microb's blog: Waving the white flag!

We have been here 30 years. During the first 23 I was working full time and put in my strength of younger years to add plants, landscape the area the bulldozer cleared and hand cleared limited forest area. I created a network of forest trails and established a bridge over the stream.

Problems started when I retired 7 years ago. Suddenly I had lots more time, but not a lot of cash, to add more plants, landscape alongside the forest trails and hand clear areas of forest for more plants.

Collecting plants became an obsession, got to have one of everything. Got to know local nurserymen and people with beautiful gardens and a similar obsession so I traded and purchased plants. Plants grew larger, were trimmed to make cuttings, clumps of heliconias and ginger got bigger so they were split up and distributed to other areas. All this time I was weeding and trimming and keeping things under control (while still adding more plants). Volunteering at the local botanical gardens
for a year did not help, here I was wading through tropical plant collections and being given a piece of this and that.

My circle of friends are plant fanatics, collectors, specialists, international orchid judges, nurserymen etc. Slowly the garden became crammed with plants, all growing at tropical speeds. Slowly the growth took over, not just weeds but a great collection of plants.

And a few months ago I discovered Etsy. What a place to buy plants. I went onto craigslist and sold plants ($600 in May and June) and then rolled that money over into potting mixes, orchid bark, perlite and soil. But most of the money went to buy 28 different varieties of Philodendrons. They have become very popular as people were stuck in doors during COVID and got hooked on house plants. I watched tracking on the computer as boxes bounced thier way from Florida to Hawaii (one is on its way now with 12 new plants) and then I had the fun of "unboxing" plants. How many youtube videos can you find today of people sharing their unboxing of plants ordered by mail.

These small starter plants from Florida survive quite well, they start in three inch pots and some have already moved to 8 inch pots. I constructed a new covered nursery area along the front of the house to watch the new babies grow and then they move out to the renovated shade cloth house to join the grown ups.

I couple of months ago I visited a fellow plant enthusiast with some friends and out came the wallet again. 10 more plants. One was a miniature hedychium, or butterfly ginger. It was an epiphytic plant growing on the trunk of a palm tree. Must have one, yes, $10, and by the way can I take that one that has gone to seed, sure. So now I have a tray of 80 seedling about 1 inch tall, just about ready to move to pots. Next to that is a clam shell (we love muffins from Costco) and in the clam shell are seeds from another butterfly ginger I traded from Florida. I have 15 young plants from the first bloom head of that one about 6 months ago. This next round of blooming gave me 11 blooms heads so I should get dozens of seedlings. And on it goes. The giant white butterfly ginger that I grew from seed 4 years ago bloomed prolificly last September and now there are carpets of seedling under the parent plants.

So where does the White Flag come in. This evening went for a walk-about and waved the white flag and said " OK plants you win. I can no longer keep up" The path ways are closing in, the plants are growing uncontrollably, they are amazing to look at, Mendinilla blooms, beehive gingers, orchids, Heliconias, Anthuriums and more. So I really felt overwhelmed.

But tomorrow is another day. I will regroup mentally and go fight another day. I am blessed with my own botanical garden, an understanding wife, great plant friends and an uncontrolled desire to buy more plants, trade more plants, rescue more plants and propagate more plants. 74th birthday coming up but what are numbers, don't anticipate slowing up anytime soon. Another three tons of gravel was delivered a couple of weeks ago so the wheelbarrow is getting a workout as more paths get gravelled to solve the mud problem and give better access to more cleared forest.

Running bamboo season is going strong. Kicked over more that 500 shoots so far this year. Ponds that were clogged with weed have been cleared and rescued. Will get some more fish this coming Wednesday if Petco has them. Waterlilies are blooming.

Currently getting to organize my third plant sale to support or local zoo. The last one in April was a big success. More vendors are signing up for the one in October so I have more access to more plants. (See how that statement morphed in more plants)

Otherwise you can read earlier blogs and the day to day work is the same, just more of it.

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