hundred feet above the take at its culminating point. It is formed by a great series of beds of volcanic ash, white or delicately tinted yellowish or pink except for a few outstanding strata that have weathered or an orange color.

This reminds me of the cliche, a picture is better that a thousand words. I have my doubts. It depends on the subject. This is one of those books, like a good movie
can be reviewed a lifetime, in my intercontinental humble opinion...Time to go.

TRANSGENETIC SEEDS UPDATE

AlcantarillaAlquimica.blogspot.com/

War of the Seeds
Monsanto Vs Farmers
by BEATO

An excellent article with references, on the subject for the
serious, curious on horticulture/agriculture/gardening
theme. Do not miss it!

GARDENING UPDATES GUERRILA GARDENING

2010-02-27T06:20:00.000-08:00

WHEN you visit the guerrillagardening.com site, you realize that it is not
in the tropics...Actually, I am one in a small group in the blogosphere, virtual or real, practicing it regularly, at least with the adequate reports and systematic observation.

Today it rained rhinos and orcas down in Puercorico, USA. I decided to spread some Cosmos sulpherous, Merremias, Clitorias and to take advantage of the trip, the New England like light cloudy day conditions to
observe and plant a maguey, to share with lazy chair readers and gardeners alike.

The original guerrilla act with Tamarindus indica, Thevetia peruviana, Maguey and Cosmos by the train station, has survived. Only the
Thevetia looks like manure.. However, it is amazing the amount
of Cosmos that have tolerated the 15/20 days without water. I counted 65.
That means that at least 50% will bloom and self seed, before the next
municipal executioner trimmer squad make their appearance.

For this reason I decided to move the operations to the San Carlos abandoned building. There will be no trimmers. In my previous post,
I mentioned what was planted, only Cavalinna maritima, is new, planted yesterday. That is that in the guerrilla department...Imagine what you could do with two or three people with similar vision in your own country.

Good news edible/juiceable wise...The oranges in pictures, to the right of the blog were collected today...The quality of the juice has not been determined, yet. The lemons are coming along...The papayas will be ready pretty soon....But not the sweet Capsicum, apparently attacked by some virus...One of the interesting vines, a DK, with intense fragrance virtues, has departed.

As mentioned a week ago, the white flies kept coming no matter what I did. Even after I spread the secret insecticide among the Ixoras and Tecomas next door, left and right. I got sick of it. I have mentioned that
gardening should be a pleasurable activity, particularly on our free time.

I pulled out the trunk of this vine and put it in a pot, but I have not much
hope due to the woodiness of it...If it survives fine...This vine is one of those that I find in my collecting trips...Probably from Guanica, my favorite place to run away from noise, cellular in hand chatting foolishly natives and imported Dominicans, in the island of concrete/asphalt: Puercorico USA. Time to go.

GARDENING GUERRILLA VERSUS SHITTY GRAFFITI

2010-02-24T02:20:00.000-08:00

PERHAPS a month ago, down by my new guerrilla theater, the former San Carlos Hospital at the end of Bouret St. and Ponce de Leon Avenue, one graffiti high school drop out 'artist' uprooted a Tabebuia. Some species are beautiful, not one of my favorites since they self seed all over the place in any crack. My anger was intense since I could not figure out, why would any one do such a thing.

I kept wondering. The next day I went to check how the Pithelobium, Cosmos, Pumpkin, Merremia, Clitorias seeds, planted the week before were doing and voila, looking at the wall I discovered it... The drop out pulled
out the one year old because it got in the way of his GRAFFITI.

That ancient way of leaving one's trace has always been something silly,
adequate for adolescent minds refusing to become adults with all the virtues and defects it takes. In my critical eyes.

Have you dear reader developed any criteria about this subject? IN every imaginable ghetto in any part of the world New York, LA, Paris, London
the fonts are similar, the tags marking territory as animals do with urine.
When I see graffiti in Puerco Rico, what I see behind, what I imagine behind those often immigrant/illegals minds is revenge at the rejection
they certainly receive, perceive. The bigger the font/lettering the greater
the frustration.

Screw them. Only when I see on television ART, with graffiti, you know
composition, focus, perspective I appreciate the ART within..TAGS are
the work of the feeble minded and drop outs. By the way, those spray cans cost $10.00, they deface any wall in abandoned buildings or those
with their usual residents. Some really illiterate use sixteen inch wide
paint rollers to tag their nicks in TWO colors... And some fools think,
write, talk about graffiti as ART. As if art is anything that any retarded
outcast paints on the wall of his arbitrary predilection.

The jerks into graffiti should convert into Guerrilla Gardening. It is less
expensive. Last longer, you may get real beauty with plants, trees, vines and or edibles. This eliminates that feeling of hostility and anger, frustration, that shitty graffiti from underdeveloped minds in Puerco Rico create.

It is pathetic that government agencies allow graffiti as the ones described
here to become visible on its properties. It provides an anything goes vision on these sick minds. If they can do it, anyone can....on any surface...

Moons ago, during the sixties, a graffiti/mural fever covered the whole island with TAINO motives. Some people here think/believe that WE are TAINOS, Ricardo Alegria and company, the Cultural Institute of Puerto Rico, even though they
disappeared shortly after the arrival of Spain, the Mother Country. Even if I think that was also shitty, a fad...That was art, even if did/do not like it. Done by recognized artists. There was theme, perspective, focus, composition, no ghetto territory marks tags. Screw them again!

Graffiti is visual pollution, repetitious and hostile. It is my perception. Gardening guerrilla is useful in many ways, even
when most people do not really see/perceive/care about vegetation, it
creates, instead of destroying. Time to go...

THE WORLD IS A GHETTO

2010-02-22T03:16:00.000-08:00

THAT IS THE tittle of a song by WAR, a group with a short life span from CA, moons ago. Nice music to smoke a joint or to have a scotch with/without a chaser.
The term has a few definitions. You pick. I mean a state of mind fossil like, always the same, blindfolded. Evidence that history, the study of it, is a waste of time since every
mistake I can think of, has been repeated all over the world regarding any possible issue, problem, difficulty. It goes beyond air, water, soil.. for now I will stick to insects.
However, the simplicity of understanding the WHOLE, does not require a rocket science education. That is what irritates me. It keeps yours truly in a constant cranky philosophical attitude, seldom mitigated. Stupidity rules!

FROM
Bugs Of The World
by George C. McGavin
Cassell plc, London
pages 180-181

PLANT FEEDERS

The world's human food production is based on a mere handful of plant species.
Many are grasses, grown in vast uniform stands, (monocultures) and, in developed
countries, largely sustained through the use of huge quantities of fertilizers and pesticides. The domestication and improvement of these species has in many cases
led to their becoming a better nutritional resource (for both human and insects), but
with fewer chemical and physical defences against herbivores. Monocultures contain far fewer beneficial insect species, which might control the number of pests, than are present in more complex habitat.

Phytophagous insects in general and many bug species in particular are superbly suited to using these crops as food plants Many bug species only became pests when
their preferred food plant suddenly became abundant, and many others have switched from wild plant species to cultivated ones. On account of their phenomenal
reproductive powers, pest like aphids and scale insects can adapt very quickly to take advantage of new opportunities and develop resistance to man-made insecticides. It is therefore not surprising that nearly one fifth of the world's crop production is eaten by insects.

In the Hemiptera, all the sterrnorrhynchan superfamilies, the Psylloidea, Aleyrodoidea, Adelgoidea, Aphidoidea and Coccoidea, contain notable plant
damaging species. While the worldwide economic damage and losses that plant
feeding bugs can cause is immense, the vast majority of species are not pests. Of the several hundred of aphid, probably no more than 150 are notorious crop pests. Similarly, of the 2,500 known species of armoured scale insects (Diaspididae) in
the world, fewer than 150 are of economic significance and of these perhaps fewer
than 50 could be called serious pests.

That being written you may take a look at your garden/indoor plants and see if the insect families causing most of the problems in your installation are mentioned above. That proves
my contention about gardens with common place nursery offerings, palms and hedges. YOU
will have to deal with similar problems.

This will bring your humble servant to the following issue. Trans genetics....They were created by the friendly people of Monsanto and five/six other kind scientists, thinking not on PROFITS, but our well being.

The story was to implant resistant genes to specific diseases from lets say, peppers,
to tomatoes. But the real intention is to destroy the seed banks that generations of
farmers around the world had kept within their families, to impose/sell/license seeds
of whatever one can think of. Destroying in the process the independence these
traditional farmers had, with their own seeds, resistant to their particular soil/climate/temperature conditions.

Think of corn, rice, wheat whatever, the intention is the same. To destroy the farmer ways to SELL, theirs. One should present, discuss this stupidity, scam, rip off at all times.

Now if you are the kind of UH-AH gardener, digging the whole, placing something in it to admire a flower later, do not worry.... It does not concern you.

However, if you really want to kick some ass in any spot with words/example, plants,
or practice, put in place wise gardening habits. Not being a fool,when your environment is saturated with that type of people, learning to differentiate the minds behind it, will offer occasional relief, satisfaction.

When you make a little effort, you take little baby steps in that direction. Jaha bilingual laugh. Time to go....

STRICTLY GARDENING

2010-02-17T14:51:00.000-08:00

YESTERDAY was turning the compost pile day. If I did not mention it, lets do it now. I keep mine in one of those ugly common big orange plastic pots that hold a hundred/two hundred pounds, and most people use to plant big creatures. The pile is composed of shredded newspapers, dry/green leaves from the garden, some dog poop, hair, coffee grounds,
onion/garlic skins, recycled soil from other pots and sandy soil from the garden.

I noticed the color is turning dark brown, enough earth worms, and some minuscule insects that move pretty quick. The smell is not sour, meaning
a good balance of the parts. If your pile is too wet it will smell of sulphur or mangrove like. If it is to dry/hot, most living creatures will pass away.

For the last week or so I have noticed dreaded white flies on the Calliandra, Murraya and a DK vine. I had killed most with my secret concoction (antigonum's hot sauce and uncolored dish soup), yet every
morning I kept watching them flying away from my water spray.

I was getting irritated. Decided to monitor around the abandoned house to our right, and the house where the vampires live in our left. There they
were, the culprits, tens of them hanging in beautiful Tecoma stans. I gave them the bitter/hot medicine and moved up the street...What did I find
on the hated Ixoras? Hundreds of the same....I gave them what they deserved using the whole bottle between the two raids.

Moral of the story. Tecomas and Ixoras are prone to have this pest. If you have either one planted in the wrong situation, be ready to spend the rest
of your life in that silly activity, killing the enemy.

Most of the problems in the garden, with over 120 species, are always the same, the one mentioned, snails, brown beetles and two odd looking and
rare specimens mentioned in the past. Damage by biting, chewing is never, in my view, as bad as the sticky infestations of sap sucking ones.

If you do not catch the criminal in the act, the chewing/biting kind will
be invisible..The damage is not aesthetically nice, but still it does not bother me as much. It is no accident that in a wider scheme of things that could go wrong, mine are really a few and never chronic.

It is simple. When the gardener keeps different species around, it is difficult that insects/pests will jump to vegetation relatives. Example
there are some roses that keep some insects during a part of their life
cycle at home, when the time is right the insects move to the orchard,
to the apple trees and there goes, your apple pie, if you do not stop
them in a timely manner...The problem is solved planting resistant roses/apples.

Finally, I made some compost tea. Will not get into it. If you go
to the web and research, you will see why. At any rate, I gave of that nectar to roots, and foliage. Everybody happy as a clam. If that is possible. Later, I planted six seeds of Mirabilis siciliana, a nice small
plant with bright fragrant flowers.

The garden requires stamina and planning. Some activities can be postponed, insects....never...and that is that...Time to go.

THAT'S ALL FOLKS

2010-02-17T03:43:00.000-08:00

JUST finished watching on rtv.es, El Escarabajo Verde, 'Cabo Polonio, El Ultimo Refugio', down there in the south of America. Sea wolves, whales, and such, not much
else, except some fishing, little water, some tourism, nice/picturesque scenes you know, the ocean/sand kind, no electricity/water, sewage treatment or septic tanks, as always not mentioned.

THAT, explains the tittle. For some time I have shared my views, often odd, even, contradictory, abrasive, irrational, angry, blunt about many different issues, things affecting my life, the virtual/the real. This documentary presents as most of the time,
with most environment documentaries from SPAIN, the sad pathetic reality, reproduced in any confinement of the world one can think of.

PEOPLE without understanding the forces, principles that rule NATURE. I can not see why any reasonable person, without any schooling or with lots, would insist on living in such a precarious environment where there is NOTHING, to survive except for the tourist season.

The fishermen blame the sea wolves for their little fishing. Having to go further in the ocean to catch whatever. It is the 'enemy' according to the stupid looking fellow interviewed. In the past they used to kill the sea wolves, hacking them on the head for their skin/oil, something done until recently, up in the north.

People building illegal houses, made out of wood in just eight hours at night, are spreading like spores, to have a place to enjoy the summer time....

Meanwhile the GALAPAGOS are going the exact or worse way, since they have more
tourists and ten times that population. In brief, all the words said written or spoken
to save the earth, particularly the GLOBAL WARMING CULT, is a LOT of HOGWASH.

People are destroying everything in sight. In the water, fishing all they can no matter what. On the ground, burning destroying forests to cultivate for 3 years, moving to the
next plot..Polluting/destroying both. People procreating as rabbits. This madness is on an individual, group or multinational mode, everywhere you can think of...

IN consequence all discussion to save the EARTH, is a bunch of crap. I do not see any
hope, real, reasonable, plausible hope...All is left is the silly, irritating one: FAITH.
Time to go....

WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW IS LOVE

2010-02-16T02:40:00.000-08:00

COULD you think, remember anything more stupid to say, or write? Tina Turner would reply: "What's love got to do with it"? When I herd on BBC, that Dubai will pay 60 cents to the dollar, I thought that is that for speculators, bankers, securities, insurance and such. Well deserved...

On the other hand, Jakarta twenty years ago comes back to mind, and closer to home,
Puercorico, USA. When I walk (something less and less fun) as the graffiti, abandoned buildings, posted bills on every possible wall with the next concert, commercial and private residences, foreclosured ones, garbage, highway/roads, streets moonscapes full of filled up uneven craters spreading as kudzu dominate the URBAN scenery, it is hard to be focused. UGLINESS RULES!

However when you read the everyday, getting worse shitty newspapers, it seems that only CRIME, worries the editors and staff. What is the big deal if less than a thousand islanders kill each other annually? After all, in South Africa the murder rate per 100,000 is 31.7, Central America 29.3,
West/Central Africa 25.9 and the Caribbean 18.1. According to Wikipedia. Therefore is a world trend, we are not special, that no ONE, is going to stop, JERKS.

So, I would suggest to stop taking the numbers out of context, publishing it in the first pages as they were from the Football Champions League in Europe. People kill themselves or the other for passion, madness, or drug trafficking. Why would anyone think that it is possible to reduce such statistics with more police or National Guards in the streets...If one is going to kill without possibility of remorse, one just waits.. If the geniuses in TV and Printed Media want
to do something original, place a ranking as it is done in sports...I believe Jamaica got the gold
medal.

Changing the subject, I declare some irritability at some blogs with the easy way out tendency
to publish photos of snow in the prairie, roof, on branches, icicles as if it is really something beautiful ALWAYS. For your humble servant there is no point..What would be the difference if living in the dessert, one would shoot SAND? With photos of sand in shoes, sandals, rug, by the windows, yard.... What is the difference? Even worst, why so many
people in cold places go and post about the same thing? Cold and SNOW. I am sick of it.

THEN what? Then is spring, the beauty and blooms.... Wonders the reader from FAR away lands..Which reminds me...all those new countries in the former Soviet Paper Tiger Empire, with the AKINOSTAN, ALLINOSTAN, ACANOSTAN, similar names are thinking? Just saw a documentary on the ancient SILK trade routes and saw for the first time, those immense, flat, devoid of trees lands without much beauty...It seems that some are Muslims and others are not...Enough reason to kill each other for worth less lands, moving the frontier line here or there..Why not get together to raise the cows/sheep, plant somethings to eat. COOPERATE,
have they heard of the European Community? How much stupidity is unbearable.

If anyone thinks what is wrong with our islander hero? Is he taking acid? NO my fellow intercontinental friends/foes, I am just sick of world stupidity and the insular, closer to home...
What about Venezuela, with all that oil, with electricity cuts, no water, no milk, nothing and getting worse..At least they elected their own Attila.. Following that train of thought, what is the big deal if Cuba has a Fidel Castro not elected, Mugabe is still down there, Chavez not far from here? The results are exactly, or almost the same, for the population in general.

Moving to the garden after this rant. The Pithelobium dulce was taken out of the pot
to reduce in one fifth the bottom root system. It is in a 18" by 20" plastic pot, measuring 6'. About two years old, planted from seed. Did not show much
stress after the radical surgery.

The Cyperus went into a deeper pot, a ten gallon. The Pandanus went the oppossite,
into a five. Some weeding activity was performed to allow the Cosmos more sun,
hidden from the Chinese violets..Two dwarfs Sanseverias and Rhoeo spathacea
are now keeping company to the Bouganvillea shown in some pictures to the right.
Now is time to go..

MANURE ENCORE

2010-02-12T02:31:00.000-08:00

EVERYONE as usual, talks and writes about those poor islanders not far away after the earthquake. They need this and that. Yet I do not see any

systematic plan for the long run. It is just love, bababing and bababang...

They need 18, 000 portable toilets...But no one says, think, fine but they
have to be cleaned. The waste has to be disposed safely. Here is an example of what to do with it, intelligently. I propose to use it to restore
the soil, destroyed after decades of eliminating most of the vegetation to
make charcoal.

COW, PIG, SHEEP AND HEN

A dairy cow, weighing 1,000 pounds, produces one-half more weight of manure in year than a horse, the percentage of water being much higher. The amount of nitrogen in the year's production of solid manure is practically the same as in case
of the horse; that in the liquid manure is greater; and the total amount is 156 pounds.
There is a little less phosphoric acid, but the potash runs up to 117 pounds, of which 108 are in the liquid manure. Using the scale of prices for normal times, the valuation
of the year's product is $29.00, or 2.19 per ton.

The pig usually is a highly fed animal, and 1,000 pounds live weight produce annually,
30,500 pounds of manure, containing 150 pounds of nitrogen, 114 pound of phosphoric acid and 128 pounds of potash, with a total valuation of 30. or $1.97 per
ton.

Sheep produces annually per 1,000 pounds of live weight 12,500 pounds of total excrement, containing 119 pounds of nitrogen, 44 pounds of phosphoric acid and
126 pounds of potash, having a value of $24.25 or $$3.88 per ton.

Pollito chicken, gallina hen... The manure from the chicken is very rich in nitrogen, averaging 1 per cent of nearly one-half more than horse manure. It also contains
eight tenths of one per cent of phosphoric acid, while horse manure contains only
one fourth of one per cent of potash. The high percentage of nitrogen and phosphoric
acid gives a valuation per ton of $4.40. And that is that.

So far one thing is evident, manure = money. Even when these stats are from 1917,
the only thing that may have changed is that one could get more money if the variables are kept. Even though my focus is gardening, ornamental and to a lesser extent edibles, the principles of cultivating crops for food are exactly the same. Healthy plants need nitrogen, phosphorous and potash or NPK.

Our neighbors in distress need food to sustain the population. Sterilization, abortion, condoms, to lower those abominable fertility rates, even with the high death birth rates per 100,000. They have to do it themselves, no one will. All that money, food will last a little longer, but will not forever, therefore, the soil, forest restoration and cultivaton has to start right away.

One suggestion that will not increase their nutrients in the national diet, or the mud
cookies, would be to plant massively Altocarpus altilis or BREADFRUIT. It will certainly provide starch during the whole year, contrary to other staples, that are
seasonal. This will not solve the problem, but will alleviate it. If it is not
part of the diet now, it is time to start planting now and enjoying it fried or boiled, later.

