During our visit here, in 2022, Daryl decided to ‘bite the bullet’ and become a Panamanian land owner.
The deal was finalized while we were in Canada during summer 2022.
On our first visit to check out this piece of land in early November, the weeds were a good three feet tall.
Then it took about a month to find someone to go out and give the property a haircut.
It took three guys with machetes and a whipper snipper a full day!
Now we can see our neighbours.
Across the front road there is a thick line of trees that makes a great privacy barrier…. it’s so busy sometimes we even have two cars at a time go by 🙂 The trees are called limoncello (I think), it has tons of fruit that is totally inedible. It also has more spines than any barb wire fence.
The limoncello hedge came with friends. Apparently if you leave them alone they don’t bite and are good for pollination.
We also had a couple of good size termite houses. Daryl saw to their demise.
A machete works, although I am sure flip flops are not the most appropriate footwear.
The yard had trees across the front and barb wire across another side, leaving only two sides to be fenced. It took a while before Daryl found somebody to do the job. As the plan is to plant a privacy bush all around the yard, we only needed a barb wire fence. It was very interesting listening to Daryl organize this with a guy who does not speak one word of English. Apparently the small sticks are alive and will develop roots to keep the fence sturdy.
“The guy” left an opening for the gate. then Daryl and I built it. We found four sticks in the bush and attached it to the barb wire to create the gate. It was 30+C, fortunately this property aways seems to have a lovely breeze. This time of the year it is north – south. It is also only about a kilometre from the ocean so hopefully we will also get east – west breeze when the wind changes.
Last summer we transplanted so many trees, I seriously thought we would never do that again. Not so, we found a uvilla tree and transplanted it. Oh the spines! Now we just have to see if it grows.
We have gone most every day for the last month with 20 litres of water for ‘the garden’.
Everything is growing like crazy.
The ‘barely there’ pot has cactus plants. The other is a loofah plant, we tried sprouting several seeds, only one took, and now it is growing like a weed!
Now we wait to see what everything looks like next November,
Our goal was to get the plants in the soil for a good month before we left to give roots a chance to get established.
The challenge, there will be no rain for the next month or two. Good chance everything will die.
Cheers
Ruth
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