I meant to post this while I was on vacation, but, well, I was on vacation and did not feel like messing with my ‘puter. I am posting this now but backdating it to when I wrote it.

When I travel, I like to take note of the plant life around me. Not just because I am a gardener, but because it can be a good point of reference for the free wheeling traveler. For example, if I wake up from a drunken haze and peer up at a tree branch above me and see maple leaves, I know that I must have stumbled onto a plane that landed in a temperate region. If, on the other hand, if I am kidnapped by terrorists and when they take off my blindfold, I see bougainvillea vines draping the landscape, I will know that my kidnappers had the good taste to hold me in a tropical climate.

There is no better plant on the planet that better botanically represents being on vacation than the brightly hued bougainvillea. I have seen it used for everything from a shrub, a hedge, a wall covering, a pergola draping and as an unintentional camouflage for abandon buildings.

This plant is both versatile and resilient, making it perfect for regions with extreme climates, where heat is constant and in the course of a year, rainfall fluctuates between a glob of spit from a passing construction worker to monsoon. It is also just as happy to grow where monsoon is actually a season, not an occurrence as it is to grow on the fringes of the desert. But in areas where rainfall is consistently high, the plant will not flourish as well as it does in areas that have dry seasons.

But, much like a high school quarterback’s girlfriend, they are lovely to look at but painful to touch. The vines of the bougainvillea are spiked with fiendishly wicked hooked thorns. These thorns help it to climb up over competing plants, structures and slow moving vehicles. Like most tropical plants, it grows rapidly and can be a nuisance in its ideal environment.

While most people grow them for the brightly colored “flowers”, the bright colors are not flowers at all. They are bracts. The real flowers and the small white tubes that you can find hidden among the bracts.

One of the nice things about bougainvillea and what makes it so popular is that it is a year round bloomer. After blooming starts, the flowers (and bracts) will stick around for about 4 weeks and fade, and then will reappear a few weeks later to repeat the performance. As long as the plant receives some, even minimal amounts of water, it will continue in the cycle. If the plant finds itself in a severe drought situation, it will shed all of its leaves and regrow them when the water returns.

The bougainvillea is named for the French admiral Louis Antoine de Bougainville, who along with his on-ship, girlfriend smuggling botanist, “found” it in Brazil in 1768, in much the same way most Europeans “found” most things in the already populated Americas.

But, for as much as the bougainvillea represents the tropical world, the clever Dutch, the kings of horticultural miracles, are conspiring to develop a cold hardy bougainvillea. Which worries me a little bit. How the hell am I suppose to know generally where in the world I have been taken by kidnappers if these festive beauties could soon be grown anywhere in the world?

Well, as many of you surmised, today I find myself in Belize. Specifically, Caye Caulker, Belize. I have 3 true passions in my life: gardening; travel and food. I was hoping to find a bit to appease all 3 here, and I am happy to report that I have not been disappointed.

Caye Caulker is a small island off the coast of mainland Belize. It is considered to be a tourist destination, but is less tourist focused than its more famous sister town of San Pedro. Believe it or not, you have heard of San Pedro before. If you are a child of the eighties or just listed to any kind of pop music, you heard Madonna reminisce of San Pedro in her song La Isla Bonita. Caye Caulker is all that, but better.

There are no cars here, just bikes and golf carts. And because of this, the streets are not really streets. They are more of a general idea of how far apart the buildings should be built.

Flowers abound. They creep in to the nooks and crannies and conspire to rip apart the buildings because the structures are an affront to their scented sensibilities. But the buildings remain and instead the tourists mistake the flowers assault as simple beauty.

Palm trees of all kinds punctuate the island. Mostly coconut, but there are others. In the morning they rustle in the breeze that comes over the piers and tell tales of the pirates that once ran these waters. Unfortunately, it is in a language I can’t understand. I appreciate their intentions though and hope they do not throw a coconut at me for my lack of tree talk education.