I am not your Mother Theresa stereotype, but I see too much sentimental crap about
every disaster. Check this out, one of those humanitarians, the despicable
academic kind, wrote something about the DIGNITY of the dead ones regarding mass burials. I have seen a lot of stupidity during my life...but nothing gets close to this. I could care less than a hogs fart about dignity after death. Dignity should be something perceived, felt when one is alive! The living conditions in many parts of the world are far beyond ANY imaginable DIGNITY. Lets do something with vision for the long run. Cut the sentimental crap now. Time to go.....

EDITORS NOTE

FOR ANOTHER VIEW ON THE USE OFHUMAN WASTE
FOR ENERGY
visit
Alcantarilla Alquimica.blogspot.com
by
BEATO

it will open your eyes/mind
a little more

DOWN BY THE ORCHARD

2010-02-10T02:09:00.000-08:00

WHAT can I say? When I started planting three decades ago, edibles were not part of the scheme. Oregano, basil, capsicum, rosemary, fruits or tubers, none of it. In the ornamental department not everything got my attention or interest. I did not know then, anything except digging the hole, planting and watering. Unfortunately, it seems that most people seem satisfied about gardening and biodiversity, with just THAT.

Things have changed. Now I look at the whole picture. Bitching and critical, not necessarily based on aesthetics, but what is better for all. Flora and Fauna. A garden (Nature) should not be anthromorphised. Mine is thought in terms of variables regarding shade, heat, irrigation, resistance to diseases, insects, salt breeze and most important, avoiding common places in selection of plants. The beauty aspect of it, is taking a back seat, as time goes by, I care less about it.

The amount of lizards have increased thanks to over five types of vines in the north/south gardens. They have been mentioned before (vines), will not get into that. These vines attract small flies, the wise lizards escort them morning and afternoon when they seem more active.

Most lizards are not too afraid of yours truly, some hit the road as soon
as I get closer, most just hang and watch, I imagine a group may even recognize moi. When I water spray the foliage, unless the water hits them directly, will not move to catch the insects escaping the liquid. It is a real trip watching these fellows, always attentive to their surroundings. Cats and birds are their predators. Other than that, they live happily and well fed. Yet, it is worthy of mentioning that some handsome spiders are moving in. Their number has increased slowly and preferring the south
side, creating some competition. The way I see it there is plenty of food for all.

The lemon three is now on the third crop, something I would not imagine
when it arrived a year ago. It is not three feet high, healthy, except for the
attacks of different insects into the sap sucking mood. If you do not monitor constantly, the ugly, sticky damage gets worse as time go by.

The orange tree, has had the fruits for a l o n g time...Still not ready. By the way, in a post from the past, I mentioned the ugly woman, a resident
of LOIZA, employee from the Environmental Quality Board, who came to measure the noise levels from Universidad Sagrado Corazon. This character asked me if these were pumpkins! Make what you wish about
that. But it is a sign of disconnection between people and nature (edible/drinkable). Or a feeble minded quality of some segments of the urban native islanders.

As usual, time to go, still happy after all....

WHEN MANURE WAS KING FROM A 1918 REFERENCE

2010-02-09T03:00:00.000-08:00

SOME readers may wonder what the hell is going down, with such a tittle.
Nothing to worry. But you will probably not find another blog about gardening/horticulture with the subject, since most people live in cities and just use chemicals. However once upon a time there were none of these.

FARM MANURES

We cannot know the relative values of manures without some knowledge of their composition, and in comparing these values we must assume that the various kinds
of animals have been fed in a normal way, receiving a reasonable amount of nutritious
feeds. In these comparisons we must also assume that all of the liquid manure is saved with the solids. If this is not done, as is so often the case, the figures mean little to us, because, generally speaking, the liquid portion of the manure contains nearly half of the plant food, and the more valuable half, at that, since it is in quickly available form.

Horse manure. Accepting Van Slyke's estimates of production and value, a horse produces about 18,000 pounds of manure annually for each 1,000 pounds of live
weight, to which there should be added the bedding, which has its plant food made
rapidly available by mixture with the manure. The manure (not including the bedding) contains 128 pounds of nitrogen, 48 pounds of phosphoric acid and
108 pounds of potash; and of this amount the liquid contains nearly two fifths
of the nitrogen and more than two fifths of the potash.

If we place a cash valuation upon this manure on the basis of prices prevailing before
the European War, the value of the manure produced annually by a horse per 1,000
pounds live weight is $23.60, or $2.62 per ton. Conditions prevailing during the summer of 1917 easily doubled this valuation, which is given rather for comparison
with those of other manures and commercial fertilizers than as the price any farmer

should put upon his supply.

from
FARM KNOWLEDGE
A Complete Manual of Successful Farming
Written by Recognized Authorities in All
Parts of the Country; Based on Sound Principles
and the Actual Experience of Real Farmers
"The Farmer's own Cyclopedia"

Volume II

PREPARED EXCLUSIVELY FOR
SEARS, ROEBUCK AND CO.
BY

DOUBLE DAY, PAGE & COMPANY

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK

This book was a present from Federico, one of those friends lasting
like one of those long matches for barbecuing...But the present will last
as long as I can hang around.

It is really rare besides being old, with impressive prints, works of art in miniature. Besides that, the information, considering the times, is really
advanced considering what one watches in television and read in different media regarding agricultural practices all over.

If you are a serious, rigorous gardener, you would study how manures can improve your garden. I have integrated to my compost,
dog poop and hair. If you follow the example given you could calculate the amounts of dog manure annually. With Diva, a dog of sixty pounds,
for argument sake, two pounds a week, for 104 total. In addition to dry,
green leaves, shredded newspapers, it will certainly reach over two hundred pounds!

Depending on your interests, how far you want to develop your knowledge, skills this type of reading may expand not only the views about up keeping your garden, but realize how much stupidity there
is all over the world regarding NATURE. Think of it.

To be continued...Cow, pig, sheep and hen manures. Farewell, words for thought. The feeble minded will often sing about the sweet smell of cut lawns, being around nature while playing GOLF, forgetting the irritable noise, pollution with gas/oil and smoke, destruction to the environment both create.

The book does not mention the intense smell of different manures. The worst in my humble, are pig and hen..Time to go....

IF YOU LIKE THIS
check
ANGLOSPANO REVIEW
THE
MICHAL BROWN

LOVE POSTCARDS

TO YOURS TRULY

circa 1984-85

anglospano review is another product of the 'intelect'
of antigonum cajan
but reproduced verbatim
from the actual postcards...

IRELAND REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL CONGRATULATIONS

2010-02-07T02:52:00.000-08:00

WATCHING THE BBC was a little hard to believe. An agreement between
those who have been enemies for centuries has been reached after a marathon of conversations. A certain spark of happiness and hope invaded yours truly.

After all IRELAND provided the fundamentals for Boston one of the most interesting cities in USA, the Boston Celtics when they were ethnically correct or more of my liking, with Larry Bird and company. The NBA looks like some basketball league out in Togo, to name a country in the news. With some token pale players...I hate street ball, dunking a la Cirque de Soleil, and those ancient tribal gestures after a dunk/basket.
Oh, by the way all them NBA's carry the ball, and often run with it...

Sorry...IRELAND, other reasons why I have great affection for these chaps and ladies, is their Jameson and Guinness. Their music and that
weird dance with paralyzed arms. It is really something. I do not know
about the Bono, but what the heck. Congratulations to all Irishmen/women all over the world and those at home.

GARDENING IN THE BACKYARD

YESTERDAY, was mostly irrigation day. Two hours in the south side

with the drip kind, with final touches with a hose. The concrete/asphalt warming, that never mentioned warming is felt, already. Being so far away from June, sure sign is going to be hell, again...

PLANT relocation....Just made a quick research to provide the botanical for MAGUEY, but it is not going to be easy. Lets leave it at that for now. The Maguey along with the Pandanus had been planted for a year in the west side high bed shown
in some pictures.. The are ready to become part of the guerrilla gardening community and now happily in five gallon liners...I have kept 3 off shoots of each..

Pseuderantemum carruthersii went from north to west, in bed. A Gardenia from right to left in the same bed. An endemic Anthurium, from the front of the house,
to the north side. This plant was collected after some rain storm brought it down its
perch in the rocky/clay soil in the from Cayey to Guayama City. I do not care, about
these plants AT ALL. But looks cool among the others. This shows gardening flexibility. It is better to bend as Confucius mentioned, as some trees are capable of doing, than to break.

In Puerco Rico, USA,is fashionable now to add the English word city, to towns. Thus,
towns known for centuries just as Guaynabo, for example, the pioneer with this ridiculous trend, is now Guaynabo City. The politicians feel we get closer to mainland USA, becoming better second class American citizens. That way they may accept them/us in the Union, becoming the 51 state. Believe it or not. The street traffic signs also move in that direction. These show the national mental feebleness I always bring up, since what are the colors of a stop/pare sign, anywhere?

Now for the first time I leave. Happy, for the IRISH, and that is that...

ELEMENTS OF STIGMA/STATUS IN YOUR GARDEN

2010-02-06T02:00:00.000-08:00

STIGMA VS STATUS, is part of the parameters of language in Linguistics.
The branch of knowledge involved in what else, language related issues.
It seems that all started with Ferdinand d' Saussure, moons ago, if curious
go ahead and research, you will probably go nuts finding out how wide is
this type of analysis, and how much court it covers.

For us, lets be brief...In the ideal SPANISH, the one only academicians speak, pronouncing R, S, where one is supposed to, makes you a status speaker for example, Arbol, Zapatos, Amor, Partido versus Albol, Zapatoh, Amol, Paltio.

As you see the first words 3 are similar in two things, typical of the CARIBBEAN, the R was changed to L, the S omitted, deleted. With the last example, partido, the word was transformed since the D, in the last syllable disappeared and instead of ido, we get io, instead of partido, paltio.
There is the less effort law. It takes less to pronounce L than R, or the S.
That is why I LOVE people from the Canary Islands, Andalucia, Spain, they are the most intelligent speakers regarding the issue.

In English, lets take the speak of Negros or Rednecks, just one example will suffice. Ain't got nobody that I can depend on. The use of that contraction instead of, I do not have anyone or I got no one, makes you an idiot in the ears/understanding of many pretentious people, paying attention not to the message or essence. In the Spanish examples the same is true. The extrapolations are infinite if you are into this field.

Can we apply the rule, concept to GARDENING/HORTICULTURE? I have. It is applicable to Puerco Rico, USA, but I am more than certain
that in the five continents, similar examples can be found. After all,
I spend most of the time thinking about this or the practical angle of it.

I have prepared this list of plants, bushes and palms that places 98% of
the population of Puerco Rico in the stigmatized horticultural spectrum.
Me? I belong to the little % left. As anything you may disagree. Warning.
If you do, develop your own writing/debate scaffold for the rebuttal since

this is not pulled from any sleeve.

STIGMATIZED PLANT SELECTION
BY ANTIGONUM THE HUMBLE

PALMS

Washingtonia robusta/filifera
Rhapis excelsa
Veitchia Merrillii
Ptychosperma macarthrurii
Roystonea regia
Phoenix Roebelinii
Pritchardia pacifica
Phoenix canariensis
Cocos nucifera
Licuala grandis
Coccotrhinax alta

Bismarckia nobilis

Here is the whole picture of the dull, lame gardening scene in
Puerco Rico through the palm infatuation imposed by every
imaginable JERK in the private/public sectors of
landscape installations, including private residences
with post stamp size yards.

EVERYTHING ELSE

Acalipha wilkesiana
Alpinias
Anthurium anoraenum
Bromeliads
Brugmansias suaveolens
Callistemon citrinus/viminalis
Dracaena fragrans
Eucaliptus deglupta
ALL FICUS
Cordias
Heliconias
Spathifphylum
Liriopes
Cheffera
Ixoras
Philodendron
Pothos
Strelitzias

IN ESSENCE, this list represents the universe of garden installations all over the island, the same crap, exactly in the same shape, way or form.
Thanks to 2uglas Kndelario, Edwin Gonzalez Bauza, Gabriel Berriz, Alberto Areces Mallea, and so many fools that will probably be as long as
one of my short posts.

You may question as to why one may be an intelligent speaker while using
stigmatized speech and a JERK if in possession of any of these plants in your back/front yard?

Simple, while one speaks one can not control the psychology, understanding of the listener. You know if the other is a feeble minded
character soon or later depending on your ability to grasp the nuances.
He may think you are the jerk not vice versa.

WITH A GARDEN, is not that difficult it is evident, it is front of your eyes.
IT does not depend on psychology. It is there. Is ugly, is everywhere.

The greatest stupidity in ANY GARDEN, if you believe there is C02, pollution and global warming, is to have a lawn, hedges and palm trees.
The all require use of polluting machines for their maintenance. Noise,
water waste and soil pollution in addition.

I propose a ban of lawns, hedges and palms...People who have, sell, install, them should be ostracized/fined, just as smokers are in many cultures. Place them in a corner. Get rid of these (plants) soon...The environment will be grateful. After all Nature does not need us. It will remain somehow when we pass away. Time to go.

FROM THE EDITOR

Some palms
are excused
Dates, Cocos Nucifera and
Phoenix canariensis, only
in the right contexts.
Perhaps the beef with palms is the
exagerated overuse, they are
the easy way out.

Food for thought:
HOW can any jerk
reduce the possibilities
to the ones listed
when there are thousands?

Reference

Tropicals
Gordon Courtright
Timber Press

CHRONICLES OF THE LONE GARDENER

2010-02-04T14:53:00.000-08:00

SUNDAY

At the Plaza mall, dropped by to check an exhibition of classics, from those days when I was a child. Hordes of fat mothers, fathers and their children. It feels like Patagonia, among penguins, sea lions and killer whales, on the ground, walking.

At the bookstore nothing to read, except one coffee table one on trees of the world. Only Baobabs, old Olive trees and Dracaena Dragos from tropical regions really attract my attention.

The British and Germans stole the show with their MG, Triumph, Austin
Healys, VW and Karman Ghia. FROM the USA, only Carol Shelby's,
Cobras really still impress me. I am writing about those models from 60/70's.

If you grew up around auto body shops, as your humble servant, you got some memories, but also criteria. When I think about those Fords, Chevy's and Chrysler's, I thought of living rooms on wheels. UGLY, TACKY comes to mind. On the other hand with one Chrysler you could probably build three MG's, saving tons of chromium, not to get into mileage, CO2 to the atmosphere, the elegance, sporty look.

But being endemismo what it is, lets get it on.

Guerrilla Gardening Act IV.

The new theater of operations is a big concrete parking space, in San Carlos, an abandoned building. There is a 100 feet long 24" wide space
of soil pretending to be a bed, for a garden. I imagine they ran out of concrete, and left the bare ground for whatever reasons, maybe a weeds garden.

I have planted the following seeds: Pithelobium, Mahogany, Ipomoea, Cosmos sulpherous, Merremia quinquefolia, Clitoria ternatea, Pandanus and Maguey. The last two, are plants about 3" tall, planted two feet apart and will have to be removed eventually. They can grow twenty times that, in adequate space, but it would take ten years.

Today I went to check the surroundings with my one gallon water spray,
covering every one mentioned above. The advantage of this site versus the
one by the train station is that no person with a trimmer has been on the premises. Therefore, their chances for reaching adulthood are theoretically higher.

Finally, orchard wise news at home.. The Carica papaya is very healthy. It is about 12' tall and 8" diameter trunk, many flowers and three promising fruits for March, about 6" long... The grafted lemon is on its third crop, fragrant flowers, the oranges still taking their time...

One detail not mentioned before, Cavalinna maritima, that sand/salt lover vine, has a great fragrance....Discovered recently, and that is that...

LETS BLAME SOMEONE FOR THE MALADIES OF THE WORLD

2010-02-02T08:37:00.000-08:00

LOOKING at the world, while thinking by myself, with my right/wrong parameters, I declare that only when women STOP getting
pregnant at random, will the world be able to sustain its population.

Yesterday I saw some people in INDIA, living near by huge coal underground fire in a region/territory not different from the one I just read about in PA, in the USA.

Imagine a fire lasting over a hundred years, and poor people living close by. Why the uninitiated reader may wonder? In the case of India...the women/children/men live from the income provided by selling available coal. It is picked up with bare hands and carried on balanced bunches
on the head to the market.

When one watches with a critical focus, what goes on in your country, or
ours, an evident repetitious situation comes clear...People screwing for
biological needs, entertainment, boredom, getting pregnant...and then crying about poverty and not having enough to feed their children. Or migrating where they are NOT welcome for a "better future for their children".

WOMEN have to stop being just like donkeys, particularly those from cultures in which submission is expected/commanded at all times. Particularly Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Why should children and women be the ones carrying the whole weight of an IRRATIONAL system of sharing responsibility in which men have the easy way out always?

I am tired of watching women, not only delivering children as rabbits, but, having to fetch wood, food, washing/doing the cooking...If men can not resist the urge of on warm inviting vertical smile/prairy...., if your
will is strong but the flesh is weak, let them, just do NOT GETpregnant...Or pay the price...

As with women under those burqas, be a slave, obedient, following the herd, and do not complaint about your destiny or that of your children. time to go...And remember, in France no burqas allowed from now on
anywhere...

SPAIN THE ONE HUNDRED YEARS OLIVE TREES

2010-02-01T02:56:00.000-08:00

ONE, IF NOT the only pleasure of watching cable tv is the chance to watch what goes on in other countries. In endemismo, the environment, landscape management, nurseries, parks and garden designs issues. Even movies in exteriors should be judged by the amount of greenery in the plot.

In this case, EL ESCARABAJO VERDE, or the Green Beetle, on the web,
cultural.es, present documentaries written and filmed a wise, honest, non romantic staff. This is the most intense program I have watched in a ages. It is not the first time. I invite ALL visitors to the blog to watch it. It makes no difference if you do not understand the language, get an interpreter.

This time different regions of Spain were presented and discussed regarding the trend of uprooting OLIVE TREES over a century old for what? To plant them in some rich guy/gal garden. The trees are sold to
nurseries, then sold to pretentious jerks and jerkettes.

As you know, any space with trees becomes a habitat for everything else
flora/fauna. When you uproot the trees with a backhoe, no matter how
careful you are not to damage the trees, you destroy everything else,
soil and biodiversity, something not mentioned in the program.

But age is no limit. Some trees over five hundred years were mentioned
as being uprooted and sold, including some a thousand and over. It is
MEN tendency to make profits out of anything imaginable related to NATURE without any other consideration. Fortunately, in some regions of the mother country,
there are stiff laws, regulations and penalties to stop this madness.

The reason to justify the destruction of these impressive olive plantations is that they are not 'productive' or there is no cheap labor. However a five hundred year old in the documentary produced 600 kilos of olives, versus the 20 kilos average for younger specimens. The difference according to the senior owner is that is harder to pick the fruit, because
of the height of the tree...But that is not a big deal for him.

In the USA, the trend moons ago was with SAGUAROS, very similar
to what takes place in Spain now...The program ended like a hammer in the forehead stress...A former great in its natural form Olive Tree, transformed in some ridiculous BONSAI pruned just like a damned wedding cake in a small town plaza.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ANTIGONUM

2010-01-30T03:15:00.000-08:00

LET THE record show that Constantin, the character by Keanu Reaves, in the film with similar tittle appeared last night in a not sure if dream/nightmare and commanded your humble servant to write these lines.

In our times there are now: dance instructors, motivators, personal trainers and life coaches, too many with a high school like culture. Everyone into these fads is making a buck helping people without much creativity, stamina, or research skills. In Puerto Rico, some of the greatest jerks and jerkettes minds are into this kind of service.

