After a year of dead garden, flooded garden, dead garden, flooded garden, we decided to take matters into our own hands and hired a gardener to come by and spruce things up. We met a lovely man from the Philippines who has a degree in Agricultural science and was willing to help us with a bit of landscaping. Interesting story - he came here to find work, owns a farm back in his home country and works his tail off to put his 3 kids through university - one in medical school, one in pilot training and one in aviation engineering back in the Philippines. Meanwhile, he's using his hard earned degree to help some hapless expat fix her miniscule garden. Sometimes the reality of the stories here are overwhelming.
Anyway, we picked out some nice plants and he and his colleague transformed our garden area in a few hours Saturday afternoon. Now we've got some flowers, much prettier ground cover and hardy plants that will last through the brutal summer and the occasional drought caused by our faulty water timer. Here are a few photos of their work.
BEFORE
AFTER
I know, it's a far cry from the pond behind our last house, but it's the best we can do with what we have to work with.
Anyway, we picked out some nice plants and he and his colleague transformed our garden area in a few hours Saturday afternoon. Now we've got some flowers, much prettier ground cover and hardy plants that will last through the brutal summer and the occasional drought caused by our faulty water timer. Here are a few photos of their work.
BEFORE
The "dirt" looks like sand! How does anything grow in it?
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Kim, it is all sand. With a thin layer of compost mixed in the top. Even the "potting soil" I bought at a True Value hardware store was only peat moss. Real, rich dirt is very rare here. Yet somehow the trees and plants seem to do okay ... as long as they get watered.
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