This is not to say that this paradise is perfect. Nor should it be. If you find what you think is a perfect paradise, you are either not looking hard enough or you paid more money than I make in a year to stay where you are at.

Poverty is large on the island. It looms over you as you walk through town. Caye Caulker is not a developed enough tourist destination to have successfully shoved the poorer natives out of their homes and out of the sight of paying customers (because after all, who wants to be reminded of the real world when you just dropped a couple grand a person on an all inclusive). The people who live here are happy though, as much as we are in our own lives, maybe a bit more though, admittedly, perhaps a bit less. Children still play and laugh, adults still work and live. People fall in love, fight and take the trash out. They just do it without the cell phones, video games and gas prices that interrupt our daily lives. I imagine they have their own interruptions. Ones that I will never understand as I can only observe their daily lives. Still, it is reassuring to see all of it here. It means that this is real. It is not a whitewashed dream.

As for food, there is plenty and all of it looks good. On the piers, men unload and clean their catches, rock lobsters, conch and fish of all colors. And hour later, you can have it on your plate at one of the local restaurants. Last night I had a conch ceviche that was simply amazing. It started out tangy and spicy and ended up sweet and left a pleasant burn on the tongue as you swallowed.

Alright, I suppose you are all tired of my sappy poetic waxing. Besides, you all would like to know who won the snow blower. The winner of the snow blower is Karla Hal.

Congratulations! And I hope that you do not have call to use it for many weeks to come.

No, they are not those kinds of poppies. The Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve and the surrounding poppy fields are covered with California poppies and they are all in glorious full bloom right now. Drive through the right part of Lancaster and it truly does appear that a four year old with a love of orange has taken a giant watercolor brush to the mountains.

California poppies are, shockingly enough, in the poppy (Papaveraceae) family and grow in California. They are so ubiquitous with California that they were named the State flower in 1903. The California Poppy has provided the residents of California with a food, oil and cosmetic source for as long as there were people in the area (you know, like even before California was “discovered”). Because of this, there is an Official Poppy Day on April 6th and a Poppy Week from May 13-18. I think this is the only flower I know of that gets more official days than all the previous presidents of our country combined.

These little beauties may look fragile, but they are not. They prefer to grow in sandy dry soil in view of the full sun, which in this area can be a wicked mistress. Not to mention that the areas where California Poppies frequently grow are subject to wind gusts in excess of 40 MPH. These flowers are well adapted to taking a beating and being beautiful while they do so.

They can be grown outside the state of California and will do great if you can provide the climate they like and will do ok if you can’t. While they are technically a perennial, they cannot tolerate temps that dip below 20F, so in most places, even in California, they are regarded as an annual. They do best and look best in alpine or rock gardens where their low growing, compact beauty can be showcased best.

They are also an excellent flower for those who are looking to xeriscape their yard. They need, actually prefer, little water and will flourish under xeriscape conditions. These flowers tend to grow in conditions that others simply cannot. As a matter of fact, many gardeners fail to grow them because they give them too much attention. These are one of the lone wolves of the botanical world. They prefer it if you just left them alone.

They are vibrant and strong and blindingly bright. Just perfect for the gardener who is looking for a low maintenance flower to fill in that tricky and annoying dry spot in the yard.

These past few days, I have spent some bopping around Lancaster. Enough to know that it is mostly desert country. Mohave desert country to be specific. Beautiful in its own terribly dry and scorching hot way. It is a place where a grass lawn looks startlingly out of place. (And yet people still try to grow it.)

One sure sign you are in the Mohave is the presence of Joshua trees. Passing a field of Joshua trees is like stumbling on a crowd of trees that suddenly got religion of the David Koresh kind. These born again trees raise twisted limbs to the sky in a crazed supplication. Apparently the early Mormon pioneers thought so as well, as they supposedly named for the prophet Joshua.