I learned how to lift weights, exercise from magazines, watching others. Dancing was learned practicing at home, sharing with others. It seems that is no longer the case and people must go to dance school for lessons. However, I find too baroque the dancing styles nowadays, the couples seem very foolish as in a ball room competition...

AT any rate, it is time to share my views, based on experience, life observation, regarding trees that no one should ever plant in an URBAN context. Particularly in sidewalks a la Puerco Rico five feet wide, driveways or ANY paved surface close by the tree in question.

That is a priority, please keep in mind electrical wires also. The
beyond imbeciles providing maintenance to those wires in Puerco Rico will mutilate an destroy any tree close by, even if the branches are not
a hazard, they will amputate by impulse, it is a habit. Therefore plant small trees. Do not be a jerk. Look around and calculate how tall will your preference grow upwards in five/ten years. How will the roots spread? Be humble, get rid of it, if mistaken when it is less than eight
inches in diameter. Or do as I do. Calculate how many years you have left to live.

ANTIGONUM CAJAN
BANNED TREES
FOR ANY URBAN CONTEXT
with conditions similar to
Puerto Rico, USA in the tropics

Lagerstroemia speciosa
Terminalia catappa
Couroupita guianensis
Eucaliptus pauciflora
Swietenia mahogani/macrophyla
Cassia javanica
Ceiba pentandra
Barringtonia asiatica
Dilenia indica
Ficus nekbuda/any Ficus
Delonix regia
Peltophorum inerme
Enterolobium cyclocarpum
Cananga odorata
Pithelobium dulce
Mangifera indica
Tectona grandis
Bucida buceras
Spathodea campanulata
Pterocarpus indicus
ANY PALM
no
exceptions

that is that.

If you are wondering for reasons here they go. Leaves. The following are the worst: Terminalias, Bucidas and Mahogany, in terms of leaves drops, they fall like snow. Leaves on the ground, in the neck of the woods may seem picturesque. They are also useful in terms of protecting the soil providing nutrients with decomposition and slowing the force of rains,
decreasing erosion .

However, leaves on any paved surface create not only a problem of aesthetics, particularly around a house or any type of property/building,
but of safety/hazard when wet.

More important some leaves will STAIN the surface. Mahogany/Bucida
are known for that. The stains may be cool if you have an artistic vein, but of a rusty/swamp water brown color, not my favorite.

With these trees you get a bonus, they get soapy slippery after it rains ..If you fall fine, but if some else does, you may be in court with a law suit. Seeds from Mahogany are a real nuisance due to their hard skin.

The roots are another type of problem since they may wrap around your
water pipes, or may lift the paved surface looking for oxygen. It is that simple. Most roots in any tree grow in the top 18 inches of soil. They have great hydraulic power, lifting not only sidewalks, driveways, but also
houses! It depends on the tree and its age.

What do I have? Murrayas, Calliandra, Bauhinia, Coccoloba, Pithelobium,
Dracaena, Jatropha gossyfilia, and five varieties of Frangipani on the ornamental department. Of this list, only the first two in the ground. In the orchard there are lemon, oranges and Malpighia in pots. Carica papaya, lemon in the ground. None of my trees will create any of the problems mentioned.

From the list of banned trees many are evident in the most absurd spaces imaginable creating all the mentioned problems. They would do fine in great expanses, but not around structures unless forty feet around to
spread, and no paved surfaces. Time to go..

Editors Note
'Tree Maintenance'
Oxford University Press
by
P.P. Pirone
is the only book
I care to use and
suggest
as
reference.

NOISE POLLUTION BLUES AND BONUS

2010-01-28T03:59:00.000-08:00

I DO not know what are the noise levels in your country, or your surroundings. I am certain however that if your houses, buildings, backyards are mostly concrete as ours, the heat at night, the constant noise night and day as Cole Porter, most be unbearable, unless you are deaf.

Behind our residence there is Universidad Sagrado Corazon. They installed what seems an illegal cafeteria, for many years. Since the owner
is a feeble minded fool without the adequate freezers, almost daily, I have
to deal with the diesel fumes, the noise of the motors, the beeps when in
reverse, the anti theft cars systems activated by the delivery trucks vibrations.

That is not all unfortunately. The garbage dumpster truck comes daily, it
used to be at 3AM until I protested. Now is at seven. Right now there is a
refrigerated truck waiting to be unloaded. I have to listen to the diesel one and the refrigerator also... There is also the voices, always hollering,
of the illegal/natives cheap labor they contract for the cafeteria and maintenance.

The next door neighbors from hell, I will call them the vampires, have those stupid play station games. These are only car racing, paintball,
and war games. The roar, explosions all the way up is all one hears at any time to an extent that the house vibrates, believe it or not.

They can not open the kitchen cabinet doors without slamming, or the uneven entrance, bedroom doors there always some kind of noise among
these weirdos. There is one, Darky, who can not make a five word sentence, spiced with foul language, without hollering at 1, 4 or 5 AM.
His car has a muffler gadget sounding almost like a Harley Davidson.

On top, the garbage truck at 3AM to avoid traffic jams. The fools with their cellular phones, sound as if in the living room, while walking in the west sidewalk in front of the house.

This alone is a great reason to plant whatever is suitable in your residence, if in tropical surroundings with a yard,
to reduce a little this maddening, irritating, annoyance.

Which reminds me of my last address in NY, 736 W 186 St. #6J. On top of
us there was a black ugly couple. It was a 45 apartment coop and rental. The rest of the population as most of the Upper West Side, is mostly Hebrews of all kinds and Hispanics.

Alfreeta Jonhson, had breasts as rugby balls and lips of fish with a flat, square butt. She 'played' the harp. Unless you live in an apartment in those cold places with wooden floors and sheet rock walls, one has no idea how LOUD any musical instrument sounds. These fish lips ugly witch could not play but five or six wedding type tunes, a pain in the ass.
She enjoyed practicing after nine pm...We ended in court when I stopped
paying the rent.

On top, when fornicating one could hear not the hollering but the squeaks of the cheap, shitty bed...When walking it was done on the heels, every step just like hitting the floor with a rubber mallet. Pure torture that has caused the death of many, or wounds when the irritation reaches that point beyond reason.

What is worst? I believe that deprivation of sleep is the cruelest form of torture. If you add some noise, you have created the perfect one.
In NY or any place where one has no choice but to be inside because of the
cold, it creates the most intense anxiety one could imagine.

Other repugnant noises are jukeboxes, home stereos, people/children in
malls chatting loudly non stop. I wonder why acoustics are not considered while designing those damn malls that I avoid like the bubonic plague.

A last word before the bonus. Noise is always increasing, everywhere. It is impossible to go to a bar, doctors office without a television blaring.
Always in the shittiest possible show, never any kind of documentary. A
really disturbing experience, the pollution no one talks/writes about.
It is like it does not exist.

GUERRILLA ACTS
OF YESTERDAY

Attempted planting of
seeds of Ipomoeas, Merremias,
Cavalina, Thespesia populnea in
Hospital San Carlos, an abandoned
building. Aborted since some strangers
were in the surroundings placing cinder
blocks on were the stolen aluminum windows
had been removed.

Armed with my weeder, I moved to the 2ND option, the official
Guerrilla Garden, planting the seeds
between the cyclone fence and the sidewalk
right by a huge Pithelobium dulce.

I moved to the next site, Banco Popular. The high ground
is mostly gravel, once white, I dug a four inch
deep hole as an experiment.

From there we attacked the Sagrado Corazon.
This college has a concrete/iron fence about four feet high.
In total, 50 seeds were planted, equally distributed. Fortunately, as I
write is raining....I expect that perhaps ten will survive for a while.
That is that....

CATTLE OF THE SEAS

2010-01-25T03:14:00.000-08:00

A COUPLE of weeks ago your humble servant went the ecotourist way to Old San Juan, a pretty old city, one of the first down this continent. It was a terrible mistake. Here is why.

For some reason, explained by extreme boredom, thousands, or even
hundred of islanders go for the sucker's spin. It consists of driving in a slow jam starting in el Condado through Ashford Ave, making a right after the temporary bridge (7 years in construction), perhaps six hundred meters long, to continue to the former walled city.

We parked about half a mile from the city, knowing that the traffic moves
as quickly as a quadriplegic turtle. The we is not for effect, I was not alone. The smoke, noise, heat, was like a Nordic fog. Hundreds of tourists from one of the many cruisers that stop by were strolling with that peculiar speed that people show when lacking stamina and little time to see as much as possible in a hurry. Like a matter of life or death.

Now imagine narrow streets, some with cobble stones, with cars parked on one side, cars trying to move on the right, in the tight space, beeping of horns, people in groups trying to maneuver in the four feet wide sidewalks, spilling into the gutters..A real trip that would make the socially dysfunctional get some cosmic nausea.

As one get closer to the US CUSTOMS pink building, where the ships anchor, the street vendors of everything imaginable, snacks, hats, pinha coladas, cotton candy, you name it, making the small room to maneuver even smaller, plus the noise, smoke and heat ever present. Why people
think this is any way fun, you tell me. Now after this intro...what matters to me...

The first famous liner the Titanic, sank on the maiden voyage on 14 April
1912. Of the total passengers 2,223, 1517 died. In 30 May 1914, the Aquitannia made its debut.. The day before, The Empress of Ireland sank,
with 1,000 dead. Where am I going? Not the dead or sinking but pollution. Imagine all the pollution that ocean liners cruising has created
since...That is why these ships are mentioned.

When I see the modern liners as floating buildings a certain fright comes
to mind. I am not a water salty or not, fan, particularly water sports. But
what I am getting into is that cruise ships and their passengers/large crews generate more than the average amounts of sewage, greywater and solid waste. Do you think of it, at all?

A polluting industry for the entertainment of mostly bored, fat, old people. I know a couple that go traveling along the surrounding darkies
islands, on their return, it never fails, their conversation is only about food, eating with no end. That seems the goal of cruise lovers.

Now to finish these post on cattle, lets mention the pollution by those
oil tankers like endemismo, spanning the globe. They spill bilge and ballast water anywhere, without much remorse..

The USA is really worried about the consequence of ballast water in their
territory. The Asian carp is about tho reach the Great Lakes. The fear is so real that plans to close the Mississippi river connection to the lakes are being discussed. That is not the only problem. Mussels are clogging the pipes in the region thanks to this ballast water....If interested in the subject, start in Wikipedia,
under, 'cruise ship pollution'. IF planing to go cruising, ask your travel agent if the water is treated, or just thrown up to three miles from shores, as international law allows them to do.

If you cruise, cruise responsibly. And that is that, time to go...

CARDINAL MOVES AND EXCERPT BONUS

2010-01-19T14:49:00.000-08:00

AFTER SEVEN days with rain, the sun is back.. I can not imagine what a trip would be to have such a wet season for six months in a row, as it happens in other places.

Two pink Frangipanis propagated from seed went from the east side to the old cement round pots, a present from Don Miguel, in the north. Both trees are about a year old, measuring about two feet. They flank the handsome Dracaena in front of our decorative garage, since we prefer to park in across the street in front of the house.

The Ochna mossabicensis and Bauhinia tomentosa former residents, are now in the south side with a Bauhinia blakeana and Bixa orellana as new
garden mates. Some dwarf Ruellias were planted not far on the ground,
after the final eviction of the Wedelias and Bejucos, pain in the ass. A few
Wedelias are left in other areas but they are not a priority now. The compost pile was aerated and shredded newspapers added to increase volume and reduce humidity. Earthworms love them.

Another day, another rain. The sky looks pretty much as those autumn
days in the northeast of USA, Northampton comes to mind...At any rate,
I found a couple of paragraphs in a book mentioned recently.

THE BROTHER GARDENERS
Amy Wulf

In many ways, Thorndon was the first garden in which Enlightenment thinking found its visual expression. It was, as Collinson wrote, a garden based on "Hints Borrowed from Nature."
For centuries , high walls had excluded untamed nature from the garden, providing protection from the landscape beyond. Now, with the Enlightenment and man's growing knowledge of the natural world, gardeners embraced the idea of letting nature reign. Petre had planted his trees
and shrubs in such a way as to allow the visitor to think of them not as an object of singular delight but as an integral part of a larger landscape. He had followed Miller's advice that his plants should "appear accidental as in a natural Wood," and grow like "Spontaneous acts of
Nature." Clumps in the lawn like those at Thorndon created drifts of dense growth on the smooth grass, unlike the complex patterns of baroque gardens, which were better enjoyed from the windows of the first or second floor. Thorndon could only be appreciated by walking along its meandering gravel paths.

Petre had carefully tiered the trees and shrubs that lined these paths so that they rose in height, almost like seats in a theatre, the smallest flowers at the front, the largest trees at the rear. And
whereas, in the past gardens had been experiences just for the eyes, now they were for all senses.
Some of the flowers come so close to the path that the hooped petticoats of the women visitors brushed against them, releasing the fragrant scents of the blossom. And instead of motion less
rigid hedges that used to enclose parts of the garden like "Prison Walls," here at Thorndon the leaves dance to the maraca rhythm of the wind. Pages 93/94

IN Puerco Rico USA, these simple, ancient principles are IGNORED. The landscape architects/agronomist jerks are still in the DARK AGES. I have been wondering what is the great difficulty to understand this rule. A garden should look natural. Feel natural, appealing to all senses. I am sure in your country, many gardens have that stiff, with abundant overkill trimming/pruning also.

In endemismo I have mentioned a hundred times the ridiculous, absurd
garden installations all over the island, in public/private contexts. Costly to install and a pain in the ass to maintain. With these excerpts there should be no doubts. I did not pull the principle out of my sleeve. It seems that it has been there to be studied for two hundred years.

A few last words. I used to love the essence of the ZEN/Japanese/Chinese garden, however, it is exactly the contrary of what I practice/preach nowadays. From this gardening school I still enjoy those elements found in those rectangles with walls, with just white gravel/sand, raked in classical designs, rocks/stones placed accordingly and a few not stiff bushes in the classical/standard impair groupings, in total quiet to meditate or hang out. Time to go...

TOOLS FOR THE MASTER GARDENER

2010-01-16T06:07:00.000-08:00

IF YOU ARE NOT, into tools, may not know names, please check: amleonard.com or gempers.com for illustrations. I tell you one thing, if you buy anything for the first, be willing to pay the same
price for shipping as for the merchandise. A strange trick that does not make much sense to your humble servant. Caution with brands, ergonomic cute tools, some stink, are useless, Fiskars, hand pruners for example.

Pick axes, are the best for digging. The ones I have are about 18" long, not to heavy, great for small, hard to reach places. On the other hand, 2ouglas Kndelabro, the isle gardening guru of the feeble minded, uses a monster that weights about eight pounds, with a 3/4 feet handle. More adequate for planting a palm tree. I have never seen someone looking more stupid while digging a hole to plant, lest say Petunias. So do not be a jerk; get the proper gardening tool!

Nursery spade. Mine has a wooden short handle. Not expensive. Some are really works of art. I use it for digging, cutting roots, to create edges and so forth. One spade will do if you know what you are doing.
Trowel, cultivator, transplanter are great tools if you are constantly planting/propagating in the ground or in pots.
Grounds keeping maintenance/cleaning. 24" spring brace rake. This tool is necessary if there are leaves, grass to remove. If you have a yard with lots of these get a good, expensive if necessary rake. You will use it a lot. The handle should be adequate to your height, not too short/too long.
Picking up within bushes requires a 9" shrub rake. Unless you want to spend hours like a fool, in uncomfortable hard to reach positions, organic debris within your plants.
If you have gravel, sand, or into the ZEN bag, a wooden rake will make the surface,really neat and attractive.
Push broom. It there are areas covered with concrete/pavers get one. Also a regular broom, not a wimpy for inside the house and dust pan. Save the environment, no blowers please.
30 gallon Pop Up Container. The best there is. Light weight, sturdy, weights 2 pounds closed! When you go pruning take it with you, place it close by. Cut and throw. You could use a plastic bag or drop later in one. But do not be a fool, cutting, throwing on the ground, to pick up the mess later when you are tired.
10 gallon Pop Up Container, just as the above for smaller shores..
Pistol grip handle reacher. If you have, live by places where garbage, organic or not accumulates. Instead of bending like fools do here, holding the plastic bag in one hand, struggling to keep it open against the wind, and using the free hand to pick, follow the steps above. Place the pop up close by, while gripping with the handle reacher.
Hand pruner. Like the rake, get the best your money can buy, it does not have to be expensive, just comfortable, well built. If you practice gardening with passion, no other tool is more important, you will probably use it daily, if you have a big garden.
18" high speed precision pruning saw. It could be of the folding kind or not. One thing I tell you. I hate loppers. They are awkward to use, not getting a clean cut always. With this saw I cut anything above 1" diameter branches. I have used it believe it or not for 6,8 inches. It is a matter of being patient, and a good saw of course.
If you have trees, a Telescoping pole saw is necessary. Or climb twenty feet in a ladder and cut with the 18" pruning saw above. Please get someone to hold it for safety.
A seat and/or cushion to kneel. This is pertinent, if you are over 55, or fat, out of shape.
Asparagus knife for weeding. An excellent tool, particularly in concrete and other crevices.
Glysophate. The only chemical I use, against weeds, grass or broad leaves. Do not buy Roundup. Too expensive and little of the real thing, check the labels. What you want is the highest percentage of glysophate. That is that.
Compression sprayer. Mine is a one gallon. Get one with a filter. Otherwise, when using it with tea compost it will get clogged. Even if you filter the tea, some fibers may go free.
After the hand pruner, broom, dust pan, the sprayer is the tool I use the most. With compost, foliage fertilizer or plain water to scare insects, particularly white flies.

Perhaps I have missed something. Maybe you have your own favorite tools. If you ask about
the budget for all these, it may reach over three hundred bucks. But not all were bought at once.
I remind new arrivals that once I tried to do landscape maintenance for hire. Not every
person into gardening may need all these tools, however I believe necessary to know of their
existence and uses. If you consider yourself a trend setter in the gardening sphere, then you need tools to set the example, some reference books, a nice collection of plants. Most important perhaps, as I often do, to demonstrate great humility...haja bilingual laugh...Time to go.....

from the editors
REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL
part I

A couple of Spindalis, were surprised
this morning while constructing their
future home in MY garden, by the
ipomoeas, cavalinnas in a pot
in the south side.

GUERRILLA GARDENING STRATEGICS AND GARDENING TOOLS

2010-01-15T16:18:00.000-08:00

I HAVE had this post in mind for a long time. TOOLS. I believe that a wise gardener will have the right, precise tools for the task at hand. You may have noticed a certain
ability here for criticism, tools are not an exception. A gardener could be judged by
the knowledge and use of tools, even if he/she never has a chance to use or buy them.

Lets start with the hands, gloves, cheap or expensive. If you use ridiculous gloves for
construction, you will have no tact, for planting/re potting, fool. USE gardening gloves.
My favorites are the rubber/fabric type. You decide what is best starting with your budget and comfort. If you use gloves you will not get bruised/cut easily.

If you are an 'elegant' former ladies man, you do not want sandpaper textured palms/fingers. Ladies will not go for it.. Neither will the ladies tolerate to have ugly
hands. Please do not use dish washing gloves, unless dealing with wet situations.Using them will reduce dirt on nails. You could find web sites selling soaps, scrub, hand care lotions and other products to protect your skin when gardening.

A nice cool hat. Not the clown tourist like with a huge wide rim. Get something elegant, not an absurd baseball cap. The material should be breathable, preferably in a light color, perhaps washable. If your hat make you look like a clown, just as the one
preferred by Alberto Areces Mallea, it will give away your sophistication and your gardening skills, in this case, ZERO.

Something to protect your eyes is relevant, particularly among shitty Gingers/Heliconias. Short pants and long sleeve shirts/polos if under the sun for long periods of time. That is that in this department. Since I do not use trimmers, blowers, or lawn mowers, nothing on that. You may research on your own.

To be continued....

