Shari, John and others living in the face of salty wind.... Have you ever tried growing Carissa (Carisa?), also called Natal Plum? There is a thornless version as well, and a dwarf version: The leaves stay deep green, the flowers are fragrant, the thorny kind makes a good barrier and it is VERY salt tolerant.
http://www.monrovia.com/plantinf.nsf/0/2C2D79B59A8B24D38825684D0070D35F
I read one of the sites that said it needs partial shade...NOT. Here it grows in the parking lot at WalMart and in another place it covers a bank of landscaping in an industral area!!!!
Carol
VERY salt tolerant plant
Great idea! I hadn't even thought of it. Thanks for the tip!
And, Shari....if you can find some...it grows really well, quickly AND makes a good wind barrier... Now to find you some.... ;.0
Yep...that's the rub! Ha....but I am nothing if not stubborn!
I will check out the sources here. Worse come to worse...we can scurry down to Walmart and take cuttings from their parking lot. If caught we can say we are Horticultural Police and 'these branches sticking out are totally unacceptable'....
LOL
funni one AH.........but that's a great idea!.......we lived on the Big Eye for many years.........we recently retired and moved here.....
OMG...is your first name Jane?
What's this....? More friends re-united through DG???
Waiting to see if it's Jane! I guess it's someone Carol thinks she knows - what fun!
If you ARE Jane...are you a friend of Sherri Partlow. OH, small world department!!!
FYI - the fruit of the Natal Plum is quite tasty too, & makes a great jam!
aloha AH~~~ i sent you a dmail!...but for the forum, nope, not Jane.......Kimberly, i have cousins that live in Ke'eau.....i lived on the west side of the Big Eye for many many years.....DH born on Oahu.....90% of his family is still there, so we visit regularly......always with a sidetrip to the BI~
Come visit next time you are here...we are in Orchidland Estates...halfway between Keaau and Pahoa...mauka about 2 miles. Would love to meet you!
Carol
Doncha just love this site?!
Yes, we have them in parking lots and for security hedges here in Laie and they can take our bad salt winds. They are planted in full sun. I hear that the fruit is edible but the white sap in the fruit puts me off. I do plan on trying to stew the fruit though which I hear is very nice. Aloha
Is this shrub drought tolerant?
I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Dave. I own a vacation house on a small island in the Turks & Caicos Islands. Zone 11 I think. It is very salty (both the air and the ground) with thin limestone/sandy soil that drains very fast. Lengthy periods of drought. Most of the trees and plants that do well here are nitrogin fixers. (acacia, some kind of fruitless olive). I have been using water absorbing crystals mixed with soil and amendments covered with landscape fabric with some success and am engineering a gravity fed greywater irrigation system to plant some tropical fruit trees. Any suggestions for trees, plants or techniques would be appreciated. Stellamarina, I lived in Hawaii for three years and it was much easier to garden there!!! Aloha
There was a post in another forum, maybe tropical fruit, from someone who has natal plums; they flower but don't set fruit. Anyone with thoughts on that might pop over there.
I live in the dessert next to the Sea of Cortez and our soil is very salt. Pomegranites do very well here, So do most citrus and figs. For flowers I have plumerias and hibicus, among others. Lots of succulents.
scull, I posted about some pictures at a thread started by deviant_deziner in March (I haven't learned to do the link thing yet). It is an above ground garden that looks like it's underwater. It is beautiful and amazing and it uses lots of cactus and succulents. It is worth checking out.
Mangoes also do well here.
katiebear
Some hoyas do well...like H. halophila and H. diversifolia.
Aloha Dave, and welcome.
Natal plums also grow well in Phoenix, also used in parking lots! It is very hot, dry and has salty soil there and they seem to thrive with just a bit of suplemental water.
Although my garden doesn't seem to be salty (we are on lava and blue rock) I have had great results from using alfalfa pellets to help build up the soil. I get mine from a farm supply store - just don't use the ones that have salt added!
Looking forward to seeing pics of your garden, keep in touch with us and let us know what else you are planting!
Aloha
Jenny
Mahalo!! For the great advice! I will try the alfalfa for sure. And natal plums seem like a good candidate. I will have to do some hoya research:) I am flying down with small trees, shrubs and bulbs to plant. I have planted several Neem tree, a goumi berry bush, sme small palms and bulbs I found locally. I am bringing down loquat, papaya, elderberry, sea buckthorn, spanish broom, mexican oak, bottlebrush, afghan fig, bush clover, bladder senna, pink spanish lavender, false indigo. I will bring some alfalfa pellets with me and take some pictures!! What a great community of giving, generous people you all are.
Aloha Dave
what kind of elderberry and where did you get it? I used to have them in Michigan but I'm not familiar with the tropical or subtropical ones and Ii'd love to have them again . Neem is good. They do very well here. I forgot to mention them. Tomatoes are also pretty salt tolerant.
katiebear
Hey Katiebear, I mailordered one from forestfarm. Not sure if it will be too hot but I thought I would give it a shot. They will ship to me and provide a phytocertificate, I think that is what it is called, so I can get the plants into the Turks & Caicos. Very complicated:) What kind of tomatoes do you grow?
No, I was wrong, I found the elderberry on ebay!!
ty. I have grown cherry tomatoes. I'm still building my orchard and terracing, the veggies and flowers are coming in last.
Scull,
Arachis Pintoi, known as mani (mah NEE) in latino circles, is a member of the peanut family, a nice low ground cover, with small yellow flowers, is one I am trying in Vieques. It is a great nitrogen fixer and I am told very resistant to salt and drought. I'll update this forum when I see how she's doing in the field.