My sister informed me that it is illegal to take down or move a Joshua Tree and that the properties that are covered with them are rendered worthless. A search of the internet when I got home showed no such law, but I wonder if this is a widespread urban legend in these parts and if an unsuspecting homeowner’s value is affected by it.

Joshua trees are yuccas. A painfully slow growing yucca, growing only an average of a half inch a year. I was particularly lucky in that the Joshua Trees were in full bloom, which only happens from February to April and not every year. Blooming only happens if an appropriate amount of rainfall happens. I just was lucky that the right conditions happened this year and that I had the chance to be here.  The tree also has just one pollinator, the Yucca Moth.

Frequently, Joshua Trees are seen growing in groups and this happens because they can grow from underground rhizomes. They also grow from seeds.

The biggest threat to Joshua Trees is in the desert is wind. These plants have very shallow root systems and the a good stiff wind can knock them over in a heartbeat.  Struck down by the hand of God, I suppose you could say.

Crooked and bent, constantly battling the elements, these trees are a testament to the sheer tenacity of plants in the desert. They are also a symbol of the botanical beauty that exists in even the harshest elements.

My sister, knowing that I am both a gardening nut and a food snob, suggested that we stop by the LA Farmer’s Market on our way home from the airport. Of course, in LA, “stopping by” anything seems to be a relative term thanks to failed city planning and crazy traffic. An hour later, we finally got to the Farmer’s Market on 3rd and Fairfax.

The LA Farmer’s Market has been around for 74 years. Built on Gilmore Island, which was owned by E.B. Gilmore, the Farmer’s Market started out as a grandiose idea to build lanes of filigree and fluff where artists could sell their creations. But the reality of the depression hit and what it ended up being was a haphazard gathering of wooden stalls and pickup trucks where vegetables and farm goods were sold. In my book, all the best markets need a good few wooden stalls and pick up trucks.

Today, the LA Farmer’s Market is closer to that original idea of filigree and fluff. Only in an LA farmer’s market would you find a Banana Republic and a Sur La Table. But all of that aside, the older part of the market still holds on to much of its rough, tumble and so much fun roots.

.

Much of the farmer has gone from the market, but the fresh and delicious food that farmer’s markets always attract has flourished. Tasty treats tempt you as you walk through the stalls. Whether you are looking for gourmet cheese fondue or gratifying Chinese food, there is a place that can satisfy your pallet.

.

The LA Farmer’s Market was a fun visit to see a historical location. Maybe it wasn’t Beverly Hills or Santa Monica or any of those other well known Los Angeles locations, but I think that it shows the best cross section of all that LA has to offer.

Never mind that you spent the past 8 hours shuttling around in various planes, buses and cars. Never mind that you just went through customs and lied about the fact that you were most certainly not bringing vegetation of any kind back into the US (it was just a stick, a little stick and I hope it will root and yes we all ready have them here but its the principle of the thing). Never mind that you just left a tropical paradise to return to Cleveland. Coming home to your garden after an extended vacation is just a stressful time for a gardener.

I had made arrangements, but walking up the front steps to my house, I can see that my arrangements went right out the proverbial window. A citrus tree is dead dead and the avocado and one of the kiwis have seen much healthier, better watered days. Surprisingly the annuals all look nice so the water retaining crystals must be doing their job.

My neighbor apologized profusely. She had meant to stop by and water. She had thought that she would get to it. But her knees are hurting and the shoulder is not so good either. And well, I understand, right? I momentarily think of a baseball bat but her knees already hurt and she is nearly sixty, so I am thinking that I just need to take it on the chin. I sigh and nod and am thankful it rained once or twice while I was gone.

No ripe tomatoes but lots of nice size green ones. There were 2 cucumbers that were ready to harvest, which means that I have reached my nature imposed yearly limit of cucumbers. I fully expect to wake up tomorrow and find my perfectly healthy cucumber vines to be perfectly dead. That is how it normally works.

