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. Read More…

Filed under: Donna Porter, It's a Wonderful World of Plants on November 5th, 2009
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by Donna Porter

Pruning a plant has been defined as a cross between an art and a science. Understanding the physiological aspects of the plant makes it the science while having an eye for balance and a sense of design and beauty makes it the art.

Ok, so I can already hear you locals laughing at this. Pruning here is simply a cross between the machete or chainsaw and the plant. Both shrubs and trees benefit greatly from pruning – proper pruning that is – but for ease of explanation this article will focus on trees. If you have a tree(s) that you desire to keep in your landscape then some basic knowledge on this subject may be helpful to you. If possible, conveying this knowledge to your gardener would be the most advantageous, since they are in charge of the machete. Knowing a few simple facts, and applying them, will result in healthier, longer lasting trees in your landscape or garden and less damage to your property by falling tree limbs.
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Filed under: Donna Porter, It's a Wonderful World of Plants on September 27th, 2009
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