Thanks katiebear and JPlunket. This ornamental peanut looks promising http://ornamentalpeanut.com Is this the same one at this link?
I've also started malabar chestnuts from seed (started a thread on them, too) and I have a few macadamia nut trees which seem to like it here. Plumerias are also good here.
And I have a merremia I started from seeds I got from JLHudsonseedsman, which provides an amazing amount of shade and pretty yellow flowers. If you try this choose the spot to plant it carefully. I found it did not want to be moved (the one I moved died) and with the right conditions, which I seem to have here, it is a rampant grower. The good news is I chose the spot where my current plant is carefully and it shades most of my house and a large patio. The bad news is that in the wrong spot it will cover huge trees (the one I tried to move had grown over two 25 yr old orange trees and a large pomeegranite and other things. It was like Jack and the Beanstalk . Where it is now it provides much needed shade and can be cut back when it starts to spread to far (I think it would happily provide shade for our whole little suburb if I let it.).
Figs do well here, too.
I'll add more as things come to me
katiebear
P.S. Have I already said pomegranites?
Thanks katiebear. Yes, I have pomegranit on my wish list. Merremia sounds promising but I would need to build a trellis for it to grow on. I am trying to heep the trees/vines away from the house as the roof catches water for the cistern, the only source of water. Malabar chestnuts look interesting. What can you do with the fruit?
Get the Wonderful pom. The newer varieties are sweeter but not nearly as flavorful. You can grow them from seed. I got seeds at tradewindsfruit.com which has a lot of listing you might be interested in. I have heard varying reports on the edibility of the malabar chestnut. Raw they are said to taste like peanuts, roasted like chestnuts. One person told me she sprouted them. She said they have a very "earthy" taste.
I have gourd plants that do well here. So those or aquash would probably also do well for you.
I'd suggest the merremia only if you have a place like an arbor or pergoda where you want lots of shade and you have lots of room. I would need ahelicopter to get a picture that does justice to the size of mine! It might need its own island.
katiebear
Scull,
That's the one. I planted one flat and have another one waiting for me. If I see any problem with it in Vieques, I'll let you know. We get a pretty steady salty trade wind onto our property here, a block uphill from the Caribbean, though at a slightly higher elevation than most of the T&C.
JPlunket, yes, let me know of your success. I may ship some down next winter. Thanks, katiebear, I just ordered some seeds. I will plant them along with everything else in two weeks!! They do have loads of great seeds:) I have a barren half acre to fill and I am trying to practice permaculture as much as can and plant edible trees and shrubs. Thanks again, David
First picture is the arachis pinto (mani) planted in late December
Second picture is the same area in mid April --yes, it's been irrigated, but the soil is like concrete, and we are only one block windward of the Caribbean. You may not see it in this shot, but there are 5 to 10 runners per plant, about to really take off. I'm very pleased, so far, with this salt-tolerant ground cover plant. Updates to come...
There is a great book called
Seaside Plants of the World by Edwin A Menninger
Its our of print I think but I found it easily on line used. I use it a lot but some of the plants will not do here, I am only a zone 9, but then, some do very well. I do have a carrisa, I have overwintered it in the greenhouse, I am going to put it out this year and see if it can stand the cold and wet winter. I read about it in this book.
I also discovered coprosma from this book and have several, they are beautiful and take the salt, wind and poor soil very well.
Rebeccanne, I have that book! Very informative. One thing I really liked about it was the amount of info given for some plants that other books don't even mention.
Good to see you here - welcome to TZG!
Yokwe,
Shari
Salt Cay is as challenging a place you'll find to garden as the Sahara, I bet.
I visited Grand Turk, next door when they hadn't had rain in so long that the laundrymat had been closed for quite a while, and they were flying in drinking water.
I'd take it very slow and easy with what you spend money and care on.
Tomatoes are a winter fruit, they don't pollinate when the nights are too warm. Start your seeds in mid September, or October.
Someone on GT had wonderful huge old Bouganvillea.
OK, good luck! And keep posting!
Mm
Good grief Molamola....we are having very dry conditions here in Hawaii....but not as bad as they have it on Grand Turk! That really is the time to have TOUGH plants that will look after themselves. Aloha
Grand Turk might also have --extremely-- alkaline rock. It's not soil there!
The fresh water in wells on GT and the other T&C's and the Bahamas is a 'lense' of rainwater that is caught and held by the rock. Totally different geology from Hawaii. Once used up, it's gone until the next rain.
What I found amusing was that Islanders on Providenciales, the big, totally commercial island in the group, have agreed to agree that there are never hurricanes. Ha, I was living on Turk when a 90 mph one went right over. I was walking around in the calm eye for a few minutes.
I love the Turks and Caicos! Don't get me wrong. Mind boggling clear blue sea, and glaring white beaches and searing hot sunshine. But they've been 'discovered' since I lived there in the late eighties. Didn't have the cash to buy a half acre waterfront for 10k. I bet it's 200 now! lol.
But there are trees that can take it, and be totally green and happy. If I remember, date palms are good there. I always wondered why they didn't have a tree planting program. Oh, Genips were big and old.
If I wanted to have a home and water there, I'd dig a well and get a boat-type RO, desal machine and hook it up to one big solar panel. Costly initially, but dependable fresh water.
OK, Ms. Blabbermouth off soapbox!
Mm