GOOD NEWS CLOSE TO HOME AND BAD NEWS FOR THE WORLD

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?

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

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?

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..

BUILDING BRIDGES WITH NATURE ONE AT A TIME

WHILE KNOCKING off walls built by the village idiots is the goal. I planted a few days
ago the Tamarindus indica, not far from the first tree shown at the right in the pictures
below. I recommend to take advantage of softer soil, easier digging a day or two after it has rained, if you decide to plant anything in the guerrilla gardening manner, as discussed here or in guerrillagardening.com from London.

The mentioned walls are the constant wordy bombardment about global warming, CO2, petitions, marches, conferences to gather and chat, talk and network, crocodile
tears. All this movement, may be fine in the first world, those countries in which democratic principles are respected. Countries where a real state of law exists in which the judicial branch respects and enforces the law. Sorry folks! What we got in Puerto Rico, USA, the isle of concrete asphalt is a is a caricature, a grotesque one, evident in their speeches, writing of laws for the hell of it. LAWS that no one will ever enforce.

That is why I refuse to follow the mass in the environmental talking, make believe, moving in a vacuum from the computer at home or in the office. I reiterate one thing: Education for children regarding the environment is a waste of money and effort since adults, the free enterprise destroys legally, or through bribes, everything that involves it in a short or long run, all Flora/Fauna, water and soil.

THANKSGIVING BONUS
from
Botany for Gardeners
by
Brian Capon

The progress of a plant's growth is a summation of its responses to separate, butinteracting components of the environment in which it is living. The plant may be favored with adequate water and optimum temperatures but be limited in its ability to photosynthesize by inadequate illumination, perhaps because of shading from taller plants or buildings. Another
plant may receive full sunlight, plentiful irrigation and sufficient fertilizer, but still not express
its growth potential because prevailing temperatures are too high or too low. Even if climatic
and soil conditions are ideal, stunting may occur because pathogenic fungi or predatory insects
have invaded the plant. Microorganisms and animals are, indeed environmental factors to be
reckoned with. Other life forms, being ordained components of habitats occupied by plants, exercise both beneficial and harmful effects, as do temperature, rainfall, sunlight, etc.

IT becomes obvious that, out of a host of interacting environmental factors, only one need challenge a plant's tolerances in order to limit its growth. The greater the number of unfavorable conditions, acting in concert, the more profound the effect. That is why, in nature where so many
variables are at work, plants rarely reach their full potential. Happily in a garden, one has the opportunity to improve on a few factors limiting plant development and , consequently, to cultivate larger, healthier specimens than casually occur in the wild.

Plants generally die when too many limiting factors overwhelm their physiological capabilities for survival. Or, on the other hand, they may simply succumb to "old age" processes, principally to a
genetically-programmed deterioration of cells and tissues, called senescence (Latin, "to grow old"). Once this process has been initiated, even the best care cannot save a plant. In annual species, senescence takes place within one year of growth; in biennials, in the second year. In perennial species, senescence of a localized nature occurs in older organs before they die and
are discarded; it takes many years before the process consumes the entire organism.

EDITORS NOTE

As an example, the GAIA guys/gals invited
me ten times to volunteer, for marches, to sign
petitions. I offered an exchange.
Provide me with two volunteers with hand pruners,
to prune correctly guerrilla fashion some trees of the hundreds
available in the Ponce de Leon Avenue.
You guessed right! No response, silence, water and salt.
Time to go.

GARDENING BY THE YARD

A NEW climate phenomenon is now with us, the COLD DROP. I have seen it before in SPAIN, but never here. It is an abrupt brutal rainstorm that could deliver 100 liters in
one square meter in minutes. It has been raining in the San Juan Metro Zone for the last 15 days on and off. Luckily the soil is mostly sand, otherwise it would be a Louisiana like swamp. Another variable is that we are supposed to have cool days/nights and it is not happening. The temperature for the month was broken
recently by five degrees. I imagine it is concrete/asphalt isle warming...

On the vegetation front, the grafted lemon tree is back with flowers. We had a great crop recently and the next already started. The five oranges are not ready yet
but getting there. Never thought of it in the past but lately I am making lemon tea, plus refreshing and easy to make lemon juice. Perhaps consequence of a mild cold thanks to
the rain.

Which reminds me of Frangipanis. Ours are shedding their leaves. It is a little pain in
the neck for a short while, having to sweep them. However, the bright fellow I am noticed Frangipani caterpillars on a tree nearby yesterday on my daily stroll to the new oasis on San Agustin Street, a block from the evil, noisy and polluting Universidad
SAGRADO CORAZON, or sacred cardiovascular muscle. At any rate I secuestered one
of the caterpillars, placing it on the white Frangipani...Lets hope that he survives the rain that just started.. If he does I will get little pellets as manure, and no sweeping of
leaves!