On strategics for the legal/illegal, authorized/unauthorized planting of whatever, or Guerrilla Gardening, a movement originated in England, with many chapters over there, here is what
my practice has taught me. This is for Puerco Rican islanders. You in your country of preference should think, develop, convenient strategies.

Distance

The chosen site should be at a walking distance or by car. If there are too many cars and no parking then, you see it. Carrying of water is also a consideration, to irrigate when necessary.

The planting of the chosen ones should take place during rainy days or afterwards. First reason
is that a softer soil will be easier to dig, even if mostly construction debri as my chosen site. The second, is reducing the stress for vegetation on a saturated soil will increase survival odds.

Planting on a site close by, will allow for irrigation trips and inspection. As reported recently
the Tamarindus indica was mutilated with a machete. One maguey uprooted. The
first has a great chance to survive since the cut at around twelve inches from the ground, a healthy root system, will help the healing. The second cut in two pieces and thrown away, was
replanted in the original place and the other piece with roots perhaps twenty feet away.

My guerrilla in statistics and possibilities required a new stance. Two casualties. Fifty percent of survival rate is better than nothing, but not good enough. Therefore, I took around twenty seeds of Cavalinna maritima a vine/climber; planting them in ten different spots, concentrating intion e bare ground spots where the trimmers may not come, without grass. In adition, tree Turneras ulmiforme about 18' tall in a wise spot.

Now you may inquire, why do I insist? For the hell of it! Not all the seeds will grow at the same time, some will live longer. The Turneras will have to produce some seeds to be able to sustain the struggle, otherwise they may end like the Tamarindus, dismembered or uprooted like the Maguey. From now on I will concentrate on short bushes, preferably self seeding types, seeds of all kinds and watch what happens.. Time to go.

SHOOTING AT RANDOM

2010-01-15T03:42:00.000-08:00

IT HAS RAINED for the last thirty six hours. All is wet, even the air. It has finally cooled as it should during this season. November and December were too hot, I know.
You are thinking global warming. I remind you concrete/asphalt. All that heat absorbed and irradiated at night...

Yesterday I went to monitor the guerrilla garden. I found the Maguey, of the Agavaceas, similar in shape and color, to the Blue Agave if you are into tequila. One
of the illiterate members of the weed whackers squad, had pulled it out and thrown
ten feet from where I had planted it. Why you may wonder? I do not know. The laborers into gardening shores here, are among the most feeble minded segment of
the general feeble minded population.

The trimmers obliterated the twenty four Cosmos sulphureous reported recently. The tall grass, with plenty of seeds for the small birds, was also eliminated. ANY wild vegetation adequate for this type of urban space destroyed. Any tree, bush, vine, plants, with objective or subjective natural value gone. Nonetheless your humble servant planted the victim again where it was. Collected some pods of Pithelobium dulce. I had a chance to taste it. Not bad. The texture and flavor not out of this world
but with gastronomical possibilities. If you have tried the fruit from the Tamarindus indica, you may like this one. However, while on the tree it opens spirally, dark brown in the outside,
reddish borders, revealing the white pulp, hiding the dark seeds. Birds love it. I think that it could be used for juice, some deserts with imagination. I finished the adventure planting some seeds in adequate places, knowing their slim odds to reach adulthood.

In the home garden, the weight of the rain has bended some of those who tend to grow in a vertical versus wide, Hibiscus, Murrayas, Cosmos, Turnera ulmiforme and others.
After it has rained, is probably the best time to plant, relocate, propagate, but not for
pruning, since wetness increases the possibilities of spreading diseases.

Taking advantage of the situation the following from the north garden went south: Pseuderantemun carrutherssi/reticulatum. By accident. These two bushes are perfect
to create texture, color contrasts. One is a variegated purple, the other a chartreuse green that gets darker as time go by.. I did not think of the eventual effect until later. The other two were some ferns that I am not two fond of. These ferns belong to a group of plants found in the residence when we moved. I left them to keep some of the original vegetation, hoping that some day I may grow to like them, a little more. Somehow one's tastes are beyond analysis. Ferns are generally overused. In some contexts their architectural shape is spectacular but not always. Some are really beautiful, but have the same problem as the following: Gingers, Heliconias, Bejuco de puerco and Wedelia trilobata. You have to watch them constantly or
they will take the whole garden. I used these two ferns because they may grow nicely in this corner of the south.

After the success with the Yucca manihot, and the batatas, (Ipomoeas) I will start a pot
plantation, in one of my fiberglass rectangular ones to see what happens. This reminds
in terms of edible gardening for the tropics, perhaps it would be more pragmatic to plant tubers of all kinds instead of just herbs, lettuce, tomatoes and such. To do something original, swapping this for that, bartering among the gardeners should be the goal. I have so many lemons, capsicum that often I have to give some away, unable to use them. If planting is done with a purpose, many people will benefit, the hungry ones and the not so....

To finish with some thought provoking information... The Chinese are moving in a direction that will certainly surpass the USA in environmental destruction. In thirty
years they have destroyed as much as this country in a hundred and fifty. The Meckong River is one of their victims, along with other countries sharing it and building dams to the left and right reducing the amount of flow reaching Vietnam.
This in turn will eliminate sediment/nutrition and voila,,,a two billion dollar fishing
industry feeding the surrounding population gone....

China again is into the nuclear reactors fever...To reduce the GLOBAL WARMING,
believe or not.. This are the people that make toys with lead, poison in tooth paste,
killing chemicals in milk, will construct a HUGE river to bring water to desert areas.
And so long and so forth. This country is certainly going to screw up the WORLD, particularly ASIA.

India, is moving in the same direction, destroying the environment will reach a similar amount of inhabitants as China, in 2025. If these two countries follow the USA consumption models: cars, private houses, highways and malls it will be interesting to speculate as to how will they feed those rabbit like propagating people in one hand,
and the most significant: how do you built water treatment plants for sewage for such amount of people? Who will pay for it? Without clean water there is no possibility of any kind of life. With or without quality.

Dubai, the fools from this little piece of hell hole are the idiot CHAMPIONS of the world after my compatriots of Puerco Rico. How do take water up to the highest building of the WORLD? Imagine the cost of a gallon of water in that desert, mostly
concrete and asphalt? Burning fossil fuels 24/7 to keep electricity running to keep
those concrete buildings cool day and night for ever and ever. Is there something more
stupid on earth? What about those sinking islands in the shape of hated PALMS?
Who is going to buy these houses sinking in the ocean? How much will the be the cost
of the maintenance? Where do you go for fun the sand dunes or the malls? Perhaps
ice skating under roof. One interesting finance number is the one hundred billion
bucks, this foolish sheiks owe. Good luck to them...

The sheiks will have some difficulty to pay those real estate loans, however who cares?
The worst scenario would be a bankrupt country, nothing new if you think of Haiti.
However there are similarities between Dubai and the cultures that built pyramids
Mexicans/Egyptians. All those silly, useless, unnecessary buildings in that country will
be a monument not to inventive, but to stupidity and arrogance. Just for the afterlife.
Sorry for the shooting. Time to go....

From the Editors

The information presented
is taken from the NY Times,
BBC, RTV. ES
the rest is
my world known humble
opinion.
Nothing is fiction

CARL LINNAEUS SUCCESS IN GARDENING

2010-01-13T03:54:00.000-08:00

A COUPLE of days ago I reviewed a book that some followers of the blog may enjoy.
I decided to present these excerpts for the hell of it. Also for a simple reason, I have
always stressed the need to identify whatever I plant or write about when possible. Some of the names may be/not be pertinent, but if you are into research, find out.
Or get the book: The Brother Gardeners, by Andrea Wulf.

In the summer of 1736, as Peter Collinson was attempting to placate John Bartram, and Philip Miller was working on a new edition of his Dictionary,
a young Swedish botanist thought it necessary to travel from the Netherlands to England to meet all the important gardeners and botanists.
Not yet thirty years old, Carl Linnaeus was already celebrated by botanists in Holland, who he claimed, "sought him as a small oracle".

Such self promotion was a constant feature of Linnaeus's personality. He was conceited and arrogant, calling himself the "prince of botanists" and
insisting that he could achieve more in nine months than the best of his colleagues in several years. The son of a keen gardener, Linnaeus had been fascinated by plants for as long as he could remember, and he liked to tell the story that his love had been installed by his "mother's milk",
for "whenever he cried.... she [his mother] put a flower in his hand, and
he was quiet immediately".

For the past ten months Linnaeus had worked for the wealthy Anglo-Dutch merchant George Clifford, in Hartekamp near Haarlem. As the director of the Dutch East India Company, Clifford had access to the flora from across the world, and his four hothouses held hundreds of plants from southern Europe, Asia and Africa.

In Puerto Rico is impossible to find a garden installation worthy of merit. The last paragraph is significant because in those years, even with the great difficulties of keeping seeds viable, cut stems and plants alive, through long travels by ship, there were hundreds of plants available.
In this pathetic isle in the tropics, I bet dollars to doughnuts, no nursery has more
than thirty if that. When there are thousands! I clarify that plants here equals species.

Success? When I think about all the written words, the vegetation propagated, planted, identified, those that are still alive and those that passed away, a great feeling
of joy flows through the spirit. I may seem arrogant, feel like "small oracle" for the irritation of foes. But will go further...When I was working with the scam artists and environmental criminals of the Luis Munhoz Marin Foundation and Parque Donha Ines, I did in a couple of years, what the incompetent, illiterate fools doing the grounds keeping never did in ten! I propagated hundreds of plants, tens of species
in that shitty hell hole full of thieves, out of my pocket.

After all these times I believe that something here and there, may have been of use to you far away reader, perhaps even a laugh, regarding gardening, landscaping maintenance/installation, environmental, ecological, political, migratory issues, music, movies, books and so forth. I confess that it has been a pleasure, even with the flimsy criticism of one shitty architect who has not built/design a side walk/gutter, Climent, his last name, and the King of the agronomists JERKS: Edwin Gonzalez Bauza.

If we are to "save" the environment, lets do it for us, now. Without water, air, food
and a roof, what kind of life is there?

The reading of this book has helped me to put some things in perspective. My gardening practice, is all I care for. Not necessarily to maintain my bragging rights, but to enjoy the flora/fauna around the house, since outside these boundaries, what is
there, what I have shown in pictures, what I see stinks...

That makes the feeling of success, of sharing it with others more satisfying.Time to go....

BOOK REVIEW GARDENING IN THE DIRT NEWS

2010-01-11T14:00:00.000-08:00

The Brother Gardeners
BOTANY, EMPIRE
AND
THE BIRTH OF AN OBSESSION
BY
Andrea Wulf
Alfred A. Knoff , New York 2009

On an early summer's day 1n 1716, Thomas Fairchild went into his Hoxton garden, closed the door of his potting shed and set in motion a chain of events so momentous that in time no gardener would ever think about plants in the same way again. At the same time, it let Fairchild, a devout Christian, to live in fear of God's wrath for the rest of his life.

That is the first paragraph of this wonderful book, with excellent illustrations, bibliography and references. If you are a native from one of those countries originally under the British Empire, even if you are not, you will have great reading pleasure.

Another requirement to enjoy it, is some interest in history, botany, botanical names,
plant collecting and so forth...Evidently, England has done a lot for gardening. This activity is what I do and enjoy more in life. If you want to go beyond the surface, your
intellect will appreciate it.

SOME FANS may wonder how much time I spend in the garden. Well, I sweep daily,

sometimes twice a day, daily, monitor for insects, watch everything carefully to
see any odd events, with Diva, the Cyperus lover dog, this is alternated with ball games, throw and fetch kind. Even in her senior years, Diva keeps that joy and quick
energy, present in many happy children, when the time to play comes. Determine which garden activity has to be done right away or later.. Out of the seven days I spent, twenty hours between this and that on the premises. A little less if it rains...

The eradication of Bejuco de puerco and Wedelia trilobata in the south garden, is almost complete and the area looks more tidy. It was done in three stages to avoid that anxiety that once in a while arrives suddenly when getting into tedious, unpleasant tasks. This is one of them. Getting rid of vines behaving like grass with rhizomes/stolons, a real pain.

Other events more or less interesting were traditional relocation from one bed
to a better one, pot to bed or vice versa.. A Bauhinia blakeana has taken the place,
pot and corner of the now in Guerrilla Territory, Thevetia peruviana. By the way
I went to check it finding it on the ground. It was too heavy on top, plus the ground somewhat saturated..Got rid of some branches, looking sharp, and is now with the Tamarindus indica close by, the Maguey and the DK, in the chosen triangular space.

The forgotten Crotton slow as nothing else is now in a new spot, 3 species of Tradescantias were propagated to substitute the eradicated ones, the Bauhinia
tomentosa is now in a new pot looking refreshed. Clitoria ternatea, Merremia
quinquefolia were planted from seeds to increase the vegetation volume in the metal fence in the north garden.

Some white flies were discovered in the Murrayas paniculatas. It is a problem that
comes and goes. They were sprayed and that was that. In general there are not many
pests in the garden. The amount of lizards, birds, spiders take care of them.. Once in
a while snails come, so do beetles, but it is not a great concern because the damage
is mostly aesthetic.

Finally, collected seeds from the Cosmos sulphereous to spread them by the Guerrilla Territory. And that is that, time to go....

AFRICANS IN ITALY MIGRATION ISSUES

2010-01-10T03:22:00.000-08:00

IT WAS recently on BBC. Some black fellows from that continent being whipped by the police native forces. Apparently some bored Italians, used them as target practice. The victims retaliated unwisely, destroying
private property. Lucky them Africans when one think of it. Had it been 5o years ago in USA, in the south or any other region/area where they are still not welcome, the story would have been a little different for the blacks....probably hanging from trees.

Since no one invited them, all are illegal, that is the price to pay. What I do not comprehend is the brouhaha about their infra humane housing/living conditions. They are exactly the same, never worst, as their countries of origin, except for the cold, snow, rain of the season.

SPAIN. The news presented stories of Spain nationals, who went on holidays, finding Romanians and Nigerians have taken residence with all their belongings, in their apartments at their return. Up till recently it was almost impossible to get rid of tenants unwilling to pay rent. The procedures in court would take a year or longer. Now all has
changed with a new law expediting both situations in thirty days. Pretty
similar as what takes place in NY City.

The shooting and beating up of migrants also takes place here. Prostitutes or sex workers in Spain are over 95% immigrants from Romania, Nigeria, South, Central America and the Caribbean. They are
exposed since they spend most of their time in the streets waiting for
customers.

MEXICO. From my perspective, in USA the situation is radically different. If you review the relationship between Mexico and USA, you will find that one third of the territory of the latter, was stolen/taken in that silly war moons ago. Therefore, MEXICANS are not entering a territory/country where they are not WELCOME. They are entering legally or illegally to the lands stolen from their ancestors in an
unfair, unnecessary war. That makes their immigration very peculiar since there seems that no other countries share this situation.

Immigration is consequence of over population, destruction of the environment and inept governments. Look at the countries providing
all these mostly ugly, welcome/unwelcome migrants. They are in four continents. Democracies and dictatorships alike. It is getting worse and there is no room for change.

In the case of CHINA, the immigration is from country to city to work for peanuts. It seems that the capacity to exploit others has no ethnic, cultural, social boundaries. The destruction of the environment, building 24/7 in China and some other countries in the region will have dire consequences soon. With the wild changes in climatic conditions, it is going to be hard to cultivate enough rice, to have one cup a day.

Migration is a rule in nature. Whales, birds, turtles to name a few travel in season to search for warmth, food, rest. The earth used to provide for
all, before men destroyed their habitats in every conceivable way.

Now the problem of people procreating as rabbits traveling, entering illegally to countries that are getting fed up with the situation has reached the limits. Some jerks with blindfolds will attribute the REJECTION of ugly people to RACISM. But think for a moment of countries like SPAIN,
ITALY, TURKEY. They are not dark if you compare, many are blond with blue eyes. They were certainly not welcome in Germany, Switzerland during the sixties, was that also racism? I believe that one do not want strangers around, ugly or not around, even if they speak the same language. Puerco Rico is no different. But I will not get into that.

This is getting too long. Is time to go. But a final word. I was a migrant
in USA for half my life, lived for 18 months in Deutschland, during my
time as a freedom fighter in German discos in the 70's. What I think
is result of what I have lived. And with clear sight, everything we do
is possible thanks to air, water, food and a roof. Life will not remain
if the destruction continues for anyone, flora or fauna.

I could stay in my garden admiring my Frangipanis, writing only about that, or the beauty of the Spindalis, hummingbirds,or the singing of the always high in some perch mockingbird that is on his performance while
I write these lines, but sorry, it does not suffice. Now I leave.

ENDEMISMO TRASNOCHADO A JACK OF ALL TRADES

2010-01-09T03:31:00.000-08:00

YESTERDAY was blog hunt day. As usual in the island, only jamborees are done properly, is in the blood. The most original blog tittle this time: "Ideas without thoughts".
A wide segment of the blog population believe that such tittles are original, witty, unique. There is one Alphabet, Ms. Conscience and so on. With such nomenclature one would expect some, maybe one, really wild ideas, a word, a concept, jargon, but no, is all make believe. The same manure, another day.

In the evening it was GEOAMBIENTE time. An entertaining, educational, TV program about everything related to the Puerco Rico's environment with host, Maria Falcon. She owns some w i d e hips, humongous thighs, not far from those of Victoria Zanabria, a folk singer, some sizes bigger, something wild if you are into anatomy and symmetry. At any rate, Ms. Falcon, also the producer, has an extremely squeaky, annoying voice, with speech gestures, enunciation, that wild drive you nuts even if you are just reading her
lips. Something out of this world.

The program is inconsistent for a tendency to ask silly questions to uninitiated people, unable to respond briefly, originally, to the point. This is a consequence of either nervousness or just language challenged people. A national patrimony observed in
many, too many television figures in any type of show, news, comedy, you name it. This program should/could be better. I have written with suggestions to the above mentioned falling in deaf ears.

EL YUNQUE, was the subject. Ariel Lugo, with his sour, unhappy like speech delivery, talking about ecosystems, biodiversity and water, his
area of expertise. Since shrimp for example, hang out in fresh and salt water, migrating, what happens to one or the other precious liquid, affects the possibilities of survival.
If you remember previous posts, the Atlantic ocean/Caribbean sea are our sewage treatment plant. So long
for the shrimps.....

The surprising theme, is the care, methodology, systematic study of that doomed forest, EL BOSQUE NACIONAL DEL CARIBE, a TREASURE, the only rain forest of this king in USA, territory. There is some Institute of Dasonomy, with plenty of well paid federal employees, from top to bottom. What is wrong with this picture?

Simple. Puerto Rico is a platform of concrete/asphalt that grows like a skin cancer. The amount of heat irradiated by these kind of materials is amazing. Therefore I would take some of these bright, bilingual scientists to the URBAN CONTEXT to study what has survived in depth:plants, trees, birds, insects and else.

Why should I care about el YUNQUE now? Tomorrow, whatever is being researched today is meaningless since the ecology, near by biodiversity is destroyed daily with a snap of the fingers, as fast as possible, avarice, the motivation, by the private industry, construction developers, landscape installation/maintenance enterprises, with bribed accomplices in every government agency. Even the tribunals are in the same bag as demonstrated by the Paseo Caribe affair.

The AAA with sewage in every body of water imaginable on one hand and their
electricity counterparts the AEE, jerks in charge of mutilating, destroying the architecture/scaffold of millions of trees with machetes/chainsaws to 'protect'
the electric wires that should be underground to begin with.

Do not go yet. This Francis Bacon portrait of PUERCO RICO is not over. Please
add the accomplices of ARPE, in charge of permits, 007 Recursos Naturales, Fideicomiso and Parques Nacionales directed by feeble minded, with overlapping
duties, totally absurd. The last tree agencies should be able to provide at least
an inventory of this or that, but it is not the case. The blind leading the blind.

