Warm greetings all. 🙏 💚
This is a short garden update about a new planting bed that I created today under a strawberry guava, Psidium cattleyanum. I also included some photos of the plants that I put in the bed under a hala tree, the creation of which I described in this post.
I put chopped coconuts on the ground before adding the soil, that will decompose over time. I them added 10-year-aged macadamia nut soil mixed with lava gravel. Once that looked good, I put on mixed wood mulch, and lava rocks around the perimeter.
The path between the new bed and the existing bed was rather undefined, with uneven ground, so I leveled the soil, and made a pathway with lava gravel.
Strawberry guava is rarely used in landscapes here because it tends to spread and grow very rapidly (it is considered extremely invasive), however, if the trees have sufficient room to grow under good conditions, and perhaps with a bit of pruning, they can be quite attractive trees that produce quite heavy crops of delicious and nutritious fruit. Strawberry guava leaves are also medicinal, and it's one of the species that often add to some of my medicinal tea blends.
There was also a ti plant, Cordyline fruticosa, growing next to the strawberry guava, which can also be seen in the photos. When I decide what to plant here I'll post it in another update.
Earlier in the week I planted the bed under the hala tree with two species. I planted two Ternera ulmifolia, which has the extremely colorful vernacular name of ramgoat dashalong, which is gets from how it is said to affect male goats. This plant is very medicinal, and another one that I put in my tea blends often. It's a very attractive plant with large yellow flowers that open during the day and close at night (I forgot to take shots of it earlier in the day when the flowers were still open). It forms a generally symmetrical rounded mound.
I also planted six Asclepias curassavica, the tropical milkweed, a showy species with usually red and yellow flowers that is a good plant for the non-migratory monarch butterflies here. None of these plants had flowers yet when I planted them.
Under these sunny conditions both species should fill out quickly and produce copious amounts of flowers, which will brighten up the entrance, where this bed is located. I know it's not that easy to make our the plants, as they are all still rather small, but I took shots from a few different angles to make it perhaps slightly easier. I put a Cattleya orchid, that I found tossed in the brush on the side of the road, in the hala tree. It is a tad sad at the moment, but it should perk up quickly, hopefully with flowers soon.
Thank you all for sharing another Seaview Garden Update with me! Until next time! 🙏💚