The weeds, fully aware of my MIA status, have taken over almost every bed but the vegetable bed. Don’t know why not in the veggie bed but I don’t look gift weed free beds in the mouth so I won’t worry about it too much.

Overall the vacation was nice. The wedding went off with surprisingly few bridezilla moments. The in-laws were all very pleasant. All inclusive was different but as I expected, not so much my cup of tea. Unlimited alcohol simply does not make up for decent food. The bout of food poisoning that I suffered through this past week would have been much more tolerable if it had originated from a really good plate of local food instead of an Americanized so-so one.

I am tired. I am slightly crispy red. I am glad to be home… so at least I know there will be someone to water the plants.

How come we don’t live in the ocean yet? When I was growing up (which wasn’t so very long ago but longer than I like), I was told, repeated by reliable sources like Omni Magazine and the Sci-Fi network of writers, that by this time we would be living in two new environments. One was space and the other was under water in the ocean. Okay, so we didn’t make it into space yet and NASA says we are looking at least 30 years before they even try to send a tem to Mars, but what happened to the ocean?!? I fully expected to be there by now. It only covers 71% of the planet, for goodness sake.

Where is the little bubble cities where we swim in super freaky suits from house to house? Where is my pet dolphin swimming playfully with the kids in my postage stamp, seaweed mown backyard? What about the personal submarines that would whisk us to our underwater office and back (and I bet there would still be traffic)? How come we are not talking about how lovely our seaweed and coral gardens are that we created this year?

Can you tell I went snorkeling today? In the clear, clear water around the Dominican Republic, there are dozens and dozens of coral reefs (or maybe just one giant reef that goes around the island, but it looks like there are lots). Fishes flit in and out of them, sharks lounge in the sand below them, seaweed sways on the outskirts looking like Nebraska corn on a breezy day, only a whole lot shorter. It is all very lovely and reminds me that at one time I had dreamed of living in such a world.

Do you suppose that someday my kids or grandkids will tend a water garden? Not a pond or a tub, but an honest to goodness, under the water garden. Maybe someday, but somehow, I think we will have moon gardens long before we have sea ones.

On the resort there is a particular plant that grows seemingly everywhere. This plant is so ubiquitous that the darn thing is even rendered in bronze and displayed proudly behind the front lobby desk.

The landscapers seem to use it willy-nilly where ever they have need of a particular size plant. Sometimes it is a tree. Sometimes it is a shrub. Sometimes a hedge. Sometimes a scrawny stick of a plant.

It grows in the soil near the resort building and wild in the sand on the beach. I have seen the landscapers brutally whack all the outer leaved branches off so that the plant is bare. I am certain it is to encourage new growth of the younger, shinier leaves but it still says something about the plant’s ability to survive. There are also half dead branches simply stuck in the ground in bare spots by the landscapers, which leads me to believe that this plant will root very easily. I am beginning to suspect that this plants may be regarded as a weed anywhere else on the island but here, it grows so well.

That is not to say that it is an unlovely plant. It has no visible flowers (as far as I have seen) but the leaves are nice. They are dark green, wide rounded fans that are think and leathery to the touch. As mentioned, the new leaves are more attractive due to the fact that they are glossier and a lighter sometimes almost yellowish green. Though I have not seen flowers, there is fruit on the larger plants. They hang down like long vertical bunches of grapes.

I have to ask for different resort employees what the name of the plant is (I imagine that this is not a commonly asked question). One simply shrugs and says “Uva, it’s a beach plant” as though this explains everything. Oddly enough, it is the internet cafe employee who can give me the answer. He tells me it is Uva de Playa, though he is not certain what to call it in English. But that is not a problem. It is an internet cafe, after all. In English, they are called Sea Grapes. Their botanical name is cocoloba uvifera.

A little bit of research tells me that the resort is not alone in using Sea Grapes as a decorative plant. They are used quite frequently in sea side landscaping as the salt water does not affect them and they are very drought tolerant. The fruit are edible and they do have flowers. Just not right now, apparently.