Meanwhile the useful idiots have an Internet campaign to convert EL YUNQUE into
some WONDER WORLD MARVELOUS whatever...With the destroyed infrastructure, not a clean toilet in sight for miles, a road/highway not reminding of the moon paved......What else but...time to go...

2010 FIRST GUERRILLA GARDENING ACT

2010-01-08T07:14:00.000-08:00

IF YOU are a regular here, the tittle will sound familiar. If not, let it be.
I planted one Thevetia peruviana, from seed, in a pot 3 years ago. It was collected right in front of a landmark cemetery in Santurce, where Ismael Rivera, is buried. An OLD lady sell flowers under it. At the time, I did not
know the name of it, but found it attractive, not a common place, nor being aware of the incredible amount of daily organic waste it drops, in terms of seeds/flowers/leaves. It is something that I became aware watching Tito Collazo, the graphic artist from ESPIRAL, who has one similar, twenty years old, while he cleaned.

AFTER the intense rains of yesterday, I decided without much pondering
to plant the Thevetia, with the company of the Tamarindus indica and DK in the area described previously by the train station in Sagrado Corazon. I feel it has
a fifty/fifty percent of possibilities to survive the illiterate municipal trimmer weed whacking squad in a near future.

This morning from the time I took it off the twenty gallon pot, remove some soil from the ball, placed it in the light weight trash can, walked the
six blocks to the planting area, digging the whole and planting it, thirty
minutes went by.

If you, no matter where you live, read this, and feel something is wrong with your surroundings, in terms of the environment, why wait for the government, private/avaricious enterprises to solve it? Do something. I have noticed that Cosmos sulpherous or any other self seeding plant is excellent for Guerrillagardening. Some I spread on mostly gravel
have survived. There are twenty, between four inches to twelve in height. Try to spread them once a week or every two week. This will give them a chance to survive the weed whackers or lack of water. Preferably during a rainy season or days....You will not have to irrigate increasing the survival rate....

One thing is evident. You should not go like a fool and install a garden in
the third world as Puercorico, without experimenting. Plant something
that may be recognized by the illiterate trimmers executioners, or the illiterate supervisors. That may be the difference.

At any rate. Even if your action is successful or not, you will have accomplished something, broken the inertia. You have ACTED, when most people just speculate, write, and bullshit. You will have learned something from the action. It is really the opposite of just complaining. Time to go...

New section
send him a line
saying hi from Antigonum

Toke feeble mind of the week
alex@americanlawnpr.net

This firm does maintenance in Monte Hiedra and other similar
places. American Lawn, is their name.
They will go tree topping if you
request it or for capricious reasons.

They thought at one time that your
humble servant over estimate his talent,
vision and credentials...jaha bilingual laugh

EDITORS NOTE

Today
12 January 2010

I noticed the illiterate municipal
wheed whacker squad mutilated
the Tamarindus Indica with a machete.
Fortunately, these killers left a 12 inch
trunk, around 2 inches in diameter standing.
That may be enough to come back.
The Maguey was also destroyed, with
the trimmer.
There are two standing the DK and
the recently planted Thevetia peruviana.

YENYERE YUCCA MANIHOT AHE!

2010-01-06T06:21:00.000-08:00

FORGIVE ME intercontinental reader if I go back to the edible gardening stories, but I must share this gardening adventure. Some of you may think that humor is something that is forbidden down these quarters, but no, I do have some humor that may/may not be appreciated by the feeble minds that surround me, but is there...

Regarding the tittle, lets take a wild twisted turn lexicon music wise...Ray Barreto the late conga drummer from New York, was one of my favorite NY salsa bands for around a decade. Also my favorite conga drummer until Gerry Gonzalez and his brother created Fort Apache Band. His best singer was Tito Allen, and the one who lasted longer Adalberto Santiago. Allen's recording INDESTRUCTIBLE was a landmark that I have heard probably a thousand times. Particularly at the time it came out and I was into smoking natural herbs with Luis Aviles, convicted, Fernando Monteverde, god knows where the hell he went; and Juan Rosario the important guy with Mission Industrial. So important, he can not respond to your humble servant messages, SCREW THEM all.

To make this long story longer, lets be a little bit brief. The last record by
Ray Barreto with Adalberto Santiago, went out in 1974. QUE VIVA LA MUSICA. There was a guajira, Bruca Manigua, that I still enjoy
because it swings. And there without any further re due the tittle.

Yucca manihot is one of the edibles in my garden, if you got a chance to check my inventory of August 2009, you will see it. I never thought of digging up for it until today. For your humble servant, it was just a really ornamental small tree/bush with a canopy that reminds me of the Draco.

First I had to get rid of the twelve feet four inches thick trunk/leaves. Cut
in pieces with the right tools was not a big deal. Then I got into the nitty gritty, feeling a pleasure hard to describe. It is the first time in almost four decades of cultivating that I get something of such weight/size
to eat, growing under the soil/view.

Well, being more precise the second. The first was a Batata, the orange kind from one vine I thought for many years as just an ornamental. On the right of the blog there is a picture under Cascade or something similar. It is chartreuse green a not common color in nature, at least in tropical pastures.

Taking a spiral turn, twisting again, let me remind you that I keep a thirty
gallon pot to make my compost. Diva's poop, is the latest ingredient added
to shredded newspapers, soil, dry/green leaves, dust, dogs hair, coffee grounds, onion/garlic skin that makes the 'secret' combination.

The last time I went through the layering process, (if you make compost
you know what I am writing about) noticing it on the dry side, I added too much water! If you make compost you know what it smells like
when all is right. When is not, the anaerobic conditions, create the smell found in any of Puerco Rico's beaches: Luquillo, Guanica and Fajardo.
pure sewage and urea, that will make you sick if you use/visit these public rest rooms. A vile national disgrace (one of many) swept under
the carpet among the happy go lucky, native islanders.

What to do? With the compost of course...Wonders the lay man/woman... Let it dry a little, get some fresh air...In the process, the smell is so intense that many big gigantic flies came out of nowhere to enjoy the man groove like smell, creating a festivity kind of atmosphere among the lizards waiting for lunch, ready for the hunt.

Perhaps you are one of those children who grew up with dinosaurs as a toy, (I did not), the most exciting adventure today gardening wise, somehow, was to find a Frangipani caterpillar in the pupa stage on the ground. As mentioned before, this cute, thick, green/black caterpillar is an eating machine. Something learned recently, their pellet like poop is mostly nitrogen, to feed the soil. Time to go....

DOWN BY THE ORCHARD

2010-01-04T04:07:00.000-08:00

IT SEEMS that in Puerco Rico, those into edible gardens, agriculture, sustainable and organic bags, fair commerce, are into ostracizing tendencies (think Free Masons) ignoring others with original, trend setting virtues, I do not. I go and read their blogs, more like pompous treatises with instructions to do this and that, but no imagination beyond their tropical noses or avaricious tendencies. Everything is GOSPEL like, particularly in the northwest region, where many of these luminaries reside. Some inhabit in other distant prairies. You can observe their aesthetic less gardens, family pictures, with wide, all teeth showing, strange smiles, stoned like ones. But no mention of GANJA ever surfaces, What the heck!

DOWN HERE in Santurce, some people know the issues, with gigantic
humility have the know how. After all, planting and propagating anything is a matter of practice, doing, observing, experimenting, taking notes,
getting references; not following written/verbal instructions from some self proclaimed holistic guru.

The orchard here is about grafted lemon and orange trees. The first gave
two crops of that versatile fruit in less than a year. I used them for juice, dressing, salads, marinating, sangrias and else. If you have children you could make some popsicle like cold treat for the summer days in plastic cups. Just make sure your lemon/water/sugar/honey mix is a little thicker than for just the drinking. Freeze it and voila...

The Valencia oranges are still there, riping as fast as a quadriplegic turtle.
The fruit color/texture of this grafted, tree feet tall tree, reminded some ugly, dark as a blood sausage, woman from the Environmental Quality Board, of PUMPKINS! I do not know about you, but I find very difficult to
comprehend how one can confuse a much bigger vegetable that grows
in a vine with a fruit in tree, just for that.

The Carica papaya tree is about 14', planted from seed. It reached that height in less than a year. There are four fruits already about six inches long and two around. A couple of lizards have moved permanently within the boundaries of its leaves. We greet in the mornings when irrigating and monitoring for insects.

The most recent inductee, acquired yesterday is a Malpighia emarginata or
Barbados cherry. It is a member of a very exclusive group in the collection. Those BOUGHT in nurseries, not even ten. This tree, is one of the most elegant for the symmetry of height/canopy in the tropics, even if there was no healthy and beautiful fruit bonus involved. It grows about 15', I have never
seen one taller than that. Resistant of heat and insects. A rare, great conversation piece in any collection.

Just like many fruit trees from seeds, I will have to wait many years to taste them, (Caricas the exception). However, its slow growth and beauty will allow your humble servant to enjoy it at length, without any absurd pruning.

There are aromatics in the garden also.. Oregano, Capsicum, Basil, Rosemary and Ginger. So far in this department, they all show resistance
to heat, salty breezes and diseases.

Almost forgot. In one of the aromatics/herb/ edible gardens, in far away
prairies you can go work under this damned sun/heat as a volunteer for lunch! Time to go humbly...

RUM AND COCOA

2010-01-03T02:12:00.000-08:00

THE NAZIS were the wise ones, probably the first, to use a lie with the efficiency of an advertising campaign transforming it, converting it in
certain, a truth true repetition. The feeble minds within the government ranks in Puerco Rico, USA, probably 95% of all elected officials and employees will start promoting rum. "Puerto Rican Rum", in USA and perhaps far beyond.

I see the lameness of it and want to share it with you. If you drink gin or
vodka, perhaps you will be attracted to the color. There is nothing else in common. The exception are caramel colored rums, that I assume are more
attractive to single malt, blended scotch, bourbon, and similar to discriminating drinkers in the world.

The intention is to increase the drinking to rise the tax revenue to pay
the isle national debt that as you know, is probably the same problem in your country. At any fiscal crisis, lets make a loan. But I will not get into that since you got my drift.

As part of this 'original' campaign, to improve the "reputation of rum" a group of mixologists/bartenders will be exported to different drinking holes in America, the country, with new rum recipes in an attempt to grasp the clear alcohol(vodka/gin) drinkers in those prairies/concrete/asphalt megalopolis.

In this concrete/asphalt platform in the Caribbean, the favorite rums are
Palo Viejo, Ron Llave, Don Q and Bacardi, in that order, from what I see
in my drinking oasis. There are others for export, but who cares, if one lives here. The point is that Bacardi, the last in sales here, is the first one in USA, with million of cases sold annually.

As an horticultural creative critic, sugar cane is originally a plant, a tall grass with impressive flowers, remember the subject in the first paragraph. There are no Puerco Rican Rums since there is no SUGAR CANE in Puerto Rico! The molasses are imported from that beautiful island of Dominican Republic. I suggest that either ALL PUERTO RICAN
denominated RUMS start to plant, collect and grind sugar cane in Puerto Rico, or move to any country with sugar cane plantations and abundant cheap labor.

At one point CUBA was the headquarters of the BACARDI family, originally from SPAIN. They moved in a timely fashion to Catanho, Puerto Rico, not long after the victory against imperialism in 1959. Therefore if BACARDI Puerco Rico, claims to be the best rum in the world, lets give some credit to that island. One in a group, where this humble blog spanning the globe, has no readers. Sure, I am aware of
the web situation and freedom of speech down there, but that is no excuse.

I remember reading as a younger fellow of the failure of a gigantic Cuban
sugar cane crop in the sixties. Over 10 million tons was the goal. But there was a blunder. Some fools bought some tractor machines to cut/pick the sugar cane. Unfortunately, they also picked up dirt, rocks, stones. Imagine the results when all the collected material was dropped in the mills! They blew up.... and that was that. Sugar cane as far as I see, has to be cut by hand. A miserable, perhaps one of the worst jobs in agriculture, due to the itchiness on the skin by the leaves and the tropical heat. However, it is a good work out.

To finish in some logical fashion. Drinking alcohol is no different than
smoking herb, snorting a few lines. It is a way of socializing or destroying oneself, other selves while driving, or while watching boring, prone to leave players crazy or with Alzheimer, American football.

These feeble minded Puercorican officials, should have thought of going to the former Soviet Satellites with this bright rum ad campaign. If they conquer that VODKA market, they will probably pay the national isle debt accumulated for the last four decades in four years; have some extra cash to bribe their officials and save some for themselves.. What? You are right, no mentioning of that possibility. Time to go...

EDITORS NOTE
Sorry there is no room for
Cocoa. But sometime in the
near future. Hint:
cultivators and producers
galaxies apart.

SECURITY PRIVACY QUIET AESTHETICS IN YOUR RESIDENCE WITH PLANTS

2010-01-02T03:44:00.000-08:00

IT IS REALLY amazing the amount of money many people are willing to spend in their residences to have all those sensations in the tittle. While at home, or after leaving the premises. However, it seems that not many think of the whole picture in the long run, particularly the most important, AESTHETICS.

It is easy, perhaps also expensive, to build a wall lets say eight feet, with concrete, cinder blocks, rocks, wood, galvanized steel, iron, you name it. But what about the breeze? Light? With some of these materials there will be none.

What about privacy and quiet? With iron and galvanized steel you get
air and light but not the others. What to do? THINK! That is the first
step. Determine destruction of the soil, noise, pollution/dust around while all the action takes place.

Any kind of fence may require barbed wire on top, or that razor blade serpentine that will surely give your residence the sexy appearance of a concentration camp or the county jail!

For all the above inconveniences I planted the Bouganvillea that appears to the right of the blog . This corner of the residence is the only one could climb without much difficulty. Some can grow really tall, and not straight, one has to guide the branches with tutors, not pruning. Unless you do not mind being a pruning slave.

The thorns are really effective. I know, since every time I cut off a few branches, no matter how careful I am, I get pricked. Bouganvilleas, originally from Brasil, come in many colors to match or contrast your walls. I do not know of any small tree/bush more versatile for dry/hot climates for this purpose.

Pereskia bleo is a bushy plant with more thorns than necessary. Some may reach eight/ten feet, with a vertical tendency. It provides beauty, security, with impressive delicate orange flowers similar to those of many cacti, since they are relatives. Pereskias will enhance any garden. It is propagated by cut stems and not difficult at all.

Finally, if you live in some neck of the woods any cacti will be efficient for privacy. Since you are all intelligent and pragmatic fellows I do not have
to stress that children/pets, areas with constant pedestrian traffic are not
the best places to plant THORNS.

Vines, climbers of any kind will also provide privacy, security, fragrance, and quiet for a simple reason. It is almost impossible to climb any surface
with thick vegetation. Now, if you add the thorn element to the maze of branches all over the walls, you have created a fairly safe natural environment that is more attractive, definitely less costly, improving the aesthetics of your residence.

Not many people will tell you, or write about this. I do not know why, but
is one more example why this a lonely blog within the crowd. It requires patience to have a great, well thought garden. Horticulture/gardening is more than putting a seed/cut stem in a hole...Time to go.

THE UGLY DUCKLING OR JUST A SWAN AMONG A GAGGLE OF GEESE?

2010-01-01T06:19:00.000-08:00

THE YEAR STARTED pretty well. Painted with ochre a metal pot with Turnera subulata, the Bauhinia tomentosa is now on his own pot, the only survivor out of 20 seeds, and irrigated everyone in the yard. Placed some new pictures still wondering
if it is worth it, since this is not a blog of photography.

If you wonder about the tittle, I thought appropriate to express how I perceive this humble blog among the tens found in the Puercorican blogosphere. It could be my imagination, or just the not pretty scenery
surrounding yours truly, a painful, real hell like picture.

I have kept my focus on the issues, trying to level anger with objective, even when it has been useless most of the time.
Regarding the environment in the Puercorican concrete/asphalt isle, there seems to be an urgent need to appear in the news, printed and electronic among some fools into lobbying for this or that.

I bet too many of these do gooders play golf, have lawns, hedges and palm trees in their residences. Those are four capital sins in the world according to endemismotrasnochado, your humble servant and the keyboardist in charge.

The most recent band wagon issue is a Northeast Corridor by the Atlantic.
50 'scientists' in this persuasion, went to do some inventory, however, what they found was in the salty waters...Surprise...some what else "in danger of extinction coral reef species", and a turtle. That was that! No
vines, trees, bushes, weeds, plants, ground covers, birds, insects or reptiles were mentioned in the news paper. The emphasis was in the
local mantra "danger of extinction". I ask again who determines that,
compared to what and the credentials of those propagating such rumors,
that not many inquire about accepting any DOE (danger of extinction) story of the moment accepting it as gospel.

I do not know where the hell exactly is this Corridor, but is not near my
residence, is not in the Metro Area where hundred of trees have been mutilated and or destroyed. This is my concern. This is where trees should be planted and cared for. THE URBAN CONTEXT, JERKS! Get
of your cars and watch what happens.

The Corridor is around three thousand acres. Their fear? The HOUSING DEVELOPERS with their GOVERNMENT accomplices and 007 Recursos Naturales will take some of these lands to construct resorts...And there
goes MOTHER NATURE. However, if most of the best soils, scenery, has
been destroyed previously, without any opposition what is the big deal now? I think is too late. Planting a thousand trees seems the solution to
any environmental destruction. The wrong trees, never the right ones,
are not planted in the urban context where they are needed the most,
but the hell away in any outskirt, where they will not help me or the flora/fauna close by..

These jerks have to get out of their cars and look around the streets, sidewalks, highways and face reality. They need not be afraid of the powerful Housing Developers/Banks, Highway Developers and fight
face to face without beating around the bushes.. Accuse and sue in court.
The Federal Forum preferably since the native courts are for sale constantly.

Now is time to go with the tittle in mind...

Those pictures

Diva the Cyperus lover dog
Bouganvillea, a work in progress
and Facade
not necessarily in
that order.

2009 THE LAST POST

2009-12-29T04:47:00.000-08:00

PERHAPS gardens should be designed according to parameters to be created in terms
of the surrounding flora/fauna. Not necessarily by traditional composition concepts and dull landscape architects and agronomists as the public/private spaces in the concrete/asphalt platform isle of Puerco Rico show.

I was not certain of the consequences of planting a Calliandra haemathocephala in front of our residence on the west side. This tree, original from the faraway flat
lands of Bolivia, in the Mimosaceae family also known as Powder puff, is not our only
conversation piece. It is a battle ground for hummingbirds that will fight each other briefly
for sucking rights, an occasional occurrence in the early mornings. Spindalis, perhaps one of our most beautiful birds also hang out among the branches, looking
for the right angle to suck the nectar with their short beaks.

Black beetles prefer the Bauhinia flowers. This morning I got the chance to observe one at close range, in the east side garden. His body covered with white specks. I have read that many flowers develop shapes to make believe to some insects they are a female of the species. Today I confirmed it watching this black beetle enticed, moving as in a copulating fashion, petals of the flowers falling on the ground, something I was wondering about a week a go when the flower firsts bloomed.

These insects are probably NATURES' worst designed to fly. They are certainly awkward and never able to fly in straight lines. The Cavalinna maritima, a vine, is another of their favorites. It seems a rule that everyone one has color infatuations determined by genes. I only see these guys on flowers of the violet persuasion.

Bees and butterflies hang out with yellow, oranges and whites. Every one else is into reds, hummingbirds and Spindalis. Both species in love with the Ipomoea quamoclit, another vine that self seeds and could become a pain in the neck, if you are the organized, tidy, gardener freak. Any seed will grow anywhere, even in concrete cracks, beware.

However, I have decided to tolerate some situations that could be overwhelming with
certain plants and not others in terms of maintenance, for the simple way of solving the matter. Heliconias and Gingers, are not easy to get rid off, but with Ipomoea quamoclit pulling as in weeding will suffice.

