Garden Design with Cacti

This past week Jo Ann and I attended a wonderful lecture presented by Martin Smith, the curator of the cacti collection at el Charco Botanical Jardín in San Miguel de Allende. The purpose of the lecture was to discuss how you can use cacti and succulents in your landscape and garden designs in lieu of using the more traditional plants and flora that most people from the US are accustomed to.

During the lecture Martin covered many landscape design concepts and how the use of cacti and succulents can be both attractive and eco-sensible. The plants that are on display and for sale at el Charco are solely native plants to Mexico and so are able to handle the disparities of the temperature, the potential of draughts and the high winds that we can experience living here in the high desert.

Through out the lecture Martin also covered a number of key design concepts that he integrates when he is designing gardens both here in San Miguel as well as in his home country of England. These concepts include the use of the rule of thirds, complementary and contrasting colors (using the artistic color wheel), implementing odd numbers and using repeating patterns. All of these concepts can greatly enhance the ambiance and serenity of your gardens and outdoor living space.

As we walked through the various cacti gardens, Martin would demonstrate hands on how they had transformed the various cacti gardens. Here are two examples of gardens that they completely transformed into one of the most engaging gardens that I have experienced.

If the concept of learning how to use cacti and succulents in your garden and outdoor living space, and you missed attending this lecture, we are having a similar session for the San Miguel Down to Earth Garden Club on the 22nd of February from 3 to 5p. There will be at charge of 70 pesos for members of el Charco and 100 pesos for non-members. If you are interested please go to the group web page here.

Update on the Pozo

So we have good news on the status of our well. It seems that with all of the recent development in and around our rancho, there has been a lot of churning of sand in the aquifer. One of our filters for the well had gotten plugged with sand and other particles and the plumber on Sunday did not think of checking that when we starting talking about more significant problems. So the good news is that we now have again a good functional well and can proceed with finishing our landscape project.

The good news is that this problem allowed Jo Ann and I to talk further with our architect about water conservation and other eco-conscience techniques. We were again assured that what we are doing is very draught tolerant and after a year or so, will not require any significant water usage.

So I have finished installing the drip lines for the trees that have been planted and we will hopefully be done with the project in the next ten days to two weeks. ¡Esperanzadamente si los dioses sonríen en nosotros!

You Don't Know What You Got Til It's Gone

Credit to Joni Mitchell for the title to this posting. It has been a very difficult weekend here at Rancho La Luz. On Saturday afternoon we noticed that the pump in the water well had been running almost non-stop for several hours. This is highly unusual so I opened up the access doors to the cistern and found that we were not getting much water from the well.

On Sunday this problem continued and our plumber came out to investigate. It seems that either our pump has failed or the aquifer level has dropped below the level of our well. Neither of these situations is good, but replacing the pump will of course be easier and quicker to repair.

What makes this extremely upsetting to me is that we are a week or so to finishing all of the landscaping at the rancho. Although almost all of the plants used are native and are very draught tolerant, however they need to be watered a lot during the first two or three years after planting so that they can get well established. My stress level is over board and I have been a very difficult person to live with this weekend (sorry Jo Ann).

Both Jo Ann and I are very eco-conscience, using organic fertilizers, composting and drip irrigation, but without water there is nothing that you can do. I only hope that we can solve this problem quickly and not have any permanent or lasting damage to the plants.

Today the plumber is coming out with someone who works exclusively with pozos so hopefully we can get our problem solved. If not, we will start buying water from a private source and using extensive conservation techniques that we learned living in Marin County during some of the draughts there. I hope to have some better news for everyone later today. Hasta pronto.

The Good, Bad and Ugly, a typical week in Mexico

The past week has been a wild week for me. As I sit here on Sunday evening, I am exhausted (and of course a little sore, but more on that later). The week started last weekend, when Agistina and Tomas (two people who work on our rancho) wanted to give my wife Jo Ann a surprise birthday party. Agistina prepared a excellent and extensive meal of mole, rise, frijoles negro, cerveza and of course tortillas. Tomas had arranged for a local band called Trio Dos Generaciones to play. So around 2 in the afternoon they showed up at the rancho with their families and we had a great celebration that lasted long into the evening.

Jo Ann had a great time and I believe that everyone else did also.

Then on Sunday, we went to the final fütball game of the year. Our local time, which is called Team Chivas (like the very popular one here in Mexico), had won the class C league here in San Miguel and was going to play the Class B league winner from Rodriguez. Well there is definitely a difference when you move from one class to another as the result was the ugly. Our team got pasted by a score of 4-0 but it was a lot of fun, even if the final run had to come to an end.

One Monday, I commenced a quick trip up to McAllen Texas. When we moved our belongings down here to Mexico, we had a complete inventory of these goods, that had been certified by the consulate of Mexico in Saint Paul Minnesota. When our movers got down to the border in October, they rejected one item on the list, a small garden trailer that goes on the back of the ATV. I use this trailer to move tools and supplies around the rancho and it is clearly off road. We argued over the phone but to no avail, the movers were not going to bring it as they were sure the Mexican customs organization Aduana would reject it and require it to be off loaded. The movers held this trailer for me at their warehouse, so the trip this past week was to pick it up, together with a bunch of drip irrigation supplies I had recently purchased.

Monday was spent driving up to McAllen, Tuesday was loading up the truck with the trailer and the supplies that I had purchased and then Wednesday was crossing back across the border. When I came to the Aduana check point, I had all of my receipts for the drip supplies and the certified inventory that included the trailer. Well, they wanted to see all of the receipts, but never even asked about the trailer. I paid my duty and headed south. That sure was a lot of time spent to get the trailer that no one even seemed to notice.

Thursday and Friday we spent riding the horses and working around the rancho. Most of the major renovation projects are getting close to being finished, I can't wait as I am tired of having the workers around all the time and not having a lot of peace and quiet.

Saturday we decided to go on a bike ride and headed out towards Galvanees. We were about ten miles from home when I punctured my rear tire. The puncture was very large so that the slime that I have in my tires could not stop the leak and I could not fix it while we were out in the compo. So Jo Ann gets to ride home and I start the long process of walking home.

Sunday arrives and we are looking to ride the horses over to Palo Colorado as the weather is just wonderful. We are finishing up our ride and Jo Ann decides that she wants to gallop her horse one last time, so we take off on a trail that we ride a lot. While in a full gallop, Chandon (my horse) gets spooked by something in the brush and decides, on her own, to turn left and jump over this large patch of brush. Well I was surely not expecting this, and I am far from an expert in jumping, so I hang on for dear life, but after we land, I loose my balance and fall of my horse. I am scraped and bruised, but nothing too serious, I just ache.

We mount up again and ride on home, this time very slowly. After cooling the horses down we turn the out in the pasture and head off to lunch.

After we finish our lunch we decide to walk up to the stables to see how everyone is doing. Well to our major surprise, Moet is running loose outside the pasture. It seems that the one of the burros had gotten between the fencing and some cacti and in a panic knocked down a portion of the fencing, the problem being that this portion was also attached to the gate, so there was nothing to stop any of the animals from walking out. We quickly (well as quickly as a person with a lot of aches and pains can) temporarily repaired the gate and got all of the animals back inside the corral. What a way to end up a very busy and active week. Now I just want to sit here and enjoy a glass of wine and try to forget the aches.

So how was your week?