Updates!!

I know it's been ages... I'm sorry, it's just that we have been so very busy for the last few months I have barely had time to think let alone blog to you guys!

Anyway, rather than rabbiting on too much (you know I'm good at that)... I'm just gonna show you what we've been up to! Enjoy!

 Visitor centre is done! The walls knocked down, the floor filled in and painted and all the walls have a nice new coat of paint too... nice and sparkly new!

We've even managed to install an activity station called Kids Corner where younger visitors can do some colouring, work through some activity sheets or play some games.

 

The Mega D Youth foundation had a summer camp at the garden - lots of fun was had by all.

 

Broadreach came to play in the garden again. They helped us to rebuild one of our children's garden walls. We had over 60 helpers from Broadreach in just one week. Amazing!

 

Sheila did some science! She conducted a study on effective ways of killing Tan tan trees at the garden. Tan tan is an invasive species and it's notoriously hard to get rid of. This stump was one that was treated with herbicide... you can just make out little shoots around the base... more experimentation is needed but we learnt a lot.

 

We overhauled the compost area. It now has 3 lovely large filling areas. One for all the new debris from the garden, another next to it so we can transfer the compost after a few weeks of decomposition (good way to aerate your compost) and a third nearest the shadehouse for the final stage of rotting down. At last a huge area for all our garden waste... no more trips to the dump!

 

We had a very successful project launch - the Statia Morning Glory Challenge. We had some seedlings of the new National flower of Statia (oh yes!) the Statia Morning Glory and have been giving them away to greenfingered residents who want to try and grow it in their gardens. The response has been really positive so far with lots of people wanting to have a go. We are hoping to get some good information from local horticulture enthusiasts about how they are growing them.

 

We have had some less welcomed visitors for the last few weeks... a cow and her calf from last year. Luckily we have friends with tranquilizer guns! The boys from LVV came out today in fact and knocked them out and are planning to take them to be penned up away from the garden when they come round from their little snooze. Of course although I have to repair a lot of damage I do now have plenty of natural fertilizer (the brown gold- you know I love it) and I haven't had to weedwhack the lawn in weeks!

 

 

So now you know why I have been so quiet... More to follow in the next few weeks, I promise, so stay tuned as they say.

 

Much love from the garden on the golden rock.



The mighty Cerdarion!

Cerdarion Courtar has been interning with us at the Botanical Garden now for the last 3 months as part of his MBO 1 from the Gwendoline Van Putten School. He has grown so much over the last weeks and has gained knowledge, skills and met lots of people from Statia and from abroad.

He had his last day today, he completed a proficiency test which is the practical exam for his course and he passed with flying colours.

We had a little celebration with the volunteers and his teacher, Jos, at the office and even had some cake, carrot cake with no icing... his favourite (see, I was 100% confident he would pass so I was all prepared!)

We will miss him and the great help and assistance he has provided over the last few months... as well as the amazing imagination, (Corallita in my garden coming alive to attack me in the night because I killed it's relatives in the fruit garden) the great banter ("Claire, are you trying to kill me?" a comment on my driving skills, or lack there-of) and the good fun we have had as well. Of course he works in Duggins so I don't have to venture too far to catch up on what he's up to.

I am really pleased that he has decided to continue his studies and go onto MBO 2 next year. So, Cerdarion, good luck with the rest of your exams over the next few weeks and most of all thank you for all your hard work!

Much love from the garden on the golden rock.

Cerdarion in his first week - the rock finder!

 

 

Showing the Corallita who's boss!

 

 

Last day in the garden with after the exam with very a proud teacher Jos and Job-trainer Claire.

 

 

Doing my girly version of Cerdarion's favourite pose.

 

 

 



Back to basics...

Today I was in the big black box that has been housing all the books and papers from the garden for the last few months while we wait for the visitor centre to be opened. I found the mission statement for the garden that was created back in 1998 when STENAPA were first looking at getting the land for the project.

There was the mission statement for the garden, and although I have seen it before, today while it was pouring with rain and I was sorting through the cockroach poop that lined the bottom of the box, it seemed a very apt moment to remember what we are aiming for.

It is easy to get bogged down sometimes in the day to day grind, the constant battle with the Coralitta and the weedwhacking but this is why we are doing what we do...

• To preserve and enhance existing ecosystem and the cultural heritage of Statia.
• To conserve available resources using sustainable practices.
• To educate Statians and visitors of all ages of Statia's rich biodiversity.

