Cashew

We discovered that one of our neighbours had a cashew nut tree. I was excited because although both my daughter and I love cashew nuts, I didn't remember ever seeing how they grew. Now we know.

Here are pictures of flowers and fruits of the cashew tree / Anacardium occidentale / anacardier. Did you know the fruit too is edible? I remember eating cashew apple jam in Senegal long ago.

Now for the really good news: it appears that they are easy to grow. My daughter gleaned a few fallen fruit and we'll experiment with growing cashew trees. Exciting times ahead!

A friendly reminder: please contact me if you intend using any materials posted on this blog. It's nice, and it's the law. Thank you!

Two Christmas Eve gifts

Tonight my daughter reminded me to take my camera along when we went to walk the dog. What a good idea! We were rewarded by a glimpse of not one, but two "new" birds. The first one we had never seen or noticed before: it was a Western plantain eater / Crinifer piscator / Touraco gris.

The second one we had had a glimpse of before, but without binoculars or a camera zoom, we could only guess. It was quite tricky to see from afar. The shape and pale greenish belly colour could have been mistaken for an unripe mango, since it was sitting in a mango tree. I however thought the fruit was somehow not hanging right and with the help of my camera zoom was able to establish it was actually a Woodland kingfisher / Halcyon senegalensis / Martin-chasseur du Sénégal.

We were so excited by our discovery. Observing our environment is one activity that we love to share. A neighbour lent us his binoculars this evening and we can't wait for tomorrow morning to discover some new little creature.

A friendly reminder: please contact me if you intend using any materials posted on this blog. It's nice, and it's the law. Thank you!

Future garden loading - Day 6

I'm on a mission to attract as many butterflies as possible to my garden. To this end, I need to (over)load it with brightly coloured flowers. That's why I opted for moss rose (Portulaca grandiflora, or purslane) as a ground cover, 

Today, I located a nursery where they stocked it. I took 220 plants, which is as much as my car boot could carry. I'll go back for more next week. This should keep me busy in the garden for a few days anyway (I can only work there when it's not too hot and if my toddler happens to be asleep at the same time, which means not more than 2 hours on a good day).

The nursery also had what I think is another type of Portulaca, i.e. Portulaca umbraticola. It is very nice and colourful but I don't think you can step on it like P. grandiflora. I may add a few anyway.

Garden in the making - Day Four

Weekend means gardening. Another 100 ficus benjamina went into the ground for the path to the guest bungalow, which is being renovated. The araucaria finally found its place too. Humans and dogs seem appreciative.

The "dry" garden is almost finished. A lot of cacti and agave-like plants were added to what was already there. The surface needs to be raked nicely. Work for tonight maybe.

We bought goava plants and some of the flowers went in too in the part between the gate and the house and along the west wall, but no pics yet. It's still a work in progress.

Future garden loading - Day 5

10 pink and 10 white Catharanthus roseus (? not completely sure):

Another 100 or so Ficus benjamina (can you picture more hedges in the making?):

And about 50 Euphorbia milii:

Any idea for a weekend pastime? I told you gardening is growing on me, didn't I? There are worse addictions...

Garden in the making - Day Three

This is my soon to be vegetable patch. You've got to imagine lettuce, okra, sweet peppers, red sorrel and spinach here.

I have my caretaker to thank for this part. Tilling with a traditional hoe is not something I can easily do with an 18-month old baby on my back. She doesn't seem to want me to put her down while gardening. (And no, there is nothing like rotovating here).

Future garden loading - Day 4

More plants... Here is today's pick:

Two more plumerias, supposedly white:

About 30 hibiscus:

A dozen orange flowers Lantana camara supposed to repel snakes:

A dozen crotons:

And three spiky two-tone plants I can't name, for the drought-resistant corner:

I'll try to get all in the ground after 4pm when the sun is less scorching.

Garden in the making - Day Two

I'm getting more and more motivated to work in the garden despite the obvious (blisters in the hands, sore muscles, sweat, and young children distracting and/or undoing what you've just done). Again, it doesn't look much, but it's mine, and it's a beginning.

The ficus benjamina went in from the main gate to the small gate:

And the philodendrons now frame the main gate and the small gate:

A supposedly yellow plumeria is given pride of place on the curve leading to the house:

This is a decorative pineapple (it will give small, inedible pineapples):

A few crotons (not sure the tall red leaves are crotons though) with a Cordyline terminalis and miscellaneous, still unnamed flowers:

And the first of hopefully many hibiscus:

Overall, it's still a bit sparse, but I think it will look good when we fill the gaps with low, fast-growing flowers.

Garden in the making - Day One

Today I started landscaping work in earnest. Being a single mother of two, including one special needs child and a baby with a high fever for a few days now, things didn't go as fast or as far as I was hoping, but I'm pretty pleased with what I was able to do. At least, the plants that came without a soil ball attached are now planted and will hopefully survive.

I started with a ficus benjamina hedge between the main gate and the door. It gives me a good notion of how many I'll need in fine. Nothing much to see so far. Tomorrow hibiscus, crotons and other plants will come in behind the (future) hedge. And philodendrons will be planted left and right of the gate. Hopefully.

Then I started with the farthest part of the garden, where the hose doesn't reach and I used drought-resistant plants there. I traced squares and alternated them so that I'll be able to fill with different plants once I'm done with those I bought this week.

I'm rather pleased with the result even though it doesn't look like much yet.

 

Future garden loading - Day 3

About 100 Ficus benjamina for hedges,

Spiky things that look like some sort of agave but I'm not very sure,

Four philodendrons to climb on the sides of both gates, and a plumeria (frangipani) thrown in as a gift, which should give yellow flowers.

I think I now have a strong backbone for the garden. All these plants will be installed tomorrow morning as early as possible to avoid the scorching sun. Over the next few days or weeks, we will also start citrus trees and tropical almond trees in containers, and add flowers to fill the gaps and hopefully attract butterflies and birds.

Future garden loading - Day 2

I thought of the places that are a bit far from the taps to be hose-watered and since I had already prickly pear cacti in the making (paddles taken from the disused part of land next to the old rail tracks in Agbodrafo. I left them to "dry" as advised on numerous web pages before I put them in the soil, but life happened and I didn't plant them after 2 weeks and they did what a lot of plants do here: they got crazy without any soil or water. Some were on a louver blade in my sitting room (first picture) and the others on the floor in an abandoned building (second picture). They seem to be thriving on neglect!

I've always loved cacti so I went to a nursery I pass by every day and where they seemed to have more dry-weather plants (cacti, succulents, etc.) than most. The reason was not very nice (the informal gardener had his water supply cut by the owners of the land where he plies his trade three weeks ago) but it meant that whatever remained appealing after 3 weeks without water was probably fairly drought resistant. That's exactly what I need for the far-away corners of my garden!

I selected 3 different types of cacti, and the nursery gentleman threw in a decorative pineapple plant (on the right hand side) and tall so far unnamed flowers some variety of what I think are cannas (on the left hand side)...

I also selected some baobabs. I think they never grow very tall or will grow so slowly that it's rather safe to plant 10 of them on my land. They have very nice trunks, leaves and flowers.

I was fascinated by this plant with its blades that are light green upside and violet on the underside. Very striking and unusual!

These spineless green "sticks" on the left are some sort of succulent too. I'm told they won't grow much taller than they are now (about 4ft) but will spread fast. I felt they would make an interesting addition in the dry corner of my garden.

This is my collection so far. I ordered another few plants which I will collect tomorrow (they have to be carefully uprooted because unlike most of what I've bought so far, they are not in individual plastic bags ready to go). I plan on getting everything in the ground over the weekend.