Now while listening to "Thanks for the memories" by Rosemary Clooney, I leave.
Good luck to all and success in your projects for 2010.

WHAT WE WANT FOR 2010 HERE AND THERE

2009-12-28T01:55:00.000-08:00

THE BOURET HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY
upinthebreadfruittree
andglospanoreview
endemismotrasnochado
the keyboard operator
and antigonum the humble

THANKS to all of you following the right/wrong, logical/illogical,

fair/unfair rants for the last twelve months, no matter where you are.
Bellow you will find a list of what I want to happen soon, here and there.

CARIBBEAN CINEMAS

YOU BASTARDS ARE AN EXAMPLE of what is wrong in this shitty isle.
Why do we have to pay almost 8 bucks to watch with the volume all the way UP, the home made dull commercials for Mickey D, BK, KFC, Church's, Harris paints, Toyota, Sprite, Coke, and every other mother fucking commercial imaginable for almost thirty five minutes
Why is it that every bright/dummy puercorican tolerates this shit, without protesting? I have never seen anything like this anywhere else.
SCREW You SCUMBAGS!!

Another thing, could the jerks managing these theaters do something about the noise of the candy wraps? People chewing pop corn right behind you or sideways? Make a rule: NO EATING DRINKING EXCEPT
DURING PREVIEWS, and during the kind gesture of thirty five minutes of commercials.....One last thing if not to much to ask. FORBID CHILDREN
during certain hours. Why do I have to listen to children screaming no matter what? Have some EXCLUSIVE hours for FAMILIES, restaurants should do the same!

FILM RELATED ISSUES FOLLOW UP

When I watch TV from SPAIN, regarding the subject, it is
really sad to be aware of the incredible, bright, intelligent film industry
in: Australia, China, Japan, India and Spain. There may be others but
one has to stop somewhere. The pertinent thing is, what is the point of
making great films (artsy or not) if the MEDIOCRE, for the populace HOLLYWOOD industry, dominates somehow, has a monopoly on the theaters where films are shown.

The situation is so bad that I went only 3 times last year, to watch,
'The Informant',' Avatar' and some piece of shit, 'Transformers'. I am
not an expert, but I have watched over two thousand in the last ten years.
Mostly when I was in Brooklyn with 3 video stores within two blocks.

Back to the studio, when I see the people making great films discussing their effort, always lacking money, with too much creativity, to find venues to show their work, the question arrives quickly, when will people in the trade start building/renting spaces to show it? The commercial sector is not going to do it...after all, profits is their only concern..What are they waiting for?

MISCELLANEOUS RANT

I stopped my ecotourist strolls some time ago. I got tired of the dirty, weedy, uneven, cracked sidewalks. Or the cars parked on them, making Puercorico the CAPITAL of the architectural barriers in FIVE CONTINENTS.

The highways and roads are pretty much like a MOONSCAPE, but not with the beauty of the light, but the texture, craters, covered without compacting or leveling the surface. Even in high falutin places where one
would expect a little sophistication in this regard.

The roads, highways in the METRO AREA of San Juan have not been paved correctly in the last thirty years! Believe it or not. One, may speculate if the almost illiterate politicians go to work by helicopter, or
boat, since they do not notice....That is why being an auto mechanic here is just wonderful.

The water closets in EVERY public beach and recreational spaces are a vile shame and the responsible should be whipped in public.

The amount of abandoned buildings is a real trip. On the other hand, tropical sky scrappers are coming up like spores, without any possible,
real buyer at hand.

BEER ISSUES

If you enjoy one in the tropical heat or the coolest coasts of Ireland to name one, you will certainly have a sad encounter with our reality.
Down these primitive Puerco Rican latitudes, there are 4 stinking beers in 95 out of 100 places: Coors, Budweiser, Medalla and Heineken. That is our wide spectrum in the island. On top, some ridiculous laws forbid more than 10/12 ounces per bottle/can.

If you are fortunate, in the metro area, some supermarkets have some quality, from far away places ones, for an arm and a leg. Why can't we have affordable good beer here? Other civilized countries do.

ISSUES OF WINE

PRETENTIOUS come to mind when looking at the wine scene in the isle.

THERE IS one foreign jester that regularly writes about wines in one of the local newspapers. It is as if every islander drinks thirty gallons
of red, white, or rose a year, can tell the difference between pinot or shiraz (to name two) when in reality, only a certain minuscule segment of the population will engage in this activity. As you know, it has to do with budget, knowledge and taste. I prefer the drinking...

I confess certain weakness for those of Australia, Chile and Argentina.
When in Queens, New York there was Romanian and Yugoslavian reds at budget prices I really enjoyable. I believe there is a lot of crap among
people in the wine industry. That is why not many people over here are into them.. My rule is ten bucks or less a bottle, always red, from those countries mentioned. Wine is not rocket science even though the jerks
in the industry, seem always happy to complicate the activity...

As you see from this rough sketch, in my view, the quality of living in Puerco Rico is very slim. The little things that make life pleasurable do not exist nor are they available.. Not even a park or garden, worth of mentioning in the Metro Area. It is my perspective, and suggest you look
around yours...Are you happy with your surroundings?

I try to improve mine as I go along, but can not be smiling at the scenery since there is very little hope to improve this noisy, dirty valley of tears. Time to go....

END OF THE YEAR BONUS FOR HAPPY ISLANDER CAMPERS.

CANHO MARTIN PENHA
SANTURCE

The JERKS of the G8 Community, better start repairing the ugly plastic
covers placed on the bridge columns to hide the robbery of the art deco
lamps, since they are falling apart as I predicted ten months ago.

The Scubba Doggs fools into the cleaning of beaches/sand, to start a campaign against the AAA, the government entity polluting salty and
fresh water with raw sewage for the last four decades. FREE ECHOLI BEACHES FOR ALL, should be the motto/slogan.

LAME DUCKS BLOG GUILD

IT IS ALL RIGHT if you insist on wrapping yourself in the flag, but do not
expect any sympathy if what you write is just like that QUE PASA traveling
magazine for tourism.

If there are four newspapers, I do not see why SO many compatriots are into the analysis of what others with nothing better to do, write about with similar identical views, expressed in almost the same exact
creativity of the rest. Later they scratch each other backs and topping it with prizes of all kinds, a classical joke, Until then...

CONGRATULATIONS! SWITZERLAND FRANCE ISRAEL in 2009

2009-12-26T09:23:00.000-08:00

WHEN I WAS a young lad of twelve, I used to sympathize with those poor
souls caught in two waters, the Palestinians. Yaser Arafat was one among my characters of admiration, along with Castro and that marketing icon Che Guevara. I knew about Bader Meinhoff or whatever, those in Japan really oddballs, with some political agenda.

As I get closer to my six decade, I
want to end 2009 with some imaginary fireworks, please bear up with
me. I you are one of those puercoricans wrapped in the flag what I will write now may/may not offend you...But ask me if I care.....haja bilingual laugh..

Even though there are no fans of yours truly in these countries, I reiterate my congratulations for their rejection of MINARETS!
Screw them and you if you are one of those academicians like minded
fellows thinking in universal principles of utopia, I do not. The minarets and those medieval followers of that religion causing all the significant wars on earth now/the recent past/and the future.

DURING 9/11 I was a state certified simultaneous interpreter/sight translator for the state of New York, the whole trip took place before
I had climbed up the stairs in the Canal St. station to go to work at
111 Centre St, in Manhattan. I left the city a year later, returning to
this piece of shit island, where somehow imagination died and everyone
is into some scam to rob the USA, or writing comments defending the culprits.

There is no place for Islam zealots in our Western Cultures. Think of the amount of those arrested in terrorists acts in England and Spain. The amount of innocent killed in India, Pakistan, Indonesia and Philippines.
This irrational fanatics should stay home or sent home when uncomfortable with western views/civil customs.

That is why I think is time to congratulate those who have placed a stop to this hordes. No minarets in Switzerland! Why emigrant riff raff, legally or
illegally, (I was once an emigrant) should impose upon countries offering 'a better life for their children', accepting/tolerating/protecting them, their medieval, irrational theological views? Screw them and you too if you think differently or think yourself more intelligent/educated
because you believe, still that USA is the devil. Or if even worse, you think I am racist or xenophobic!

SAME FOR FRANCE! NO RAGS on girls' heads in schools! I do not give a damn about religious freedom. That is a bunch of crap, keep your religion
private, in your mother country. Particularly in ANY country giving you asylum. What I observe from too many migrants everywhere is begging
with a shotgun. Screw you and your religion, ANY religion. If you are to
be the devils advocate start a discussion, women in ANY religion.

Long live ISRAEL. When it was created through those really amazing events in 1948, the Palestinians suffered. They lost territory,
and their belongings, what they had, becoming refugees in their own land. But think of it. Historically, the Hebrews had their butts kicked also, unfairly. Think of SPAIN, to name just one of the countries who stole all they had moons ago.

NOW TO PUT AN END to this peculiar post... I declare: ISRAEL is the only antidote to this Islamic bubonic plague of kill and maim.
When pondering without much theoretical frames, the Palestinians and
the Arabs are not really interested in solving the matter. USA is part of
the puzzle, but not the only one.

FINAL WORDS. When the HEBBES IN ISRAEL defended themselves against the blind, blindfolded civilian rocket attacks from HAMAS or
Al Fatah, all the puercorican fools and
the LAME DUCKS BLOG GUILD in Puerto Rico, backed up them Palestinians who can not shoot strait! I DID NOT. Right now, the only spearhead of western values evil/not so against the barbaric Islamic
tide is Israel.

But I do not like all Jews. To be honest, I have an intense dislike of some
hebbes from Brooklyn, NY. Particularly, the ones dressed as penguins.
Saul Below, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Seinfeld, Larry David, pastrami on
rye, corned beef and root beer, are are fine with me. I met quite a few
New York Hebrews finding them agreeable and tolerant. However, I can
not stand Woody Allen, that mentally disturbed freak... But he wrote
something clever moons ago.. Somewhat original: "Masturbation is the best sex, because is sex with the one I love". Nice end, ah? Certainly
odd when considering the first paragraph, but I brought the story home. Time to go...

HORTICULTURAL FUN AND TRICKS OF THE TRADE

2009-12-22T03:25:00.000-08:00

I HAVE EXCHANGED words, sentences with this authority on vines from a hells hole out of Africa, Reunion Island, off the coast of Mauritius (got ATLAS?) through a great site, Dave's garden.com for some time now. Everything went fine until he, a fan of Heliconias, Gingers and such, wrote a nice article about the beauty and pleasure of cultivating these species.

I the humble contrarian placed a one sentence rebuttal with a picture of my old, dear and disappeared garden in Bayamon. In it, the fundamental essence of my gardening practices were established succinctly. One should not plant ANY of those mentioned, unless you have a humongous garden, because the invasive root system will leave you without any garden at all, think KUDZU.

JJacques response? "I do not mind cutting off some roots or leaves when necessary. Isn't that
part of gardening?"

I am sorry fellow gardeners if you agree with this far away professional. When there are age,
physical and health conditions the picture is different. Think of joints, knees, back, neck arms,
and the use of tools to perform the cutting, the kneeling position. Heat, sweat and on and on.
GARDENING IS FOR FUN! At least that is the way I practice it. ANY plant that becomes a pain
in the ass with disease, too bushy is gone, soon or later.

My judgment is not arbitrary. I need a good cushion or seat to perform simple shores such as
weeding, gloves and hat. That is my reality, what my body allows me to do. However, even if I was younger my stance will be the same because anything that is a pain, takes away the excitement, the good feeling of gardening with flora and fauna in mind. That is why hedges,
lawns and palms are out the question.

When planting Bouganvilleas for beauty and security bought or propagated by yourself, let them grow for two/three months in the pot . Watch the growth pattern, the branch scaffolding. Thinking always of the space where it will be planted. Lets say a corner.

In my case, I allowed one of the branches to grow almost to twenty feet. It was tied to the metal fence with fabric, not a string. The side branches on top are allowed to grow
as they please over a wire trellis, going from the fence to the security decorative iron
works on the windows. Since the branches tend to drop, I am not a SLAVE of the pruning for this simple reason.

Another advantage is that I have no excessive organic waste as a result, or being pricked with the multiple, hard thorns that this bush is known for, or having to be on
top of it to keep it the way I WANT, 12 times or more a year. Plants should be allowed to do what they wish, if you can not understand that, do not be a fool, get rid of it or change it to a suitable place. Remember how this started? Watch the way it grows in the pot, that will give you a little clue of the tendencies later.

If you drink coffee daily at least once, you could get a pound or more of coffee grounds
for compost, plus the garlic, onion, pepper, skins every ten days. That amounts to thirty six pounds a year. Add all the dry leaves you sweep daily from your garden and you could reach fifty pounds of your own compost, without much difficulty. Great
savings for your pocket and a healthier, better looking garden.

Compost tea anyone? In some sort of burlap sack put some green/dry organic mater
in a five gallon recipient for twenty four hours. The color and smell will tell you the diluting proportions.. I get usually twenty five, or thirty in total to be sprayed on the
foliage...IF you go to the web and see the scams requiring you to buy this and that to
make compost tea you will never even consider it. However, it is really useful and simple my way. Since I have not burned any of my collection, remember 120 species?
I can recommend this method. Diluting is the secret. Making that almost brown water lighter...

The time to go anecdote...I was the groundskeeper of the Luis Munhoz Marin Foundation and Parque Donha Ines, that is how I know so much of these thieves,
white collar/ecological criminals...There was ginger/heliconias everywhere.. Mentally
retarded people plant without thinking ahead...Well, one day as I was cutting off the
dry leaves from some muder sucking ginger, I got distracted and even with my glasses
the tip of one ginger leaf hit my eye or the other way around. I was fortunate and was left just with the intense pain/irritation, but I could have lost one...Fuck gingers/heliconias..time to go....

THE GARDEN MYSELF THE FAMILY

2009-12-20T03:50:00.000-08:00

BESIDES the identity of the collection members with their botanical names it is also
useful to know the family. When you do it, with the appropriate reference, you may discover that behind intuition, there are patterns of taste, selection that
may pass unnoticed while you collect, buy or exchange plants.

With that intention only I will share some of mine. On the other hand, one who takes
gardening seriously should have some notions on the subject for the hell of it. You
never know when you will encounter some environmentalist fool or a PhD fool such as
A. Areces Mallea, the intellectual culprit of Parque Donha Ines, thinking they got the truth grabbed by the tail when in reality
they are pet symbols jack asses regarding academic/academician ignorance/destruction of nature with 'noble' or worse, intentions to save species in what else? Danger of extinction.

ACANTHACEAE
Asystacia gangetica
Barleria repens
Thumbergia alata/erecta

APOCYNACEAE
Allamanda cathartica
Plumeria rubra/alba
Thevetia peruviana

ASTERACEAE
Cosmos sulphureous
Wedelica trilobata

CONVULVULACEAE
Merremia quinquefolia
Ipomoea alba/quamoclit

EUFPHORBIACEAE
Jathopha Gossyfolia
Manihot esculenta

FABACEAE
Calliandra haemathocephala
Clitoria ternatea
Bauhinia monandra/tomentosa
Pithelobium dulce
Tamarindus indica

SOLANACEAE
Brunfelsia pauciflora
Cestrum diurnum
Datura stramonium

AMARILLIDACEAE
Crinum
Eucharis amazonica
Proiphys amboinensis
Scadoxus
Tulbagia violacea
Zeprhyrantes nelsoni/citrina

AGAVACEAE
Aloe vera
Dracaena marginata
Sanseveria trifasciata/tuberosa

LILIACEAE
Asparagus sprengeri/densiflorus
Gloriosa rothschildiana
Hemerocallis

IF YOU live in Puerco Rico, you may confirm some of the arguments presented here. The PhD's masterpiece, in highway 877 to Trujillo Alto. Go. Visit. Enquire. Request
the inventory or soil analysis, trees measurements when planted, and now for example. OR or try to get any information from their primitive/ordinary web site without any inventory or meaningful photos/back ground information of what has been done.

One thing is remarkable, the STUPIDITY demonstrated in their actions with the planting, design and else, goes beyond what one, could imagine. They have planted a hemorrhage of PALMS at tree feet from each other in bunches. You
can witness it from the side walk. Check them out: Parque Donha Ines/Fundacion Luis Munhoz Marin: http://www. flmm.org, 787-755-4506, ask for Zuleika/Julio. Where stupidity propagates as by spores funded by private and public moneys.

Finally, after this healthy 40 months old unrebutted rant, I declare the cool season between October/February the most attractive down my garden. Everyone is blooming, and on the edible gardening, the Carica papaya has three candidates four inches long...

Time to go...With a few words of appreciation to those readers that consistently dropped by this more humble than ever blog. jaha bilingual laugh...I would add the
humblest blog in the world, but that would be stretching it just a little.

Lets 'save' the environment planting correctly, taken care systematically of trees in the
urban contexts everywhere. I believe these spaces are the ones in precarious need to
be developed. For aesthetics and logical reasons, to balance a little bit the destruction 24/7, of biofoolish cultists and Housing Developers of the World. Time to go....

FILM BONUS REVIEW

AVATAR

For those readers that
are truly environmentalists or
the make believe kind, the majority.

The incredible story, flying mountains
is believable all the time, something unusual.

If you remember Vietnam, how those strong
willed people defeated France/USA without an air force,
some memories may return. I have them every time I listen
to that peculiar helicopter flapping sound.

AVATAR
will become a cult film.

Go an check it out...
or visit
Wikipedia
for more info.

OF WARS WITHOUT PURPOSE

2009-12-18T04:02:00.000-08:00

HOW CAN anyone forget those Drug Wars in Colombia, Pablo Escobar for example, during the 90's. Now it is Mexico's turn. However, in the first case, the atrocities were of much originality and lots of bad press around the world. In the second, Ciudad Juarez, I see no imagination, creativity. It is just shooting at everything in sight, with more dead in a year, than USA casualties in those pointless wars in Afghanistan, Irak, and those that certainly will develop. Arms factories can not remain idle.

The cause of these wars is the need to plant, pack, distribute and sell MARIJUANA
by the segment of the market producers in the third world and the absurd rejection of the governments of those countries with most consumers: USA/Europe. Some times the wars are among producers themselves to have a greater percentage of the market. All the time is foreign governments trying to stop the staple to reach their shores. To put things in perspective, some excerpts from an article in a book that was recommended in the past.

Marijuana

CANNABIS SATIVA
BY
Amy Stewart

Wicked Plants
Algonquin Books

Cannabis has been used by humans for at least five thousand years and regulated or
banned for the last seventy. Hemp fibers (from varieties of cannabis that contain very
little THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, and are therefore useless as a drug) have been found in cave dwelling excavations throughout Asia. The Roman physician Dioscorides mentioned the plant's medicinal properties in his medical guide De
Materia medica in AD 70. Its use spread to India throughout Europe, and eventually
to the New World, where early settlers grew it as an economically useful fiber crop. Early drafts of the Declaration of Independence were written on hemp paper. It was used in early patent medications and even sold in Manhattan as a candy from about
1864 to 1900. "Arabian Gunje of Enchantment", the candy was called. "A most pleasurable and harmless stimulant".

Some historians suggest that the drive to outlaw cannabis in the early twentieth century came out of the culture wars. Recreational marijuana use was popular among
jazz musicians, artists, writers, and other ne'er-do-wells. Its use was regulated, but not banned, by the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act. The beginning of the Beat movement may have been the impetus for finally getting this evil weed out of the hands of America's young people. It was outlawed in 1951 as part of the Boggs Act.

Today marijuana use is banned or strictly regulated in most countries throughout the world. In spite of that, surveys by the U.S. Department of Health show that 97 million people age twelve and over or roughly a third of Americans, have used marijuana in their lifetime. Thirty-five million, more than 10 percent of the population, have used
it in the last year. The United Nations estimates that nearly 4 percent of the world's
population, 160 million people consume the drug every year.