I could not find out if they were native to the island as they do grow everywhere along the coast, but I suspect not. I kind of have to wonder if they were brought to the Dominican Republic by resort landscapers and it, disliking the all inclusive life, escaped down the beach to freedom.

When I said that this resort could cater to your every need, I certainly didn’t think that this would include providing a vacation garden. To the right is a picture of the view right outside my room. I can step out on the patio and *voila*, I have a small garden. I think later today I may do a little weeding.

Not surprisingly, my vacation garden consists of several plants that, at home, reside in the inner sanctums of office buildings and malls. But while office plants are about as fitting for their surroundings as a peg legged pirate would be, such in not the case here. I am fairly certain, given the fact that I saw these same plants growing wild as we drove in, that these were growing wild. As I had mentioned, the Dominican Republic is mostly sub-tropical. Because of this, these are lush looking plants tend to be drought tolerant for short periods and can take both sun and shade.

Breakfast this morning was quite pleasant. I ordered a plate of fruit for breakfast with the intention of sitting in my little vacation garden while enjoying the passing butterflies. Instead, I enjoyed the passing turkeys. Not quite what I had in mind, but entertaining nonetheless.

Perhaps I should call this my vacation farm instead.

Leaving Cleveland Airport
Arriving Punta Cana, DR

Here I am on my first sunny fun filled day in the Dominican Republic. We are staying in an all inclusive resort due to the fact that my sister-in-law is getting married and my husband’s family never stays anywhere but all inclusive resorts. To tell the very honest truth, this style of vacation is not my style at all. Give me a back pack and $20 a day and I am happy as a clam. The $3K week vacation just makes me… I don’t know what it makes me.

I feel like I am missing out on something. I feel guilty. I feel like I went all this way and I should be able to see more of the culture than the cheesy girls in the airport in the “historic” cultural costumes. But I have promised my husband that I will make the most of it, and here I am, making the most of it.

The most is certainly enjoyable, let me tell you. But still, as the bus drove us from the airport to the resort and we passed house after house that had been cobbled together from naked cinder block, rusted corrugated sheet metal and weather beaten billboards, that little guilt just creeps back into my relaxing vacation. I just spent more on a luxury trip than these people make in months. What right do I have to traipse here under such pretenses?

I am also longing for the scenes that pass me by. A group school children all clad in matching blue school uniforms runs down the open-air balcony hallway of a slum grey apartment building. A fenced off street corner that serves as a plant nursery (I would be in heaven there). I see skinny cows and fat goats and bars where Presidente beer is served at plastic white tables with plastic white chairs. A group of handsome and dark skinned men play pool in an open front building. One waves at me as the bus glides by. I wave back because I want to be a part of that and instead the bus moves on towards a palatial resort where my every need will be catered to save this one.

The Dominican Republic is well aware that it is the pristine landscape that causes rich tourists to flock to their beauty rich but money poor country and they fight hard to protect it. Even in this resort where excess is the name of the game, there are signs asking that we not excess too much in deference to the surrounding environment and efforts to preserve it. And yet how can this place not with the air conditioners that run constantly and guests who are served every drink in disposable plastic cups.

And so all of these put forward the question, is it right. Is it right to visit these people who have so little and take advantage of their situation? Is it right to cloister myself away in the resort when there is so much to see out there? Is it right to travel so far to see such a beautiful place only to be slowly destroying it in making the trip?

In the end, the bus driver, Sal, assuages my guilt a bit. He says “On behalf of my people, I wish to thank you for coming to my country. You may have noticed that we are a poor people and we would be poorer still if not for you coming here to visit us.”

Even on vacation, you trade one negative for a positive. But at this point in time there is not anything I can do about it. Sister in laws must get married and this is where she will be married (and having been a bride, I know that it is a wise thing never to stand between a bride and what she wants. People have been known to lose limbs that way). I will have another drink and perhaps plan my escape in the morning.