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.

We Are Ladera

These are some of the people who are working so hard to put things back after hurricane Tomas at Ladera Resort in St. Lucia.

Shopping

I only leave the resort to purchase goods for landscaping that no one else can. For example I know what I want for plants but availability and wanting are two different things. So far I have been north to Castries and Union (government agriculture greenhouses) south to Vieux Fort for tools and to Meyers Bridge Co-Op and Bathe government greenhouses. When I went to Vieux Fort there were a couple of additional purchases for the hotel, one that took considerable time, looking for a 50# bag of flour. Normally the flour would be delivered from a food vendor but since Dashene (the restaurant) is only currently cooking for staff they occasionally need to pick up odds and ends until regular deliveries resume.

I thought it rather frivolous that I went to Vieux Fort with two men, Trevor and Harvey, but it turns out it takes lots of local knowledge to purchase a 50# bag of flour. Each of the men knew of various places to try. We actually bought the flour in a shop that was more of a hardware than market. The proprietor had the large bags which she broke down into 1# bags for sale to locals. We lucked out that she had a full bag. Vieux Fort is full of colorful shops that specialize in a variety of goods.

It was a pleasant surprise that it only took three stops to fulfill our landscaping tools/supplies list. One of the shops we visited was a "garden center", one of our purchases there was grass seed which was only available in 1# packages.

On my trip to the government nursery at Bathe there were a few chemicals and other related products for sale. The nursery there grows for the other government facility in Union.

Euphorbia lactea

When I worked at Ladera two years ago, Ray the head gardener shied away from pruning this "cactus" that hung over the entrance drive and the road which leads up to the Hilltop Suites. The cactus was heavily entwined with glorious bougainvillea both red and white. It was over 15' tall and both plants appeared married as they draped two roads and the employee canteen. Since both plants were laden with thorns I assumed Ray's reluctance was associated with getting pricked while pruning but that was not the case. Ray told me that the cactus was poisonous and that a few years previous he had pruned it and nearly went blind spending five days in the hospital and being off work for over two weeks.

Returning to work here I noticed that both plants had grown considerably larger and so I attempted to prune them. The cactus leaked a heavy milky substance as I worked and the thorns of the bougainvillea were jabbing me at every opportunity. Ray suggested that someone else prune it and I let the new general manager know that it posed a threat. Since we have a backhoe on site for some of the heavy work due to hurricane damage it was decided that the dangerous cacti be removed.

Steven the brave Rasta chain saw operator donned gloves and goggles to knock down the heavy branches and the backhoe did the rest. The cactus is actually Euphorbia lactea or candelabra cactus, the latex juice it drips is a mild to moderate skin irritant but is extremely dangerous if it get in your eyes.



While it was a wise choice to remove the plant from a public area we now must deal with the big hole left behind, which exposes the canteen. Ray has already planted some small Royal Palms we pulled for transplant and likely the construction crew will build a lattice screen. Given time the bougainvillea will come back along with the assorted ginger that adorned the area to provide color and screening.

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.

Orchids, Orchids, Orchids

Last time I was at the government nursery in Union (2008) they had a 6' chain link fence around a piece of dirt next door, the land had been excavated and rumor was the Taiwanese government was going to set up a tissue culture orchid growing facility. There are many rumors in St. Lucia and some very interesting politics (more on that later) but wonder of wonders the greenhouses are there and so are the orchids, lots of them. The facility is state of the art with rolling, crank benches, humidity control, a tissue culture lab for plantlets, concrete floors and auto irrigation. What a sight. I have never grown orchids and do not know a lot about them but they are certainly one of my favorite photographic subjects, orchids love the camera.

We had just a few minutes in the greenhouses before closing and were not able to tour the tissue culture facility, maybe on a future trip. I did manage to snap a few pictures. The impetus for the orchids is a political bond between the Taiwanese government and St. Lucian government with the creation of this center St. Lucia has become the number one grower of orchids in the Caribbean. The object is eduction, employment, tourism, export and local consumption.

The demonstration farm is a technical mission on a 2500 square meter site. The current greenhouse is 1382 square meters with plenty of room for expansion. They produce 40,000 plants yearly and 100,000 plantlets. The current economic value is estimated at 2 million EC with expectations to exceed 5 million EC. It would be nice if the Lucian people would benefit from the this cultural interchange instead of the governments. Only time will tell.

Driving to Catries

The drive to Castries (the capitol and northern city) from Ladera is even more treacherous than in the past. The road is winding with many switchbacks and steep hills under ideal conditions people have been know to become car sick and some just plain afraid. Since hurricane Tomas the drive is especially challenging with the road blocked by boulders, landslides, heavy equipment, dropped pavement and at times is no wider than a single, narrow, rutted lane. I was a passenger on this trip and glad not to be driving, many locals have not even attempted to go any further than absolutely necessary.

When I lived here in the winters of 07' and 08' I made the trip from Soufriere where I lived to Canneries where my nephew Leo and his now wife Marcy lived many times. One of my favorite spots to stop with visiting friends was Columbette where a lovely couple ran a Art/Craft cooperative called Livity it is now unrecognizable and this is the site where the couple, two of their children and a visiting artist were killed. Swept down the mountain and into the sea, the funerals of the children were just last week while the adults have yet to be found buried under the mountains of soil you see in these photo's. It was very emotional passing this area, may they rest in peace.

The brigde near Anse la Raye had nearly six inches of water still spilling over the top of the road. Everywhere I looked the hurrican damage was evident and locals continue to work hard shoveling masses of slippery, wet silt from the interior of their homes. Many family lost all of their belonging which in this impoverished nation will take many years to replace. It is sad yet uplifting as the Lucians complain little and attack each day to restore normalicy.

Stumphie Loves Flowers

Dave Stumph first started working for us in 2001 when a friend brought him over to quote dry wall for our new addition. We were going on vacation and wanted to have the dry wall installed while we were gone. Dave, our nephew Tana and Dave's buddy did the dry wall and Dave continued to work as we finished our addition. Dave also worked with us during the winters when we were buying and flipping houses (seems I have a hard time just relaxing in winter) and as a subcontractor in season. As the economy slowed down Dave felt the need for a steadier source of income and joined the Millgrove team. His background, skills and enthusiasm allowed him to step right into a supervisory role.

We forgive Dave for sinking the Bobcat on his first day of work. As he said in the video Dave also had one of his digits removed when he literally caught it between a rock and a hard place. His nickname of Stumphie is even more appropriate. When not working Dave is an avid fisherman and he and Bill spend lots of time sitting on buckets staring down holes in the ice hoping for a fish to latch onto their line. Dave is also the only person I know personally who has ever gotten a hole in one on the golf course. We all hope to see Dave back in the spring and for many years to come.