HORTICULTURALLY AT RANDOM

YESTERDAY was ecotourism on foot day.. I walked over a two miles round trip to Ashford Ave in el Condado. This area used to have some natural beauty. You know the stereotyped common place: sand and palm trees, once upon a time. Now, better yet, for the last thirty years, this small area with the Atlantic to the north, has been over built. There are so many buildings,( most of them of the Brutality School of ugliness height, size and shape), that one feels trapped in a concrete/asphalt maze, unable to glimpse the ocean tree hundred meters from the sidewalk. Mind you that I was walking.

PUERTO RICANS probably as a result of having two foster mothers, SPAIN and USA,
are prone and loudly at that, to claim our virtues, preferably with a humongous PR flag,
(a copy of the Cuban), or is it the other way around, regarding the beauty, gastronomy, coffee, rum, you name it. Nevertheless when I walk around on the uneven/cracked sidewalks dirty with leaves, dust, soil, garbage, gravel, with light posts, threes in the middle of a four/five feet wide sidewalk I feel no urge to be proud at all. If you are handicapped welcome to the architectural barriers champion of the
world. I feel like I live in jerkland!

But not all is lost my fellow Americans and ultra continental readers, apparently the majority.
Always in the search for new, rare plants, I was able to retrieve a cut stem of a Frangipani, from the San Juan Archbishop Administration Office, with yellowpinkwhite flowers and a pyramidal seed of a very rare tree;Barringtonia asiatica from the front garden of the Federico Hernandez Denton residence in Condado.

The first item from an old tree that spreads over the fence in Baldorioty de Castro Ave, at right here, not far from where it was taken. I know these pictures
stink, since they are not taken with a digital, but that is what the ship brought. At any rate
the Barringtonia asiatica, was a present from a kind gentleman sweeping the sidewalk at the mentioned house. Our conversation started by mentioning the stench of cat poop at the street corner in this well to do vecinity. It is worth mentioning, this house with unique architecture, impressive Zen simplicity in design, well ventilated and the cool shade from the mentioned Coco de Mar . All is perfect, almost,
except the silly twelve square feet patch of turf. I imagine the noise/pollution for maintenance unless a goat does it, or using scissors for such.

I feel is time to finish. Never mentioned it, but when I start writing I look at the whole thing, determine if the length is not overwhelming an that is that. Some blogs are too
short or too long. I try to get the middle of the road on this issue.

To finish for sure and previously known as BONUS for this or that. Plants, dirt, flower
issues follow. The root of some bambusa brought home a while ago has two stems,
the young Bauhinia flowered, they are light pink; planted another Turnera subulata
on the East garden, Rhipsalis planted in a Guerrilla Gardening act next door was stolen, one fushia Bouganvillea was repotted.

No early morning irrigation today. It rained a couple of inches. Until then..