On the garden real estate front, Sanseverias, Hibiscus, Rhoeos, Cacti, and others were
relocated to spaces with more light and or shade. In one hand, in the other plain aesthetics, survival possibilities as with a rare Basil that is now attacked by snails from
what I noticed today. What the heck, such is the interaction in the garden. I placed it
there because it needed more light and space... One Bauhinia, the blakeana type, was
relocated to a new rounded pot...Some Pseuderantemun reticulatum were put out of
commission. There were too many of them.

THE ENVIRONMENT REQUIRES PREACHING AND PRACTICING

HAVE MET quite a few characters in this journey, that began as a critical

view and practice against the fad for endemic flora species from certain
foreigners and natives looking to profit themselves with it. Wrapped in the
flag, as any other marketing campaign it lacked essence, depth and vision.

As I have written in this space, restoring a forest requires an inventory of
flora and fauna. A careful soil analysis. Only after you have completed this
elementary steps, you can state that you are saving this or that, including
the secretly determined extinction candidates, often covered in mysterious
prophesies, at least from my neck of my urban one hundred twenty species
garden surrounded by concrete.

One just have to wonder, who are these jerks counting whatever creature that only
they seem able to see and find in remote, isolated natural environments. What is the
formula? The contradiction is clear. Alberto Areces Mallea, Phd and Gabriela Ocampo came down here, destroyed twelve acres of soil with a huge tractor, without
those elementary steps, without any respect to nature, soil, flora, fauna, the environment or any previous experience in landscape management and installations.

They had as accomplices many island natives (mostly fools), who have never planted a bean in their lives. They believed Mr. Areces and Miss Ocampo, almost science fiction story of creating a park, for endemic species, that now has evolved in their scam artists dream to a "botanical garden" and seed bank or whatever like ideas come to this lunatic, from Cuba. However, what credibility should any one expect from someone guilty of destroying our patrimony, a perfect green space, with trees, bushes, grasses, ground covers, plants, vines, climbers endemic or not. Without inventory and soil analysis.

Why have you chosen this academician, with elephantine ego in an eggshell as scapegoat? You may wonder... The amount of money made among the two, in salaries is about a quarter of a million. Of the twelve acres, one third is covered in asphalt/concrete, with structures, buildings, roads. The paths, not in gravel as logic dictates, but in asphalt.

A hemorrhage of palms, and even worse, these fools planted Kentucky rye and Bermuda grass from seeds. It is a real trip to watch Jesus or David, two employees, in a tractor mowing these hills in 45 degrees. The vehicle sliding sideways, down the slope without traction, another stupidity from the Areces/Ocampo team. Planting turf in almost vertical hills like a sketch from the 3 stooges.

My permanent criticism to these pet symbols of ENVIRONMENTAL STUPIDITY AND IGNORANCE, is even worse, and deeper than what it seems. ANY forest, any
environment exists in a context, not a vacuum. These fools from the beginning have only mentioned TREES, endemic TREES or candidates for extinction. However, a forest is not only about trees. It has birds, insects, reptiles, mammals, birds, microbes, some one can see, others can only be found while looking for them. A forest has fungi, vines, weeds, NATIVE WEEDS, climbers, grass, plants, bushes, FRUIT TREES for birds, other animals. In brief a forest is not JUST TREES, idiots. It is an ecological system, where all kinds of creatures interact, making the environment viable. How could you destroy all that for your egotistical stupidity, ignorance? On top with
those college degrees and academic background Mr. Areces?

Almost finished. The RG Bank, has followed the steps of our eco-criminal
pet symbols. Planting trees left and right, in every imaginary context. I remind them
and every fool thinking the same way, trees in a vacuum do not solve any issues, except among the ignorant or for cosmetic fashion. Start planting trees in a context..

What other creatures are there to benefit from those trees for housing and food? The soil is not the only one benefiting from the trees. Start with the inventories, soil analysis. The environment will appreciate it.

ALMOST MANDATORY
EDITORS NOTE

You in far away parts of the world may have
similar problems or worst.
One thing is certain, it is time to put
the overpopulation growth in the effort
to save the environment. ZERO POPULATION GROWTH,
soon.

The global warming, the CO2, destruction of soil,
water, air in addition to people getting impregnated as rabbits particularly
in poor countries, will only add to the destruction.
It is time to discuss it seriously. I do not care for religion,
therefore if you do, start thinking about a solution.
Practice what you preach.
Not to grow and multiply,
there is no room.