St. Lucia: Segment One - Video - WCVB Boston

St. Lucia: Segment One - Video - WCVB Boston

Click on the link above and see a travel segment from WCVB television Boston that features St. Lucia and Ladera . There are three more segments available that feature all of the island. The woman speaking in the video is Holly my pal and frequent eating companion but it is really her husband Tom who is my food guru at Ladera. I miss them both and I have only been gone two weeks.

I Am Improving

Many times while driving south on the main road toward Vieux Fort I noticed The Bamboo Bar, last week while we were going on plant patrol I asked the driver, Peanut aka The Maniac to watch for the sign and words in the photo. He did not know the place I spoke of as I did not refer to it by the proper name, I only recalled the improving and manure parts. Anyway turns out the story behind the words is a family dispute.

The Bamboo Bar was originally a shop owned by the mother of a Ladera employee. With her passing there began an argument between the brothers and sisters regarding who would inherit the shop. Writing their feeling on the wall in front of the bar is how the victor spoke their peace. I always thought it would be a cool spot to visit.

Passing through the doorway the bottle cap curtain grabbed my attention. A young woman greeted me and eagerly showed me the batik prints that hung on the walls. A couple of locals sat at the bar. The simple shelves held meager stock ; a few Piton beers a bottle of Bounty rum and a jug of homemade spiced rum. Crates of vegetables were stacked on the floor near a small child's table and chair. Lots of local color that's for sure.

Varnishing, waxing and oiling are all part of the natural upkeep at Ladera. Mahogany and cedar are prominently featured from the roof to the poles and wood walls. All of the hand crafted furniture is made on site at the workshop. That is why you frequently see someone stroking and caressing the wood with various liquids to bring out the glow and grain of this marvelous feature.

This stunning tropical flower arrangement was part of a welcoming for Bruce, my husband. He arrived last Monday and the flowers still look great a week later. I have been reading about propagation of various tropical plants, the boss wants to put a greenhouse back up and I might help.

Suite L & The Lizard

Installing landscaping between the view with a room and the actual view I feel like I am sometimes working in a road runner cartoon one wrong step and I am a splat on the valley floor. It would not be a dive but more of a rough tumble down the mountain side. Trimming yesterday Ray pulled on a vine which gave way with his weight on the wrong side and he bounced down a quick 10 feet a hurting waist was the result. I am careful moving about on the mountainside of the rooms not that I don't watch my footing at most times, there are lots of roots and obstacles when working here.

This is one of our projects, an exterior room restoration. We came in after the plumbers and had to hide their pipes, that meant hauling about 10 wheelbarrows of muddy, heavy, clay, pumice and rocky soil by hand up the steps and through the rooms. While I did not haul it up I did do my share of digging the mixture since I drove the golf cart to and from where we removed the soil off a mudslide pile. For this design I used sea stones to build a dry creek bed and Eddie installed additional stones around the splash pool to increase soil retention.

The plants we used with the exception of the palm were all ones that Ray, the head gardener grew from starts and the ground cover purple heart were fresh cuttings. We have been lucky to have had ample rain for the plants since watering is not easy and evaporation and use are rapid.

A spot below a guest suite was left unfinished with the rough earthen wall. The lizard and snake have adorned the area giving it a southwest flavor the boss wanted it kicked up so I added the cactus planters. We don't have to worry as much about watering but I am watching to make sure the cactus get enough sunshine to thrive.

Sunday Brunch

You sense a great day when it begins with a beautiful rainbow and the slow deliberate passage of a pristine cruise ship in the harbor below as you look out to sea. This was the first Sunday brunch at Ladera since hurricane Tomas and it did not disappoint.

















The sun was bright as the old musicians played their gentle, peaceful renditions of traditional Lucian music, the perfect accompaniment for a slow luscious meal. The brunch offers more of a local flair to the cuisine with mac and cheese, coleslaw, pineapple/chicken salad, red beans and rice and fabulous pumpkin gratin. The grill smokes lightly in the corner as you watch the chefs prepare chicken, snapper and barracuda. A giant beef tenderloin grilled to perfection is sliced to order and several sauces are available to enhance its flavor.











Even the plaid skirts that adorn the tables are remnants of times gone by when these plaids were worn by most everyone. The dessert table is filled with chocolate layered cheesecake, fresh local fruits with the most delectable passion fruit halves and a more local version of cheese cake dripping with fresh cocoa sauce.


