PARQUES NACIONALES MAINTENANCE PRACTICES

IN PUERTO RICO, young and old people do not walk. They live attached lichen like to their vehicles of choice, for this reason very few, if any could see, perceive what you are about to read.  It is impossible to witness it from a car.

A couple of days ago I strolled through the streets, roads to a park right in front of the  Choliseum, Marti Coll Park.  I have visited this public space with a section on land and a concrete path going over mangroves and dark green sewage water. I am almost certain is the one and only in the whole wild world with such characteristics.

The unwise, ignorant landscape practices shown in the photos are not tricks as some may wonder, it is the naked truth, hard to comprehend.  It is also easy to imagine what the rest of Parques Nacionales, in the neck of the boondocks look like, judging from this San Juan metro zone demonstration.

The first thing I noticed were tens of mangrove trees felled without justification. I can tell is not a disease since all the victims are in specific spots close by the bridge, with the rest of the vegetation intact.

When one enters the shade and quiet are impressive. The silence, broken not by the singing of birds, (only one was spotted) but by the rumble of hundreds of vehicles in Munhoz Rivera avenue  and  Kalaff street.

The second visual impact, heavy-if I may- is the huge amount of bare, compacted soil exposing the roots of old, sick, never taken proper care of trees as shown in the photos.  In some areas, some shy native grasses make an attempt to flourish in a failed effort due to blowers, trimmers, compacted soil, and intense shade.

The people of Parques Nacionales do not know the concept of ground covers, if they did, Barleria repens, Wedelia trilobata, Arashis hypogea, Asystacia gangetica, all self sown with the condition of this particular ecoregion/microclimate would share their flowers to the visitors, pollinators and birds, including Spindalis and hummingbirds.  But it does not happen, contrary to yours truly, they do not keep an inventory--http://caribbeanbotanicalreview.blogspot.com/2012/05/botanical-inventory-revisited-2012.html --and if you ask naïve or not, how many species they have, the response will surely be: A whole bunch!

Parques Nacionales, is not the only public/private agency dealing with vegetation and the environment with the handicap. Recursos 007 Naturales and Fideicomiso, are in the same boat.  Ignorant and proud of their wasteful, tacky/ugly, ill kept surroundings.

Whomever planted the stupid looking palms, totally incongruent to this kind of space, who also planted the more ridiculous gingers/heliconias, in addition glued a couple of concrete green frogs in one spot, should be flogged in public.  A park like this is not the entrance of some hotel, golf club or backyard in a residence. None of these stupid looking plants,   are part  or belong to any similar environment/context in Puerto Rico or insult added to feebleminded injury.

Another problem besides the aesthetic impression of abandonment with bare soils is the erosion resulting from rain, irrigation and noisy, polluting blowers.  This compacted soils stop the water/air from reaching the root system. Without any nutrients, them trees they are sentenced to slow deaths.


The metal signs from the geniuses of EL ESTUARIO, is the jewel of the crown, ruining what is already an eyesore for the lay person, or the others like myself.

forgive them lord, them blind hogs for they do not know what

they do, have done, will do....

that is that

NATURAL VS STERILE MANICURED LANDSCAPE

CARIBBEAN BOTANICA is a branch of: caribbeanbotanicalreview.blogspot.com,where all started. I feel the need to keep a space to write about  issues created by feeble minds, ignorant/avaricious fools on one hand.  On the other, most conventional people in general, following the herd to the slaughter house without a little or some introspection.

On this post, one in a series I try to convey the concept of prairie in urban contexts as shown in the photos.  Native grasses provide food, shelter and nest building materials for all kinds of fauna.

Grasses provide color, texture, changing shapes with wind motion in a sterile, dull, rigid concrete/asphalt panorama dominating the cities in Puerto Rico, USA.

However, the notion of grasses and weeds as something unwanted, without aesthetics, synonym of ghost, abandoned urban scapes is predominant.  Their enemy are terrorists with trimmers as in the video.http://youtu.be/MTKfeW-_xK0.  These mostly young, illiterate  green industry workers do as they are told to do in  landscapes in the photos, as in gutters, sidewalks city wide in the San Juan Metro areas. 

Lets leave that there for know.

to be continued