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.

Well, you may not hear too much from me for the next week and a half. I am off for another grand adventure and this time the end destination is the Dominican Republic. If I can get to an internet café, I will dazzle you with pictures of the lush greenness and sapphire blues. But, if instead, the all-inclusive bar is pouring drinks a little on the heavy side, you may have to wait a bit for dazzlement and beauty. We will see.

My Lonely Planet guidebook tells me that there are 5600 species of plants on the island with over 30% unique only to this island. Much of the flora is contained in the subtropical forests that cover large areas of the country.

For such a tiny place, the Dominican Republic has a startling number of environmental zones. The island supports 20 different kinds of micro-climates that range from full blown tropical rainforests to full blown desert. In short, this is a plant lover’s paradise.

Unlike its neighbor Haiti, the Dominican Republic saw early on the benefit in preserving as much of the habitats on the island as possible, and for this reason almost 10% of the country is set aside for parks and scientific reserves.

I am hoping that while I am there, I will be able to make a stop by the Punta Cana Ecological Park, but we will see as I am not certain how easy it is to get there.

Wish me luck and if I am really lucky, there will be ripe tomatoes waiting for me when I get home!

It’s been a long day, and I am just a bit tired. No… scratch that… I am really freaking tired.

So today, I thought I would just really quick share a bit of gardening trivia. Drumroll… Hollywood was first born in a garden.

Okay, Hollywood was not directly made in a garden. I am not sure you could actually fit that many egos, whores and writers into one garden. But the first example of actual film was created in a garden. Roundhay Garden to be exact.

The video above shows the film. It runs for a grand total of 2 seconds and shows the director’s (Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince) family dancing around their garden.

Of all the things you could put in the very first film and all we have is a 2 second home video. Go figure.

This film was shot in 1888, or possibly earlier. They know it is not later, only because one of the people in the film died before the end of 1888.

Short films like these eventually lead to real movies, which lead to Hollywood. So, yet one more thing we owe to a garden. Hollywood. Hmmm… Then again, perhaps this is a fact we should just keep quiet among our gardening selves.

I got back last night from Boston. Yesterday, before my flight, I had a few hours to kill so I walked around Boston and looked for all that is green and growing. Boston, being one of the oldest cities in the US, grew up before there was such an idea as urban planning. As a result, there is precious little green space. But the residents work very hard to make up for this in a variety of ways and I tried to capture that in the pictures below.

I am only going to highlight my favorite pictures and then I will put a link to the Flickr set at the bottom so that you can see the whole series of pictures if you want. Fair warning though, I am no photographer. I just wanted to capture what I saw. You can click on any of the images below to enlarge them.

This was a display outside a flower shop called “Twigs”. Isn’t it awesome? It’s made with carnations.

This is a community garden I came across. Very cool use of space in this plot. The collection of eclectic pots and decorations is very nice.

Sometimes the green that grows is vertical. While this is not intentional, this is a kind of green space.

I suppose you could call this the green that doesn’t grow. This was in the window of an award winning restaurant that had closed. The flowers from the last night the restaurant was open were left in the window to die and is a poignant reminder that even with all the skill, talent and applause in the world is still not enough.

Sometimes the things that grow are not green, things like anger, art and expression. This was an interesting graffiti painting I came across.

I wanted to share this one because I saw that the Green Roofs convention is being held in Boston in just a few weeks. And this was a cool example of one.

Click here to go to the my Flickr set of the other pics. Enjoy!

I’m still here in Boston and tonight I got a special treat. I got to go to Fenway Park. Thanks Ross! (That’s Ross in the pic) He was the one with the tickets.

He runs a Boston Red Sox forum and is a huge fan. They were good seats too. Nine rows back from the dugout. I have never been a big baseball fan but Fenway is a historic thing so it was fun.

And as I am not a baseball fan, I was bored after awhile and my attention wandered until it came to rest on the grass on the field. My god! I have not seen grass that perfect in my life. Since I have never been that close to a professional baseball field, I never noticed that the grass has this sort of ethereal quality to it. It is just that perfect.

I am not a grass fan. No flowers, no food, and a plant just won’t get me too excited. I could care less about my lawn. But seeing the Fenway Park grass made me appreciate the grass fanatics out there. I understand what they are striving for. I still don’t care about my grass, but I have insight into what the appeal is now.

Apparently, the grass in Fenway Park was not always so perfect. I found this article about how they ripped the whole field up, dug down 2 feet and re-laid it all so that it was perfectly flat. Mind blowing that someone would put that much effort into grass, but they did.

I guess I am not the only one who is impressed with Fenway Park grass. There is even a book written by a groundskeeper at Fenway Park about how you too can have beautiful grass. Like I said, lots of effort but I guess it makes some people happy.

Boston won, by the way. And maybe just maybe playing on such perfect grass helped.

This is your Cleveland gardening correspondent reporting live from Las Vegas.

I’m on a little weekend get away to Las Vegas, and enjoying the 80F temps here. This evening I went with my husband to eat at the Bellagio. The food was excellent and the Bellagio is just gorgeous. But it seems that the Bellagio, for all its grandeur and luxury has a problem that I think many of us can relate to… cracks in the sidewalk… or patio… or driveway… or any hard surface in our yard where a total replacement to repair slight damage just does not make sense.

I love the way the Bellagio has decided to deal with this problem:

The paint is a bit worn off (this is a really high traffic area) but I think the effect is nice. As you can see, they have painted over the crack and added some leaves to make a nice vine effect. The painting isn’t even all that professional, but you have to admit that it looks a whole lot nicer than an ugly crack in the sidewalk.

With a little outdoor paint, a home gardener can do this too. In Cleveland, you are going to see cracks in solid surfaces at some point in time due to the extreme temps that we face. But as the Bellagio shows, you can turn something annoyingly unsightly into a cute little garden accent.