Below us at the beach at Jalouise a barge labors with imported sand to replace the fine, white sugar sand that has been washed to sea by Tomas. Once the sand at Jalouise was the coarser black sand that is prominent on other parts of St. Lucia.

All In A Weeks Work

Jungle sodding, chop it off the mountain, install it in the garden, instant green.

Spectacular new mahogany wood wall was built to replace hurricane damaged wall.

Lattice triumphs cactus

Gardens are in the rooms as well as outside.

It takes lots of different trade skills rebuilding and repairing the damage caused by hurricane Tomas. The work is inside and out. Plumbers, masons, electricians, carpenters and gardeners working side by side long hours in the tropic sun seven days a week have accomplished the impossible. With a smile and a song we help each other, compliment each other and cheer each other on and this week it has all come to fruition as many hotel workers proudly appeared Wednesday in their finely pressed and beautifully tailored uniforms to greet and serve our first returning guests.

Hypertufa an art form of pressing images into wet cement is displayed in many of the walks and paths at Ladera.

It is great to see the restaurant open, hear the guests comments about the beautiful gardens and peaceful surrounding, we even had a live band softly singing last night as we dined.

Who Hid The Rubber Tree Stump?

Unfortunately I do not have a photo of the rubber tree next to the gazebo, although it was less than 25 years old the mighty tree and roots claimed territory like Napoleon. It provided shade and beauty but had begun chewing the earth, in conquest of all ground, pipes and foundations in its subterranean path. Hurricane winds bent and shoved the trunk spewing leaves and debris in all directions. The removal of the tree not only wounded hearts and souls but left a huge whole in the sky and an ugly stump with multiple above ground roots. Those roots did serve to stabilize the hill where the reception drive gently winds through tropical foliage, but made digging and planting nearly impossible.

Knowing we needed to disguise it was one thing but how to accomplish that task in a reasonable amount of time with a reasonable amount of money and limited materials was a heroic task. Many ideas were kicked around but it was Chef Orlando's concept that was the winner. He suggested using the antique sugar pots and stone to hide the tree skeleton. We had the pots on sight albeit scattered, the crushed stone was easy to obtain but weed barrier, rolls of plastic or other weed blocking fabrics were not readily available. I compromised with the purchase of a 20 x 50' tarp which we cut to fit, the tarp was around 450 EC. Buying plants and good soil completed the material list.

One thing the owner of Ladera, Mr. Hooper requested was that I try to find a new home for a beautiful wood sculpture that had been repaired after suffering insect damage. In addition Mr. Hooper is a big fan of hummingbirds and wanted a location where the majority of guests would be treated to feeding hummers. Chef Orlando wanted to revitalize the herb garden I planted in 2008 so I designed a garden space that attempts to meet every ones needs and is athletically pleasing. One component I could not install yet was the dry creek bed constructed of round, flat sea stones that are readily available here. Currently most sea stones are buried under mudslide debris from the torrential rains that were the aftermath of hurricane Tomas.

I am pretty satisfied with the results and more importantly the boss's seem pleased. We used coconut husks as edging and one sugar pot is a water garden. The overall effect is well balanced, structurally sound, hides a big sore spot and provides a fresh look to an otherwise mundane seating area. I applied 30 #'s of sea salt to discourage the trunk from sprouting again. We hauled soil from the back forty to level the area which I top dressed with Canadian peat moss.

I bought some Bermuda grass seed on a shopping trip and have sown it with high hopes. Most local people have never seen grass seed sown, it caused a bit of chatter.

Big Wheel Turning

This old sugar mill gear was displayed on four hand built stone columns and when the giant rubber tree fell it broke the iron gear and smashed the columns. One of my projects was to disguise the area where the rubber tree stump and root system left it's hideous remains next to the gazebo. Once the landscape design for the stump area was nearing completion it became more obvious that the original plan to rebuild and reset the gear on the columns would not work. The area would be to congested and visually not appealing. Moving the gear and removing the columns was our best choice, not necessarily the easy way out but definitely the right thing to do.

Removal of the stone columns was accomplished with a jackhammer much to my delight (it is super groovy to use power equipment here), the gear was moved with man power and was repaired by a welder who is an outside contractor. All went well, we may still do a little fine tuning since standing the gear upright requires extra support but it is in the general vicinity of it's new home and no one was hurt in the making of this video.

