I was crazy to think I could get everything and put it together in one day. I jumped up this morning excited to get started. As always, it took forever to get organized to leave and some friends wanted to go along so we went to their house and then I got caught up looking at their garden. Finally we were off and stopped at a beautiful old colonial mansion that is sadly used to sell construction materials. I'm awed by the place, beautiful stained glass windows, huge wrap around porch with dozens of stone columns, a circular space at one corner that is surrounded by vines. The whole place has beautiful old pasta tile floors in wonderful patterns. Unfortunately, it is filled with concrete block and pvc parts and big bales of wires, the backyard has piles of gravel of different sizes and sand. I got another bag of the limestone gravel and we continued on.
There is a thing that happens in some businesses here, it seems like they really don't want to sell you anything. We got to the concrete and stone fabrication place in a small town on the outskirts of the city. It is a huge, many acres, factory filled with stone or concrete benches, fountains, columns, just about anything and everything you can imagine made from stone or concrete. I found 2 stands that I believe were made to be the outlet for water coming from the roof of large buildings. They are concrete, kind of angular and exactly the height and width I wanted... except I need 3. Before I found them the woman working said they didn't have anything the size I wanted. Sorry. I walked around and found several things that would work but when I asked she said they didn't have any more. Then I asked about a bench I want for the guest shower, sorry we don't have them in that size. I persisted, can you make them? What if I come back next Monday? I think it was the fear that I would actually return and we'd have to go through this all again that got her to call the back and see if they had 2 more of the spouts. Why yes, turns out they do. The equivalent of $10 each and they were mine. Weird to have to convince someone to sell you something from their store. I've had this happen before, I can see what I want behind a counter and they persist in telling me they don't have any, not until I point to it and ask 'what about that?' do they grudgingly agree to let me buy it.
The other big attraction of this small town is a famous nursery. It's also enormous, I walked for an hour poking around and don't think I saw everything growing there. I so wished that I had someone like Joyce along that could identify plants. If I wanted to ask about something I had to go and find one of the guys and then he would tell me the name in Spanish but, that doesn't help me since my knowledge of plant names is paltry in English and very shallow in Spanish. No tags of course. Lots of water gardens scattered under shade cloth here and there. Enormous ficus trees of at least two kinds neither of which is the same as the one hanging over my backyard. An African Sausage tree (translation of the Spanish name) that was just incredible. It must have been 50' tall and at least as wide and there were hundreds of loofah shaped gourds hanging from it. The blooms were prehistoric looking, just an incredible tree.
I bought 3 plants in the Arum family that are called Malanga and which he said were a small variety that will not get enormous. I'm hoping to put them bare root in the bog boxes along with the caladiums. I also bought a feathery looking papyrus, very large, for the outside pond. I have the umbrella type and wanted the puff type. I asked about dwarf banana and was shown one that is non edible but should stay under 5 or 6 feet in height. He showed me a mature one on the grounds that was blooming. The bloom goes straight up in the middle of the plant and the fruit forms around it. Very pretty. I wanted a red dwarf variety but you get what there is around here. I'm going to put it in the outside bog as well.
The ornamental banana was $8, the Malanga almost $6ea and the enormous papyrus about $11. I forgot to take my camera but my friend Paula brought hers so I will get some pictures from her. On the way home it was hot and muggy and we were going right past one of the huge malls which had underground parking. My plants wouldn't bake in the sun so went in and had a long lunch at Chevy's. When we left there was a rain deluge as if giant buckets of water were being poured on us. So, when I got home I brought the plants in and then took a nap. More to do tomorrow. This being retired is tough.
