BIOCENTRIC GARDENING 2015 IN REVIEW

MOST meaningful gardens of the world,--lets take Kew Gardens-- in London, for example, is known anywhere for their installations, landscapes, research, green houses, beauty and else.

What you do not see, at least I do not, is the kind of biodiversity in the native flora/fauna benefitting from such a spectacular man made historical creation.

Sociedad Horticultural Bouret, decided to focus in a biocentric way considering climatic change with the consequences it brought to Puerto Rico, during 2015, the first ten months of mostly dry, over the average infernal hot temperatures with almost daily rain, intense and light, with a temperature drop of about 10 degrees Farenheit.

Some plants passed away unable to tolerate not the drought, most do, the constant hot temperatures over 90.  Now know those living are being used as forage mostly by snails, slugs with a few chewed by coleopterus.

2015 was remarkable for the amount of Spindalis nests, 3, and other sparrow like birds, 1, the amount of lizards went down, snails/slugs dissappeeared during the drought, making a solid comeback during November, December, their damage is mostly asthetic, no a big deal.

However the Barleria repens in the west side covering a significant area of the whole, suffered from a dk vascular disease that killed the stems from the bottom up.  Fortunately, it is recovering slowly, but presents a problem for the future.

If the disease was caused by the heat, then,
soon or later it will pass away. For that reason I started collecting agavaceas and other plants to maintain a variety to observe their tolerance of heat during the next year promising to be even hotter according to weather reports.

I have to mention the daily visits from a great bunch of bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. They all seem to have their favorite 'dish', except hummingbirds they check every available source of nectar.

Finally, I want to share some of the living creatures or traces of their living in our garden. Not many gardeners think about it, distracted by the 'beauty' of this or that flower, forgetting that their garden could help to improve life in the surrounding urban asphalt/concrete context in a significant, transcendental way, choosing vegetation in consideration of such.

FUNGI AGAVACEAS AND LICHENS

THANKS to some gardener friends who made an irritating superficial criticism on my opinion regarding mutilated bushes/trees: they should be pulled out...No discussion about it....

Any ways, I decided to share some photos of plants, vegetation, creatures making their debut
now...They are two areas for which I have a particular affection for the difficulty to keep them
healthy...

that is that

SOBRE LA PODA/MUTILACION DE ARBOLES EN LA PENINSULA

Hace unos dias en Arbolado Urbano alguna persona hablaba/escribia sobre 'incongruencias'/ 'incoherencias' cuando su servidor declaraba su posicion a cualquier arbol mutilado en el monte o entorno urbano. 

Yo afirmo arrancarlo de cuajo y seacabo. Como vera el lector iniciado en estos temas, la cita cubre toda la cancha, de manera irrefutable.

Un arbol mutilado es incapaz de cicatrizar, expuesto a todo tipo de enfermedades e insectos.

Como en Espanha existe un alto nivel de bilinguismo no veo problema alguno con el ingles aqui va el asunto tomado de:

Pirone's 

Tree Maintenance

Oxford University Press

2000

pagina 128.

"Trees may also be topped to remove potentially hazardous dead and diseased branches which may break off during ice storms or windstorms.  Unfortunately, topping removes healthy as well as unhealthy limbs. The hazardous limbs are bes removed by selective pruning instead of topping.

Large mature trees  are often topped to prevent interference with overhead utility wires. They are also topped  when they block views, interfere with buildings or other trees, or shade solar collectors or other areas where sunlight is wanted. In some of these situations, removing large limbs may be necessary, however, alternatives such as proper early training, selective thinning out of branches and limbs or whole tree removal should be considered and adopted where feasible.

Removing much of the tree canopy upsets the crown to root ratio and seriously affects the tree's food supply.  A 20 year-old tree has developed 20 worth of leaf surface area.  This leaf surface is needed to manufacture sufficient food to feed and support 20 years worth of branches, trunks, and roots. Topping not only cuts off a major portion of the tree's food making potential, it also severely depletes the tree's stored reserves. It is an open invitation for the tree's slow starvation.

Removing the tree's normal canopy suddenly exposes the newly injured cambium to the heat of the sun, drying it out and killing these regenerating tissues back further.

Topping removes all the existing buds that would ordinarily produce normal sturdy branches.

Large branch stubs left from topping seldom close or callus.  Nutrients are no longer transported to the large stubs and that part of the tree becomes unable to seal off the injury. This leaves the stubs and that part of the  tree becomes unable to seal off the injury. This leaves the stubs vulnerable to insect invasion and fungal decay. Once decay has begun in a branch stub, it may spread into
the main trunk, ultimately killing the tree. Fruiting bodies of decay fungi are often visible on the bark of decaying trees".

Sugerencia?  No hay que opinar superficialmente sobre nada sin saber, sospechar el peritaje del otro,
para evitar quedar retratado/a en la avenida. Cual es la incongruencia/incoherencia?  Las suyas?

Suerte y exito en sus proyectos