Actually I feel the gear in the upright position makes more of a statement than when it was mounted horizontally on the stone columns. The boss is really fond of the gear and it has been placed near the guest unit where he generally stays. A lot of man hours went into the move and most comments have been positive. I am sure it will end up being a spot where guests will enjoy photographing and will frequently catch hummingbirds in the background of their pictures.

Installing Gabions

This is the second part of the video that I shot last Monday. I was unable to post any new video because I could not hold my Internet connection long enough. However, Dexter our Wifi guru was here last Thursday and my Internet has improved. In addition my old Sony computer finally appears to have crashed and I am now becoming friends with my new Toshiba laptop. I do wish my nephew Leo was with me to guide me through this laptop transition as he is my personal computer guru. Guess I will be on the phone to him soon. One thing is definitely immediately noticeable with both this Wifi connection and the Toshiba.........speed. I loaded this video in about 20 minutes and with my Wild Blue satellite at home and the old Sony it would have taken up to several hours. This is a good ting mon.

I think some information on gabions would be in order. Gabion is from the Italian (gabbione) meaning "big cage". They are cages, cylinders or boxes filled with soil, rip rap or rocks used in civil engineering, road building, damns, foundations and construction. The fill material depends on the application.

Leonardo da Vinci designed a type of gabion for the foundations at the San Marco Castle in Milan. This technique is the foundation for some of Europes most prized buildings.

Gabion baskets have advantage over other more rigid forms of erosion control and foundations because of their modularity and ability to be stacked in various shapes. They are also resistant to being washed away by moving water. They have further advantages because they can conform to ground movement, dissipate energy from flowing water and drain freely.

As silt and vegetation fill the intestinal voids they reinforce the structure. Many steep hills and roadsides are gabion reinforced throughout the world. Back home gabions were installed as retaining walls around the new damn at Nevada Mills (previous blog entry). No wonder Ladera has embraced this tried and true technology to secure this precious resort.

Ladera Working Day Number Two

The Internet connection here is shaky so I feel like I am trying to write, think, post and select photo's as fast as I can, seems I just get going and oops I've lost it. Hitting the save key a lot. There is so much to tell and show. I started this blog because I was working here in 08 having such a blast that I needed to talk about it. Two years later about 3/4 of the work I did still looks pretty good the rest was either destroyed due to new construction, neglect or is already overgrown.



I am here because hurricane Tomas smacked Ladera and much of the southern part of the island, most of the damage was from Canneries to Vieux Fort, the north was pretty much unscathed. Vieux Fort is still without water nearly 30 days after the storm, I was there today getting supplies and you would not know they had no water except for the giant government water tankers on the street. The island received 26" of rain in 30 hours, the rain caused massive mud slides which resulted in structural damage, loss of lives and nearly an entire village being wiped out.

Repairs at Ladera are being grabbed by the horns with an aggressive plan to reopen 15 units by December 15th and an additional 7 units or more by Christmas. I am currently staying in a most deluxe accommodation, one of the original new Tace Hill units I was contracted to landscape in 2008, this place is still spectacular even storm ravaged.



Of course the main concern is to make sure nothing slides down the mountain. This is being accomplished through the installation of gabions, wire baskets filled with local river stone (which is now even easier to obtain, having washed down the mountains) that are terraced into retaining walls. The first layer of gabions is buried, acting as a footer, the next ones are set back for greater stability. All this work is done by hand since no equipment can reach the slide areas. For lack of a better explanation Ladera is cantilevered on top of the mountain ridge. Over 300 hundred ton of rock has been installed and there is still much to go.



I am hopeful that I will be able to load some video at some point but with this connection I will not hold my breath, today I got some good video of the work and some excellent photo's. One of our tasks was tool shopping in Vieux Fort, we needed to buy flour for the restaurant and after much searching found it in what was basically a hardware store, you got to love that. Additionally, I went in search of grass seed and my driver Trevor took me to a garden center I never knew existed. They had seeds; watermelon, cantaloupe, tomatoes, etc., in a glass case under lock and key. The price for a small package of most seeds was 35EC which is about two times US, so the Us price would be $ 17.00 per package, think I know what to smuggle.
It is strange, Ladera is jamming with activity from 7 am till 6 pm then it goes dead quiet. There are only three rooms occupied, me the owner and his daughter and son in law, tonight Mr. Hooper gave me a whistle in case I need assistance at night from the security guards, actually it is pretty far out. Peaceful and secure. Ladera's motto is a View with a Room and they aren't kidding. Each room has at one exterior wall facing the Caribbean, I fall asleep each night yearning for morning just to inhale the view.