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.

Dogging in the Snow

This is definitely not St. Lucia, I am back home (IN) and romping with Finn and Munch, who I am so glad to see. We have been enjoying morning walks, seeing deer, flocks of blackbirds, sandhill cranes, ducks and geese. This bit of snow was part of a system that could have dumped several inches but most of it went north.

Hopefully the snow will melt quickly and the wind will die down as it is time for me to get measuring and drawing for Millgrove. Starting up from winter hibernation is sometimes a slow process especially if you have to beat back the weather.

Handmade at Ladera

Victor Terrance (in video) and Eustatuce have nearly eighty combined years of wood working experience, they are the wood builders of Ladera, making furniture. door frames, doors, flooring and built ins. They use joiners, planers, table saws, jigs and sanders to achieve the fabled Ladera look.

Before leaving the shop much of the furniture and fixtures are adorned with carvings by Bonifice, who carves intricate designs into the heavily constructed pieces.

Victor was available to explain some of the wood shops functions at Ladera.

Ray's Review

It was 2008 when I first worked with Ray Butcher, the undisputed head gardener of Ladera Resort and my respect for him grows with our every encounter. The Ladera style is without mistake strictly Ray's, he loves the "jungle look" filling all spaces with color and form replicating mother nature, mixing high plants with low, red with yellow, blue with pink creating a haven for birds and guests of Ladera.

Ray loves Ladera and it is evident as he tours with guests explaining plants including folklore, medicinal purposes, food value and aesthetic beauty. He is a knowledgeable grower and designer with an incredible capacity to put in long, physical hours in the hot tropical sun, often softly singing as he goes about his daily tasks. His soft manner and sly sense of humor add to his considerable charm.

We have learned much from each other and I am proud to call him my friend and look forward to returning to Ladera and working side by side with Ray.

Above and Beyond, We Are Improving

The saplings in this photo are the lot of forty we purchased and potted up. Back in Indiana I would have had plenty of nursery buckets for the transplanting but in St. Lucia large nursery buckets are at a premium. We purchased the ten plastic ones, I managed to get 50, 3 gallon pots and we cut laundry barrels in half to complete the task.

One last task in the Botanical Garden was the completion of the steps. We recycled some concrete steppers and buttered them onto the existing stone steps. Bartholomew installed and Shawn tended the concrete. We put four stone steps in to reduce the ramp effect but my instructions lost something in the translation as the men nearly buried the stones with the road base. I dug the steps but I think we should have used bigger rocks.

The location for the new "sun" greenhouse is being excavated and perhaps installed by now. The length of the 16 x 40' house will face east. It is being professionally installed, I am back in the states (FL currently) and sure wish I could have overseen some of the greenhouse construction. It will be a stellar addition to the gardens of Ladera.

As part of the new construction at Paradise Ridge they pumped concrete from a truck for the foundation of Unit 3 and some other flat work. I have never seen such a long pipe for pumping.

The men often "chain" materials up the hill, mostly rocks or buckets of cement. The work is very labor intensive as stones are individually chipped by skilled masons.

Tree Stalking

The main reason we are stepping up the nursery production is the six showcase villas currently under construction. As they are completed landscaping will be installed, the famous Ladera look does not come easy, the "jungle look" means lots of plants per square foot and instant coverage as possible.

I was off to Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries with Stan this week to pick out trees. We got twenty 4-6' mahogany trees for 5 ec each which is about $ 1.87 US we will buying more as part of reforestation. The other 20 trees I purchased were about $ 15.00 US, they are all ornamental, flowering and mostly evergreen; cassia, black pearl, flamboyant, bauhinia, neem, cordia and powi. They were very root bound so we potted them up in an assortment of containers, Ray will pump them with fertilizer and hopefully we will gain a couple of feet by early summer. I am hot to buy an assortment of the Christmas tree palms at the Ag station, we will pot them up and treat them well by using assorted sizes we can get a lot of bang for our buck. They will be planted both singularly and in groups for greater impact.

I rode with Stan to the nursery and we stopped at Spring's Bakery in Cannaries for a loaf of Springs famous bread hot out of the oven, my oh my but it was fine. While waiting by the river I spotted this egret hunting and two local women doing their laundry which is still a common practice in some of the smaller villages.

Stan took the north road to the nursery, one I was not familiar with he jokingly called it the Babonneau Bypass, it was a scenic route and afforded a stellar view of the cruise ships in the harbor.

Getting Into The Pot

We are nearing completion for the botanical garden renovation the men have worked hard, there is no use of machinery for these men unlike my Indiana crews who are mechanized whenever possible. Logistics are tough here in order to get the large rocks we needed for edging the garden path Ray opened a hole in the fence and the men first passed them hand to hand up the hill then into a wheelbarrow pushed uphill to the desired location.

Installing the roadbase gravel meant using the old Suzuki jeep shoveling stone from a pile in the road into the jeep bed, shoveling off into a second pile which was then loaded into the wheelbarrow and dumped into place. If we had we two wheelbarrows it would have been more productive, we still need another load of stone to finish the path but it has certainly come along way.

Much of my time has been spent in plant production; sowing seeds & taking cuttings, reviewing nursery stock sources, purchasing plants for seasonal change out of our large old sugar pots and clay "face" pots, plus putting together a few new pots for our restaurant, Dashene. The sugar pots are so large and the plants so rooted that I have to stand in the pot to remove the plant.

Several hundred cuttings have been taken; red, pink and white ginger, crotons, begonias, baby blue eyes, and firecrackers plus we now have seedlings from the Mexican daisies which will soon need to be potted up. Between production and shopping for new stock I have visited several nurseries some old friends and a couple of new spots.

The government nursery at Meyers Bridge is also where Damien packs his cut flowers for shipment to the various hotels on the island. Each of the blooms more beautiful than the next, he lovingly places the flowers meticulously lining the box with paper shavings. Wow the colors, shapes and quality are amazing.