 Much love from the garden on the golden rock ;)

Heritage garden, Governors and accident prone Iguanas....

One of the most satisfying parts of the job is creating new and exciting gardens for visitors to enjoy. This year we have a lot of this kind of work planned. We have a lot of volunteers booked to come for the year and so much of the work that has been on the back burner because we needed more people can now be tackled. One of them is the heritage garden.

This will encompass the pre-Columbian gardens and post-Columbian gardens. It will be a walk through time, starting in the pre-Columbian section with native species and plants introduced and used by the Saladoid Indians. Visitors will then be led through a section planted with species that would have been plantation crops sugar cane, cotton, coffee etc. So many of these crops were grown, processed or traded through the island during the 1700's during Statia's so called 'golden era'. The last section is a tribute to the enslaved Africans whose culture, traditions and legacy has formed the backbone of our community. It will showcase a replica slave hut that will demonstrate to visitors first hand how they would have lived and what their daily lives would have been like. The path will then lead you out into the fruit garden.

This week we scoped out the pathways, started on clearance and lining of the paths with stones and started to clear the section for the Indian installation. Work is progressing nicely and we are hoping to have most of the structural work and hard landscaping completed this year.

We also had the honour this week of welcoming 2 island governors to the garden. Governor Gerald Berkel of Statia and Governor Eugene Holiday from St Maarten visited, met with working abroad volunteer John and Cerdarion who is back for 6 weeks to complete his internship at the garden. They had a guided tour and were also able to see some of the work we have been doing in the fruit garden and even had time to discuss some of the future plans for the garden including the visitor centre.

Other news this week... Iguana drama! So, I don't know if you have ever seen an Iguana in a full sprint but they are not the most graceful of creatures. One could say they are a little awkward even clumsy perhaps. One that we saw at the garden on Monday moments before the Governors were due to visit definitely falls into the latter category. It was in the house when we spotted it earlier in the morning... hanging out, sitting on the desk etc. It then decided to climb the Dracaena next to the house. We went about our business making the pavilion look nice to receive our VIPs. The next thing I see of it was a tail and two back legs flailing wildly in the air next to the tree. The Iguana had managed to get stuck head first in the drain pipe... actually the down pipe that leads to the cistern!

Fearing it would wiggle down more, land in the cistern (which is full of water thanks to some nice winter showers) and drown we quickly grabbed the ladder and muggin's here... yes me, scared to death of going up ladders, raced up and grabbed it to stop it falling further in! When it was clear it wasn't coming back out the way it went in we had no choice but to cut the down pipe and remove a section to allow it to come all the way through. I managed to wriggle it out and determine it was not injured.

We released it in the garden (away from any other drainpipes) and made a quick fix to the pipe just in time to grab the last flowers for the conch shells, mop up the blood (mine not the Iguanas... it wasn't very grateful I'd just saved it's life!) and smile as the governor's car pulled up!

as ever, much love from the garden on the golden rock... where life is never dull!

 

Me with the Igauna and the down pipe we had to cut!

 

 

The new pathway into the heritage garden... lots of rocks to move... again!

 

 

 The volunteer crew!

 

Between a rock and a hard place

These last couple of weeks it's been all about rocks... We cleared, leveled and covered a section of ground between the Medicinal garden and Fruit garden with weed suppressing material. We also worked on a large section just below the pineapple bed in the Fruit garden. Both areas were fields of Corallita and Tan tan trees before and now they are completely cleared we are just trying to make sure it doesn't come back for a while!

Of course whenever you are leveling anything in our garden you find a ba-zillion (technical term) giant rocks. Luckily we had our rock-removing team, Eric and Cidereon. Cidereon has been working with us for 3 weeks now, he is a 17 year old student doing job-training from the local senior school and he is big strong lad! Rocks quake in his shadow, Tan tan trees would run from his pick axe (if they had legs).

He works very hard, he has a great attitude and we have had a lot of fun with him over the last few weeks. He is on school vacation and class time for the next couple of weeks but hopefully he will be back with us for another job-training session in March.

Jeanette and Eric had their last day in the garden today. We finished the last section of the clearing in the fruit garden just in time so they have been able to see the completion of our mini-project before they leave. Very sad to see them go, they brought positivity and lots of hard work to the garden. I might cry at the airport again... we'll see!

Much love from the garden on the golden rock x

 

This is the area below the pineapples after we had cleared it.

 

This is what it looked like this morning when we finished laying the material.

 

 

Cidereon - rock mover extraordinaire!