By Donna Porter
In the wake of one of the fiercest storms that our little area of paradise has seen in decades is the destruction, disfigurement and removal of many of our grandest and loveliest trees. Obviously, a large fallen tree or tree limb can cause severe damage to structures, cars and people, and I hope that none of you, Quepolandians, or visitors to our area, experienced any of these misfortunes.
Today, one week after the storm, the sounds of chainsaws and falling trees still fill the air and we continue to see dramatic changes in our local landscape and forests due to the high winds (or whatever natural phenomena occurred that night) that is heartbreaking. We humans, instinctively, do not miss something until it is gone, and I think that will be the case with some of our lost trees. Some folks, however, may be rejoicing having gained instant, hassle (MINAE) – free opened vistas of the ocean or mountains, increased sunlight or resulting less debris and fallen leaves to deal with around your homes or hotels due to tree losses, but I believe the loss of their benefits to our environment, landscape and other native habitat is nothing to celebrate. Their scattered absence for their welcomed shade, their inherent protection from the winds, their veils of privacy from neighbors, and the birds that perch upon and nest within their boughs while monkeys perform their acrobatic stunts along their routes of travel will eventually be realized.
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Filed under: Donna Porter, It's a Wonderful World of Plants on July 7th, 2010
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By Donna Porter
While the flower has typically been the part of the plant that receives the most recognition, admiration and glory, I would like to take this opportunity to sing praise and pay homage to the precious and incredible… leaf. Yes, those little products of nature that block gutters, disrupt pool pumps and cause unsightly messes around your homes. Superficially, they appear to be such an oh-so-simple creation of nature, but, in reality, they perform highly complex chemical processes that serve a multitude of important and amazing functions. A plant’s foliage conducts a variety of feats while coloring and cloaking a good percentage of our world a beautiful green, and to understand it, or to at least be aware of its complexities, is to truly appreciate it. It may play second fiddle to the flower, but its significance to life on earth, alone, elevates it high above. Between its epidermal layers, intricate and essential processes occur. Processes such as photosynthesis – a natural phenomena that could be defined as something nearing… miraculous.
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Filed under: Donna Porter, It's a Wonderful World of Plants on May 20th, 2010
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By Donna Porter
We would all like to think that because we live in this warm tropical paradise, where plant life exudes from even the tiniest crack or crevice, that it is “a piece of cake” to grow beautiful, healthy plants. In some respects that is absolutely correct; plants do grow rapidly and sometimes, it seems, with the greatest of ease. Just cut a limb from a tree or shrub and stick it in the ground (in the rainy season of course) and in weeks it will start to leaf out and grow. But, our tropical paradise is no exception when it comes to the manner at which unblemished fruits and vegetables are produced.
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Filed under: Donna Porter, It's a Wonderful World of Plants on April 19th, 2010
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By Donna Porter
Summertime is upon us in the tropics and that means hotter temperatures and weeks and/or months void of the cooling, refreshing, life-giving rains. To any gardener, be they home-gardener or professional, this can only mean one thing – water, water, water. Visitors who have spent time in Costa Rica in our rainy season, may find it hard to believe that watering is a necessity here, but the natural cycle of the rainforest does include a dry period for flower and seed formation of the natural vegetation. This is why the native vegetation/indigenous plants can withstand these dry times, moreso, than the imported, exotic species.
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Filed under: Donna Porter, It's a Wonderful World of Plants on February 18th, 2010
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By Donna Porter
Creating and maintaining private gardens for individuals to enjoy has been a part of my life for the past 30 years, but creating public gardens has been my passion for the last 20. A private garden can be enjoyed by perhaps a hundred or so people, while a public garden is available for the enjoyment and education of hundreds of thousands. Mixing and matching plants in a garden design to showcase (or show-off) their best features is such a pleasure to me and the resulting combination can be magnetizing in a landscape. This is the thrill that makes creating gardens so much fun. But, the real reward for me is utilizing this skill in connecting people with plants.
So what is a public garden and what is so special about them? Well, I am so glad that you asked, and please, allow me to enlighten you. Public gardens are places that are open to the public and whose plantings provide an educational and/or recreational resource that assist in the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and the enhancement of the natural landscape. Public gardens encourage the people/plant connection. In North America, public gardens are as diverse as the natural world itself and include botanical gardens, display gardens, therapeutic gardens, nature centers, sculpture gardens, arboreta, parks, college campuses, historic landscapes and believe it or not, even some cemeteries are considered public gardens. It seems, though, that within this group, botanical gardens hold the most overall appeal.
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Filed under: Donna Porter, It's a Wonderful World of Plants on January 19th, 2010
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by Donna Porter
There is no other tropical plant that one associates more with the Tropics than the Palm. The sight of even the tiniest of palm tree figures, places you on a wide open beach, with warm tropical breezes, waves crashing in, sipping pina coladas decorated with colorful mini umbrellas and a sprig of pineapple leaf. For those with little to no imagination, I suppose this popular symbol does nothing of the sort.
Even though we typically refer to these plants as “palm trees”, palms are not related to what we normally think of as a tree. Palms are “monocots” and are more closely related to grasses (including corn), orchids, bromeliads and bananas than they are to trees such as oaks, fruit trees or pines, which are “dicots”. One distinguishing factor is that dicots produce woody tissue. But, of course, just to be an odd ball in the taxanomic classification system, palms do indeed produce woody tissue. Other than that, all other characteristics place them in the monocot division similar to grasses.
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Filed under: Donna Porter, It's a Wonderful World of Plants on December 6th, 2009
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by Donna Porter
Knowing the origins of a plant is not only fascinating information to obtain, but it also very helpful and useful in understanding how to cultivate it. Plants are truly amazing. They have managed to traverse the globe without the use of any movable appendages or abilities to navigate machinery (at least not that I am aware of). They also have managed to be discovered, uplifted and then transported, as far as half-way around the world by plant explorers of past and present centuries.
I am continuously amused at how many people think that the plants found in our local landscapes are “native” to Costa Rica. Their mouths drop open in awe when I tell them that at least 75% (a conservative estimate) of the plants that you see in the gardens and landscapes are “exotics”, meaning that they have originated in other parts of the tropical world and have, one way or another, found their way here to Costa Rica. Some of the exotics that were introduced during times of new world explorations have “naturalized” in the forests and along roadsides, but are not, technically, considered native/indigenous species. (more…)
Filed under: Donna Porter, It's a Wonderful World of Plants on November 5th, 2009
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