When I think of it, having tasted it on and off for a decade in college and later, I believe it is a waste of time, money and effort all the raids, and campaigns against it. The customer is always right. A different approach would have been more constructive. All the people dead, in jail, during the last fifty years are a token of a mistaken position based on twisted
old fashion double standard morality. One that allows in most countries either alcohol, smoking or both, just because they provide taxes.

The criminalization of marijuana brought the availability of cocaine and heroine, plus all the designer drugs for a younger generation most recently. When the government decide to make it legal, getting LOTS of income with taxes, eliminating the silly, bloody wars among the merchandising cartels, there will be more room in jails for other criminals.

Finally California, Oregon and other states are the most important producers of this herbal treat in the USA. MANY cultivate by hydroponics, with really sophisticated light and, ventilation equipment.
There are many varieties, for any taste and budget, just like wine, single
malt or cigars. I am no longer into it for the smell, I have other preferences, but as they say about alcohol in every ad nowadays:
Smoke responsibly...Time to go...

THE ISLANDER ENVIRONMENTAL INTELLIGENTSIA WITH ONE EGG IN THE BASKET

2009-12-16T03:45:00.000-08:00

FORGIVE me for detouring..Now BLOGGER does not allow changes of font or using bold letters, as cute as they look..At any rate.. THE BEST OF 2009 will have to wait since I decided this news in brief, are worthy of mentioning since it is one of those first times in life.

Some months ago I took the initiative to make an inventory of the trees in Ponce de Leon Avenue, from the University of Puerto Rico to Cerra Street,in Miramar, in the the San Juan Metro Area. I counted, identified by botanical names and informed about the one hundred missing trees in empty spaces and the hundred of mutilated ones to the reader.

NOW there were news in the papers about an inventory in PUERTO RICO. A great surprise even though like mine, it will become water and salt. These fifty islander scientists encountered some sort of elk coral in the reefs, in 'danger of extinction', plus one turtle of whatever probably in the same classification. I am more interested in vegetation, however, there is no mention of anything counted on land. This problem, has been discussed here at least ten times. If they can not cover the 3,000 acres in question, why not a hundred? With a model they could give us an idea of what is there on the ground, trees or flying!

The big deal where is it? Right here. I has been mentioned in this blog, the decades custom of letting raw sewage spill into rivers, streams, marshes, sea,ocean and estuaries by the AAA, the government agency responsible for the treatment of used waters.

Another problem for coral reefs is the sediment from the mad HOUSING DEVELOPERS and HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION COMPANIES, public/private, plus the created run off with huge areas covered with concrete/asphalt all over Puerto Rico, USA.

I have been bombarded with emails from GAIA, some environmentalist group recently organized, seemingly another branch from the local contemplative SIERRA CLUB, to do this or that: march, sign petitions, volunteer to care for children and such. I wonder the point
of educating children if the DESTRUCTION of the environment is done for profits, by adults
mostly.

However, when I responded that I may collaborate if they sent me TWO volunteers to perform some GUERRILLA GARDENING correct pruning of some trees close by...They remained deaf,
mute,blind and autistic. There is reluctance from this segment of the population to do
real, pragmatic things for the environment. All is words, words, with the news media
close by.

Even though I have denounced the destruction of 12 acres in Trujillo Alto, Parque Donha Ines/Fundacion Luis Munhoz Marin for the last 40 months, no ONE has said/written a word. In my opinion already expressed now, this futile attempt of saving the NORTHEAST
CORRIDOR is a waste of time for one simple reason. Even if the land/water is SAVED from construction of resorts and such, the surrounding area is already DESTROYED.

Not only that. What is the point of telling the WORLD that some coral reef in danger of
extinction is there, if the AAA has been polluting the WHOLE island with raw sewage for
the last forty years! HOW do you expect anything to survive, to save anything, without addressing this absurd situation as if one thing has no relation with the other?

That is why I can not join any of the foolish groups for the environment here. There is no
understanding of how nature, biodiversity works.., at least I do not see it. No FOCUS,unselfish vision of the collective. When I enquired as I did with mother goose of the lesperians regarding the petition to be offered to the executioner of 007 RN
regarding some late trees: "Something has to be done" were the enlightening words from
the matriarch.

I tell you blind islanders or perhaps blindfolded, get your act together. A band aid here
or there, will not help the cause. The artificial effervescence of marches, silly planting
of trees, never fruit ones, in the wrong contexts without any plan for systematic maintenance is as foolish as doing nothing, since you create more problems than what you
think solved. Now is time to go...

It will be nice if those
nice fellows of the Subba Dogs
persuasion could meditate on this:
The point of clean sand
with echoli in the salty
waters..Palabras con Luz...

BEST OF 2009 IN ENDEMISMO

2009-12-15T03:08:00.000-08:00

The year is about to end with the natural high and lows.. I thank all of
you who dropped by frequently or just once in a while. Be good for
goodness sake.

MUSICAL BLOGS 01/04/09

In January, there was a rare article on stereo equipment, for those readers
my age (57). Younger folks may have no idea of what I wrote about, but it will
be good reference to study the way people listened to music in the past. It
was more than plugging an ear phone or just finding the signal in the dial. Smell,
reading, cleaning, and great skill to place the needle without screwing up the lp.
A bonus about the importance of feeding insects is also there.

HORTICULTURE AND INSECTS 01/04/09- 01/11/09

Besides planting, collecting propagating, watching insects at work, useful or not
is a great pastime. I enjoy caterpillars particularly, and do not kill them at
all. Quite the contrary, I adopted a couple recently to avoid sweeping the leaves
from the Frangipanis, with little success. For the first time in 3 decades there
was a snail attack in the garden, mostly after heavy rains. Big ones about a quarter
coin in size..Those I found were flown next door in Concorde fashion, I can not step
on them unless by accident. Somehow, these articles about insects attracted many comments.
Insects are really an addition to a well thought garden. If there are no insects
in your garden, you have got a sterile prairie. When pests make
their entrance, they are received with dish soup/hot sauce spray with the prescribed
frecuency. However lets mention that once or twice, lady bugs appeared to help without
having to call 911. As you may know they eat their enemies, your enemies quickly.

ALL THINGS CONSIDERED OR KILLING FLIES WITH A SLEDGE HAMMER 01/31/09

I am still in January, this may be as long as the Human Rights Declaration..Something
somewhat hilarious since no one pays any mind to it, just as the environment. At any rate,I will call him Pain in the Ass Tony, a neighbor across the street, not of my liking. This jerk with sun burned Syngonium planted at the entrance of his residence, in containers, came to complain about another repugnant neighbor, a pimp looking one, likewise and his many cats. Tony, the stupid fool went to the hardware store. Spent a lot in gravel and concrete pavers..to stop the felines. I did not think of it at the time but he could have placed a net of the chicken wire kind. Nowadays you could find them in plastic, nice and elegant. Stopping the cute ones from entering and pooping on his premises for less that fitty.

I will go now...There are eleven months to choose from. This project is going to be hard.
Picking up the best posts is hard, not because they are my children, but for a simple
reason. MY anger at stupidity, is getting dull, as when under anestesia. What is/are the best? Those with verifiable references, mine or yours? Regarding gardening/horticulture in Puerco Rico, the tropics and four seasons contexts? Or because you in the five continents, distant and far away may have observed the same stupidity in your country?
Or could the best posts could be, in my opinion those with snarky comments as one acute reader put it...If you have one let me know..We shall continue....

DAVID RAMIREZ AFFAIR 02/28/09

THE character in question is landscape management-installer scam artist with whom I worked
for perhaps 3 months. His address in Puerco Rico is 77 Adonis Street, in Alto Apolo,Guaynabo City, a somewhat wealthy neighborhood. This post shares briefly his maintenance skills, his cocaine habit, ripping off his customers, planting contaminated with white flies Ixoras for
example... Besides going to bed with too many of his ugly divorced single mother customers, while I was under the tropical heat weeding! A real trip that shows exactly the parameters of landscaping practices in Puerco Rico, witnessed by yours truly..As we say for a token one button suffices.

REFRIED HIPPIES o3/02/09

This March post, is clear in terms of what is happening in many sectors of the edible gardening fads in Puerco Rico..Imagine that, paying fifty bucks, to be taught how to plant
tomatoes,lettuce and such and having to work on top as a VOLUNTEER, believe it or not.
I am under the impression when I visit their blogs, that part of that gardening is also
spiced with GANJA, nothing wrong with that...but why not be honest about it? Smoke, snort,
acid is cool in these quarters, but lets not be a hypocrite about any of it...
Time to go..NINE MONTHS TO GO.

GARDENING BY THE YARD

2009-12-11T03:43:00.000-08:00

IT HAS BEEN raining on and off at night, for the last fifteen days. It is nice for not having to irrigate. However, the lemon tree in the south continues with leaf miners or whatever comes along, requiring constant monitoring, a pain in the neck. Spraying, watching, spraying.

The Carica papaya is already on its way to the first crop. Notice to the uninitiated you
need a male and female tree if you want to get some fruit. The flowers are handsome, white and hard, not the typical flower in that sense.. This tree is one of 3 originally
planted from seed in the south side, about ten months ago. It measures about thirteen
feet. One passed away with some disease.

The grafted lemon in the south side, is about to offer the second crop, something unexpected, since as some readers may know, I am was not into the edible bag until recently. If I had to become a farmer, orchards will be my thing.

I remember the first time I saw peaches/apples in in New England. What a trip, to
see those fruits hanging from branches. After all, I was almost thirty years old. Before that, all those fruits from temperate climates were seen, appreciated in the supermarket. For that reason many children in USA, who have only seen chickens in the refrigerators, believe they are borne and grown like that, until they see one with feathers.

Going back to our patio. A new Ipomoea was discovered yesterday while resting after
the daily clean up. It has yellow flowers and is the only one you may encounter here(Puerco Rico) in the wild. For that reason it takes a special ranking among the rest. Everyone else is pink, purple or white with different shades/intensity.

The process of eliminating Bejuco de Puerco and Wedelia trilobata continues. They
will be exiled/eliminated for their irritating habit of leaving their assigned premises
getting off the garden limits. It is not easy, a real headache. For this reason if you are
one of those with a garden in an acre or close, be more careful than I. In such a space
I do not see how you could eliminate this kind of vine/ground cover.

Two new inductees will appear in the OVER ONE HUNDRED CLUB: Euphorbia
cetinifolia, tirucalli. The Ipomoea will enter once the botanical is found. Even though
it may seem that I abandon the garden to get into the writing, mentioning things that
are/are not related to horticulture, I check it twice a day. Plant/transplant/weed,
irrigate, prune/trim when I have too. Contrary to other blogs, I do not feel why the
whole has to deal with this kind of activity. If one practices horticulture seriously many things are implicitly there, there is no other way.

I prefer, however to practice my critical skills constantly from memory moons ago or
recent events that I witness on my strolls, and that is how we are leaving today.

VERY STUPID
GARDENING ACTIVITIES

Some may remember the olmec Mexican indian
Gabriela Ocampo, the wife of that other character
Areces Mallea, Phd.

Check this out.

Even though she is still claiming to be an 'agronomist'
not even having a $19.99 elementary school soil acidity analysis
kit in her office, when anxiety ridden, she will visit their
nursery to do some pruning.

Her victims were tens if not hundred of Bursera busaris.
You should know that no tree should be pruned before reaching
the first of age.

When you do, you destroy the scaffold/architecture.

In consequence you get a top heavy tree that will bend
permanently towards the ground. That is cool if you
have a Weeping willow, or Callistemon, their natural
form.

This idiot mutilated more trees that I could count daily.
Then she will religiously place tutors to each. Unfortunately,
the mentally challenged aboriginal will leave the strings so tight that the tree will
not swing. The reason why a tutor should
leave some room for the tree to move with the wind is to develop
roots for resistance.

Finally, Wilfredo a neighbor two blocks up the street. Somehow,
he has become Farrukito's pal , a character mentioned here in the beginning,
some time ago..

This guy will start mutilating with a DULL machete everything in front
of their ugly, cat poop smelling residence.
Those branches refusing the dull machete are snapped by hand and
dropped in the sidewalk. He kept on going for about
ninety minutes.

Even though there are FOUR big trash cans in front
of his EYES, behind the low fence separating the property from the sidewalk.
When I mentioned it, he put that face of
God, how stupid can one be?
Time to go.

ARE YOU INTO THE BIOFOOLS DREAM? OR THE HYBRID CARS?

2009-12-10T02:56:00.000-08:00

I REMEMBER reading a whole page article in one of our news shoppers moons ago when the
BIO FUELS BANDWAGON took off with corn with lightning speed. It was written by some recent
engineering graduate. When I wrote to this paper personality with my not soft at all comments,
she inquired as to if I was angry. I declared that if the government of Puerco Rico, can not
construct/maintain a leveled gutter, sidewalk, highway or road, why would any fool write an
article about the possibilities of building any kind of sophisticated refinery to manufacture
whatever.

Now you, well read/not at all, thinker or not, researching on your own or not, believing in god or not,
may have noticed the great issues of the environment for some time now: Global Warming and C02. A film crew shoots some bears, sea lions in their habitats, maybe a couple hundred of Inuits and preach about
how global warming is melting their environment. Or those communities of islanders living in below sea level territory, moving to higher grounds, or planning to do so....

Since the reality is there, I see it, I can not say the melting and increased sea level is imaginary, a farce. Same
goes with my blog, with the pictures of landscape installation/maintenance in Puerco Rico. You may not agree with my dislocated English, spelling mistakes, paragraph construction, you name it, but the pictures do not lie. I reiterate this is not perception of notions being portrayed here
is REAL, therefore any other focus on these issues suck. Now is time to wonder when exactly did the propaganda for biofools, (will see about my spelling soon), global warming and C02 started?

Was it when the price of oil was at its highest? Was it before the European, USA and other economies based on greed, real estate/banking scams came tumbling down like those well
known California avalanches during the rainy season? Was it when India and China economies were at the top their financial peak? Is it a way of slowing down this two countries, considering
the intention of paying for polluting?

Think about it...Now the simple one BIO FOOLS are really amusing since to manufacture a gallon
of ethanol requires 3 gallons of water. I do not see how that is going to be worked out. What about the byproducts? Do they pollute, create waste, will be recycled?

Jathropha seeds, oil palms, coconut oils, algae, sugar cane, is amazing how the imagination works to create fuel, or biofools. But not food. I have seen in Indonesia areas left bare the size
of Puerto Rico 100 miles X 35, to plant palms to create oil with this intention. There goes the ecology, biodiversity, orangutans, nature, water, and everything really.

But I find very irritating this worldwide stupidity, thank god not a monopoly of Puercoricans.
To create any biofool, apparently electricity is required, huge amounts of it. Will it come from
aeolic energy, photovoltaic? OR just electricity from OIL? And the water? What is the real
cost to NATURE, how do you know that if used in cars or buses it will be of any help?

I think it is a bunch of crap like religions, or the use of them to blow people in pieces with a promise of heaven.. Hybrid cars are pretty much in the same wave. Fifty four miles a gallon
claim our friendly people from Toyota. Why do people need to DRIVE at all, what were trains
created for? Buses? Where will the electricity to charge those vehicles in the comfort of your
house will come from? Oil, bio fuels, aeolic/ocean, photovoltaic energy? I think everyjuan
is being fooled as in BIOFOOLS, for nothing since there is going to be pollution one way
or the other. Now with the CO2 who is going to be the enforcer of ANY treaty? The United Nations? Words, words, and promises.. Time to go....

CULTURES OF CAPSICUM

2009-12-08T06:36:00.000-08:00

DURING MY STAY in New York, last address: 736 W 186 St.
in Manhattan, off Broadway, I was able to improve my notions
of gastronomy. If you like to taste anything to drink or ingest
from ANY place on earth, this city is the place to visit. Wine,
beer, hard liquor, including Jamaican ginger beer. That is the only
city one may find anything from almost anywhere, to satisfy the crude or sophisticated palate.

In the mentioned borough foods of Cuba, Puerto Rico, China and
that of SPAIN, perhaps the best, is found. I remind the reader that
the Iberian Peninsula was our original mother country, there fore
some inclination as to their superior gastronomy and
the reputation of EL BULLI, may show. You do not have to travel any further.

All the above have one thing in common, RICE, as the essence
of the offer. In all, CAPSICUM, or hot sauce, pique is part of the
equation, except the last. Even if you like noodles/pasta as in the most populated country on earth, the hot, is an option. I do not know of any
cuisine with this variety in that regard.

The Mexican offer for this type of food is better, wider in Brooklyn, particularly in Park Slope. One can enjoy all that is eaten in the country with authenticity, including Mole Rojo/Verde. These are based in corn or maize. The travels of this grain started shortly after the encounter of two cultures or Discovery, take your pick, I do not care. Maize, tomatoes, peppers, and beans are the foundation of these foods that have conquered America the country, far beyond the impact of the twelve million immigrants legals or else in USA. Their beers: Modelo, Dos Equis or XX, are wonderful.

If you are in the Indian, Pakistani mood, really hot and original style,
you have to take the 7 train, also known as the Orient Express
for the fragrance of CURRY that many passengers carry within,
and the huge amount of Koreans, Chinese and else traveling
back and forth. 37th Avenue is your stop. You will be pleasantly
surprised to the incredible wide offer of restaurants and
vegetable shops in that neighborhood.

However, if your mood is into somewhat bland/dull Peruvian, and other
South American cooking styles, (except that of Colombia), get
off in 82nd St. in Queens, in my opinion the ugliest borough.
Besides their recipes, bringing memories of
Puerco Rico, their coffee, pastries, music, wise use of the Spanish,
language, is a pleasant, warm experience. Viva Cali, Chipi Chape y Yumbo.

But if you are REALLY into comparative gastronomy you will have
to travel to LOUISIANA. Their most known dishes GUMBO, JAMBALAYA,
have their connection to SPAIN. Paella, for example, is a similar dish to the second in texture, ingredients, recipes but not in the HOT levels thanks to the JALAPENHO peppers, that will certainly make you cry and else, as I did, as soon as these wonderful ingredients hit your palate.

And that is that. I could get into the HOT peppers, cooking competitions
in the USA, as dry rubs, wet, marinated or not, with tomato sauce or not,
vinegar, pepper, curry, cummin for barbecuing meats.. But you dear reader got my drift. Gastronomy/coooking is closely related to horticulture since the ingredients come from a garden or farm. It does not matter if the other fundamental parts of the dish are from fresh water, salty or ground as in meat, two/four legged, hair or feathers.

Another thing very important in both Gastronomy and Horticulture is
patience. One can not rush either one...Time to go...Keep planting
and cooking both are fun...but horticultural results last longer, are
more pleasant than that over estimated activity, sex.....in my intercontinental humble opinion. Time to go...

GOLF IN VIETNAM IN CALIFORNIA, THE GREEN INDUSTRY CRIES WOLF

2009-12-07T02:19:00.000-08:00

I HAVE left no doubts about my intense dislike for any activity that helps the destruction of flora and fauna, slight/heavy. GOLF is perhaps one
of the top activities destroying the environment without any kind of criticism or
awareness from our ENVIRONMENTAL INQUISITION, in Puerco Rico, however,
they are worried about some CORRIDOR that most people do not even know
where the hell it is or too far to visit. World Wide there are others, those who decide
which animal, plant, insect is in danger of extinction...Apparently golf is cool for them. BAN GOLF.

After this intro...According to SETH MYDANS, from the NY TIMES, 20 October 2009,
in the Dai Lai Golf Course in the Vinh Phuc province thousands of people were removed from their farms for its construction. An 18 hole course, consuming 177, 000 cubic feet of water a day. Or enough H20 for 20,000 households. There are 13 established golf courses. You please do the adding...

Think for a moment of your particular country, and follow the steps... It is an outrage
to destroy the environment from scratch, flora, fauna, polluting with herbicide,
fungicide, fertilizer, insecticide, creating pollution with noise, spills of oil/gas, fumes,
and this unjustified water waste with irrigation for the keep up of GRASS. Now stretch your imagination.

How many golf courses are there in Arizona, Nevada, Egypt, Arab Emirates, to name a few? Do you get my drift with this water waste? To watch the cute, little white ball rolling down the smooth, luscious green, even prairie to sink it in a little hole? Golf should be portrayed in the same light as cigarettes since the damage affect others, doing the same for the environment, causing pleasure among the golf players, with nothing in return for nature....except destruction...

BONUS FOR THE FAITHFUL
IN THE MIDDLE

Let me remind you, my concern about the environment covers the whole scheme in Puerco Rico and other places. I have no limits or narrow notions, since nature is a WIDE whole and
I try to leave nothing uncovered, since it is evident.

I keep in touch with that important segment of people working, setting the trends that screw up our surroundings with their stance and landscape maintenance/installations. I do not see why it would be different in your country.

If mistaken, please holler. This excerpt is from 'Landscape Management', the best magazine about the subject. It is very briefly the latest worry from the "Green Industry", which proves my stance. EVERYONE is into their niche, keeping their income in their pocket, screw the environment.

"The CA Department of Water Resources released and updated (MWELO) or Model Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance. It
states all cities in California will have rules to limit the amount of
water used for landscape irrigation by January 2010.

Landscapers and irrigation experts have expressed their concerns about the provisions.

Water budgets for landscape prevention of excessive erosion and irrigation run off
Landscape and irrigation design requirements
Use of recycled water where available

Irrigation audits and scheduled irrigation based on local climate

Their real concern?

" In a real sense this is government dictating what types of landscapes property owners in California will have and how landscape professionals will be providing
services to their customers".
Ron Hall
Rhall @questex.com
Landscape Magazine

EDITORIAL

The Green Industry has created for itself multiple problems from their greed and lack of vision. When there is a lengthy drought they think: irrigation systems, for example. When they design a garden, it should have a pond, a fountain, a fire place for entertaining,
computer irrigation systems, palm trees, hedges and TURF. Some or all the above.
Always looking for the extra buck from the customer.

If the government tells, impose the wealthy or common citizen how
to create a garden for the benefit of the WHOLE community, FLORA AND FAUNA
what is wrong with that? I feel these people protecting their interests and profits
have similar views regarding the right to bear arms. Everyone should have the right to have one to protect their property.. It tell them SCREW YOU.

The environment is OURS, our responsibility. If the state eliminates
all the excesses, corny and tacky installations, wasteful of water and requiring
a lot of polluting maintenance, screw them...From now on waste will be controlled. Now is time to go....

LATE EDITION

OTHER VERY STUPID ACTIVITIES
In cold Europe, the use of water to create snow
to allow the fools to go skying and snow boarding.

Yachting, have you noticed the bluish diesel floating around
any marinas?

Any type of motorcycle and car racing. Have you seen those big
as football stadiums cruisers in the ocean? Where do you think
they throw their multiple kinds of garbage..

WHY IN PUERTO RICO EVERY INSTALLATION STINKS

2009-12-05T01:02:00.000-08:00

IF YOU GET the feeling while reading that somehow you have read this before, you
may be right, however this time I will be more specific.. The ugliness surrounding me
is a permanent stone in my shoe. No where to look except my space. One tries
to see a little beauty here or there, stretching unsuccessfully the imagination and the good will to the limit.

The concept of composition has been mentioned. You know, placing the vegetation as the painter places the objects in a picture. Symmetry, perspective,
depth, contrasts of texture, color, size, and so on...The village idiots into this field
of work (landscape management/installation) evidently do not know, comprehend the concept at all or they do and do not have the plants to create the effect.. I stopped thinking about it, its no point.

editors note

To leave no doubts for the
reader of what the garden
should be, its fundamentals, according to your
humble servant and people
who know more,
here we go.

Tropical Ornamentals
A Guide
by
W. Arthur Whistler

This is the only book you need for reference when working/identifying tropicals. I would add vegetation that you could find in reputable nurseries, (there is none in
the San Juan Metro Area) or in the country side, or by seed catalogs. If you can not
propagate your options will always be limited.

"Hedge plants are shrubs, or small trees or vines trimmed to be shrubs, that serve as
a physical barrier or fence. Hedge plants can have colorful leaves, or may be covered with colorful flowers. Other may have neither colorful leaves nor flowers but have dense, attractive green foliage that produces a desirable form. The presence of thorns is also sometimes a desirable quality of hedge plants, particularly if the hedge
is meant to inhibit passage.

Screen plants are similar to hedge plants but are more of a visual barrier than a physical barrier, for example blocking the view of an unsightly building or lights
for traffic.

Foundation plants are similar to hedges and screens but are planted at the bases of
buildings to blend them into their surroundings.

Border plants are similar in function but are usually lower in stature and are planted
along the edge of another kind of plant such as a hedge, covering the often relatively
barren shrub bases. Border around areas of ground cover or flower beds provide
a contrasting boundary.

Ground cover plants are herbs or low shrubs usually less than 50cm high (20 in)
used to cover an area, either for providing attractive, low dense vegetation or to inhibit weed growth. Ground covers may have beautiful foliage, or if colors is desired , then species with attractive flowers or colorful leaves are used.

Vines or plants that can be trained as vines can be used to cover fences, walls,
trellises and arches. The difference between a shrub and a vine is not always
clear. If a shrub tends to have weak, spreading branches is referred to as scandent.
Woody vines are called lianas and have the advantage over herbaceous vines, especially annual herbaceous vines, of growing higher and being longer lived."

Now if you got these elements of the whole clear imagine if while applying them
you confuse one with the other. IN this isle of the absurd it happens all the time.
Even worse, the same bush, tree or plant is used WRONG a million times.
That is why in Puerto Rico the concrete/asphalt isle we got: Ficus planted as hedges.
Chefferas as ground covers, hedges, screens, with recently acquired Acaliphas for similar intention. A real pain in in your eyes! Like watching a Francis Bacon painting of distorted, dismembered parts constantly in your living room.

Bonus for our
readers in
Finland
and
Yellowknife
Canada
our highest longitudinal
readers.

Want to see it in pictures, here? Move all the way down until you find: TWO LONELY TREES, a picture right side of the blog and move down..Check them out installations in a hotel and the entrance of the Botanical Garden in RIO, really pathetic. ..Almost forgot the book in question is focused (as almost always) for readers in countries with four seasons, but useful for anyjuan! Time to go

A SURREAL COURT ADVENTURE IN THE CONCRETE ASPHALT CAGUAS COUNTRY SIDE

2009-12-03T03:06:00.000-08:00

PERHAPS you may remember the post from 14 November 2009 about that picturesque(concretesque/asphaltesque?), town with the original first name of country. I took, probably the cleanest public space around, the TRAIN, without public water closets, to RIO piedras to catch the Yellow Big Bus. I was fortunate. It was waiting for your humble servant.

It costs $1.50, same as the train. Primitive, comfortable with probably 1 million miles,
this one had no refrigerated air. Thirty seconds after I sat, I noticed this fat, chummy,
fellow missing some front top teeth loud conversation with another fool across the aisle. It
started probably as a COLLECTIVE MONOLOGUE, one of those cultural marks defining
this forsaken culture. It was about music, the typical seasonal Christmas kind. Ramito and Chuito el de Bayamon were mentioned. I am not saying/writing that is only music for this time of the year. It only gets air time on radio/TV after Thanksgiving
the beginning of the buying madness essence of the event.

At any rate, this loud scum bag, after losing his chat pal, made a phone call on similar
subjects and others, for 45 minutes. Almost the whole trip. Another passenger,victim of this national pandemic, exclaimed ALLELUIA, when the mother sucker finally shut up. I got off maybe half a mile from my destiny, I could not take it anymore. The Court Building built thirty years ago. When I attempted my entrance, I was not allowed, since I forgot, going with shorts.

I went to buy some ugly, disgusting blue jeans for ten bucks to enter the damn building four hundred meters away. A kind employee helped me. I left with them
on, he took all the stickers off. Hit the road back to the eight floor to proceed with
my mission. It was eleven am. Thirty minutes later I talk to Ingrid, who went to pick
up the documents. First, she found just one. Went back and found the other. I was
somewhat happy until, at the moment of paying with IRS (the colony one) stamps,
I had only one set instead of two! Her supervisor fault, since she was the one to call
me the day before, to pick them up, making the mistake.

Since it was now 11:45, I had to go out and buy the stamps from the Mexican free lance out doors entrepreneur with a beach umbrella and chair, selling these stamps ($3.o0 for $5.00), in front of the Police Precinct,(built around the same date of the court). for the second time, and wait until 1 pm, to go back to court and get the damn documents.

During the lunch hour I went to walk by those streets of my childhood and later, visited the barber Montanhez (since 1969) and went down Georgetti and Acosta St.
To my annoying surprise the CAGUAS COUNTRY is in a SANTURCE STATE OF MIND. Turdy/turdish raw sewage waters were coming out the pipes intersecting the mentioned streets.

Santurce and Rio, have neighborhoods with PERMANENT sewage leaks and fountains. Editors Note.

One of my regular oasis is right where this fountain of used H2O, with lots of urea, was
refreshing the pavement, splashing the pedestrians with every car passing as if going from Brisbane to Perth, my official distance example. Also the only environmental
issue mentioned so far. These waters will go straight to the rivers and so on... After one with a chaser went back to court. Got the documents and left. Thank God.

On the way back in the yellow bus, it was now 2:00, I noticed some foreigners that do
not look muck different from us, except for their dark, darker than ours borne sun tan.
Their speech melody is also different, accent is a term not exactly of my licking since yours truly thinks of ACCENT when listening to the gibberish Jamaicans, and US Virgin Island natives sound like with their MOTHER TONGUE. Moving forward
there were lots of trucks, heavy traffic on the way back. One fool is almost run down
in his silly, careless run to catch the bus.

Around two forty five, we arrived to certain stop and many women of the group mentioned were waiting for the bus. They are the health aids, domestics of those
island natives who can afford them. One thing is always striking. These women working, being exploited for peanuts, do not seem worn out or sad, all the contrary.
Their chit chat is peppered with laugh and smiles. Their hips, butts, breasts full
of living energy to share.....At least in my imagination... Time to go... Almost forgot
these people are from La Espanhola. We have to thank them, deeply...Thanks to them
there is PUERTO RICAN RUMS, since we have no sugar cane, the MOLASSES are imported from that island with these (not all) handsome women. I do not really
care about the men...Actually I would send them all back there or to the USA, keeping
just the women...Until then....

2ND EDITORS NOTE

Collective Monologue is a conversation that some
friendly or irate jerk/jerkette starts in a line of
people in a public space, a bank, court.

Or seating down. It consists of stupid,
elementary observations, criticism of the slow
speed of the employees, it is in essence
thoughts expressed aloud, without any
sense of what education/behavior
should be in a public space.

It starts with one fool and
it spreads like the porcine flu.

Sometimes is fun..Often
a pain in the ass/ears.

GOOD NEWS CLOSE TO HOME AND BAD NEWS FOR THE WORLD

2009-11-30T07:33:00.000-08:00

THE GARDEN is hot with flowers:Hibiscus cannabinus, scarlet, Cavalina maritima pink, Bouganvillea pink, Ixora red, Turnera subulata white, ulmiforme, yellow, Cosmos yellow/orange, Thunbergia pauciflora/alata purples, Hibiscus red/pink, Merremia quinquefolia, white, Ipomea quamoclit, red, Tradescantias, pink, Calliandra, red, Antigonon lectopus, pink and Cestrum diurnum, white.

In addition, the Christmas season guest stars: Poinsettias, red, white and pink.
As stated before, these are hybrids brought home by the other significant one. Created by lame nurseries, designed to last tree months at the most. A real pleasure to enjoy all these flowers. Early in the morning, going out and see this rainbow of white, red, yellow, orange, pink, in the garden four cardinal points.... Plus the bonus of the hummingbirds, Spindalis, black beetles and bees making their daily visits for nectar.

But the environment is not just what I have around, close by in Puerto Rico,
the concrete asphalt isle. The problem of lack of safe water is creating great health problems in many places. Meanwhile "saving the environment for future generations" that mantra repeated over and over by environmentalists in our backyard, should be put in perspective. It makes less and less sense when puting the picture in focus. There is a need for adequate water, sanitation and hygiene in many places of the world. The information is from the New York Times, 10 November 2009, page A19. Visit, www. wateradvocates.org

They aren't the only ones who don't get safe water
Thyphoid Fever
200,000 deaths

Campylobacter
100 million cases annually

Cholera
3 million cases annually
120,000 deaths

Rotavirus
2 million hospitalized annually
500, 000 deaths

Trachoma
80 million active cases
6 million people blinded

Hepatitis A
1 million infections annually

Bacillary disentery
165 million cases anually
600, 000 deaths

Amoebic Dysentery
50 million infections annually
100,000 deaths

Enterotoxigenic E Coli Strains
200 million cases anually
170,000 deaths

The last one on this list, affects Puerto Rico directly since the AAA, the government agency in charge of water treatment, has maintained a policy of discharging raw sewage, and used water to the ocean, estuaries and streams along the island for decades. In consequence, saving the trees, forests or whatever comes to mind, or being more realistic, marching
and signing petitions for one thing, putting aside the other, is a waste
of energy and effort. This problem besides an environmental issue is also
a matter of public health.

Next time you enjoy your complacent trip, ecotourist adventure, be aware
of the amplitude of what saving the environment really means. Cut the mantra, get some focus. Time to go...

SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS?

2009-11-29T03:44:00.000-08:00

THOSE readers who have visited this certainly humble blog, may have noticed that as
an horticultural creative critic, plant collector/propagator I cover the full court and beyond, not for elusive recognition or money. I do enjoy vegetation, nature, my garden, but not for the original reasons.

Then, I was into having the greatest collection, identified with their botanical names,
that differentiates an aficionado from a pro. Aesthetics were of great importance, due to the lame, ridiculous combinations of turf, plants, hedges, palm trees,
trees and bushes, for the last 15 years, used in this god forsaken island in private/public gardens/parks.

The culprits of the absurdity in garden installations are two kinds of jerks predominantly: agronomists and landscape architects. The first group seems incapable
of planting anything except as in edible garden rows. The second does not know a flying fart about plant behavior, growth habits, soil needs, irrigation and surely, aesthetics, as their headquarters in Del Parque St., in Santurce shows. they
just pick them plants up and stick them on the ground. And that's that.

I am moving now into more relevant things beyond this dull isle in this regard
and many others.. On this occasion let me make fun of the imbeciles into the environmental band wagon and their maximum cliche: Lets save the environment for
future generations...I have only scorn for blanket statements such as this, and it
seems that everyone is prone to repeat it like a parrot at every chance or a simultaneous interpeter.

In endemismo, population growth has been mentioned regarding the urgent need
to save the environment/ecology. From my stance, screw FUTURE GENERATIONS, I want to save it for me NOW, for those close to me, even if I disagree with the wordy tribes of the environmental scenario down here, despite their action/inaction, the blindfolds, and obvious lack of VISION.

POPULATION GROWTH

If the average population growth at 1.17%
continues, the population of the earth will
double in 70 years.

The lowest population growth are in
the Pitcairn Isles 0.00
Cuba -0.01

The highest
Liberia 4.50
Maldives 5.57

I do not see how futile attempts to save the environment out of context, will
be of any benefit, except appearing in television interviews, conferences with
government officials who do not give a suck about it, marches and signing
petitions to be brought to the environment EXECUTIONERS.

To finish let
me quote from
Oneworld.net

"The optimum strategy for restraining future population
growth is to provide universal access to sexual and reproductive
health services.

Its importance stems as much from
recognition of women rights as concern about
environmental limits.

Indeed, fulfillment of this goal will do
nothing to alleviate contemporary
habits of excessive consumption."

In my own words, people have to stop
screwing for impregnation accidental or otherwise.
There are too many people on the average on earth,
particularly in the most poor regions, where procreation
is similar to that of rabbits. Lets start having
recreational sex with protection or have no sex
be pure, the environment will appreciate it. Time to go...

FAMILY REPUTATIONS IN NATURE

2009-11-28T03:56:00.000-08:00

WHEN ONE thinks of it, many people will hang themselves, or kill you if they feel their
reputation has suffered or has being injured by words or actions. Some finish with their lives after a fight with their wife, boss, financial woes or pride. I knew one of those men one meets during a life span and leave a deep trace, even when we only had a chance to talk a couple of times.

He worked with the IRS in San Patricio, a vicinity of Guaynabo City. Luis was
a tall, elegant, vibrant voice, nice smile on the arrogant side, gentleman, who fell into

a trap set by some co-workers Ponzi scheme speculators, with accomplices into banking/real estate scams. His pride was intense. On the same day he accepted the charges in court, hung himself while everyone else was asleep. A rare case indeed.

WICKED PLANTS
BY
AMY STEWART

Some time ago I recommended this
book, buy it used if you can, from
Barnes & Noble.

NIGHTSHADE FAMILY
Solanaceae

Nightshades represent some of the best and worst plants human has ever encountered. Potatoes, eggplants, tomatoes and peppers are among the most
respectable members of this family. However, when Europeans settlers first encountered tomatoes, in the New World, they believe them to be poisonous
like the other nightshades they knew. Tomatoes, after all, bear a familial resemblance to their cousin, deadly nightshade, and other dangerous nefarious relatives like the
narcotic mandrake, the evil weed tobacco, and the poisonous and intoxicating henbane, belladona, and datura.

Nightshades have long been viewed with suspicion and distrust. John Smith, a
seventeenth-century philosopher, compared the " congealing vapour that ariseth from sin and vice" to the evil powers of that venemous deadly nightshade, which drives its
cold poison into the understanding of men". In fact, many nightshades contain tropane alkaloids that cause hallucinations, seizures, and deadly comas.

The petunia is also a nightshade, in fact knowing what a petunia flower looks like might just provide a clue for recognizing some other members of this family. Otherwise, an unfamiliar plant that produces small round fruit, and has the general
growth habit of a tomato or eggplant should be viewed with some caution.

FROM HERE TO HOLLYWOOD?

2009-11-26T08:29:00.000-08:00

WRITING the blog has brought great pleasures. Keeping mental sanity in the foolish, dull, society one has to maneuver daily is not easy. Perhaps the anecdote to
follow is idiotic and meaningless but it offers some hope. IDIOTS without vision are in
every continent. However these ones are in USA. www.hometownseeds.com to be more exact.

These mentally challenged individuals stated that: "We enjoy your blog and the information you have in it. We would like to link our site to your blog to increase our traffic. This would help tremendously". The offer? $19.98 worth of seeds, for your intercontinental, humble servant.

I know about seeds. I bought twenty four species, a wild flower mix, from a company
in California, not long ago, mentioned here. The result? Only 3 species germinated after following the instructions. Seeds for template countries do not do well in the tropics. It is a matter of genetics, temperature, length of day light and so on. I told my
friends in hometownseeds, that I would expect twenty fours species, instead of their
offer and ONLY if fifty percent of those seeds germinate, the deal will be on for ninety days.

Their response?" We are sorry. We are a small company, we can not send twenty four species". My reaction? You will remain a small company. Why should I put my reputation endorsing with a link, an unknown enterprise? What is the cost of an
ad in your neck of the woods, local newspaper? Do not waste my time and so long.

A NEW TREND FOR THE HOLIDAYS
THIS POST IS DEDICATED
TO OUR READERS IN

BOLLULLOS DE LA MITACIN
SAGUNTO
GLIDA

IN SPAIN

BARRANCA BERMEJA
CARTAGENA
CALI
MEDELLIN

IN COLOMBIA

TIME TO GO..