Plant Rescue

In the previous post, you saw how we junked up the fallen fig tree.  We did that to make room for the new plants that we rescued  - a vanilla orchid and a tiny little coral tree seedling.

I had been keeping an eye on the vanilla orchids for a few years now.  They grow in a palmetto stand along a path that I walk or run almost every day.  I showed a shot of a vanilla bean (seed pod) on one of them a couple of months ago in this post.  In preparation for transplanting the vanilla orchid, I got advice from the head gardener at The Spice Farm not too far from us.  Turns out there are quite a few individual plants in the palmetto stand, so I selected one close to the path.  Following instructions from the Spice Farm, we cut the vanilla vine that was growing up a palmetto, leaving the part rooted in the soil behind.  Then we chopped down the palmetto with the clinging vanilla vine to take back to our place.

Pascal clearing out undergrowth to get to the vanilla vine.

The vine is cut and now the palmetto is ready to chop down.

Carefully extracting the palmetto with attached vanilla vine from the undergrowth.

Tiger chopped off the palmetto fronds, we will only use it as a support for the vine. 

More trimming, taking care not to cut the vanilla vine.

Once the palmetto stick (as they are called here) was trimmed, we could safely take the attached vanilla vine back to our place.  We leaned the palmetto stick against a horizontal branch of an ancient cashew tree and piled up some mulch around the cut end of the vanilla vine.  The rest of the vine still had its roots attached the palmetto stick.  It will probably take the vanilla vine a couple of months to recover and it will undoubtedly suffer some die back as a result of the transplant trauma, but I am expecting it to make a full recovery.  If it does well in this location, we will bring in more transplants.  If it doesn't thrive here, we will try another location.  I would love to be able to harvest the occasional vanilla bean.

Next on the list to rescue were some coral tree (Erythrina sp.) seedlings.  Coral trees grow to a large size and are well-suited to our location with its high water table and sea salt spray.  Plus they have the most gorgeous flowers.

Here is the trunk of a large coral tree harboring sprouted coconuts nestled in amongst the buttress roots at its base.

Another view of the same tree showing its lumpy bark and buttress roots. 

Growing around this big old tree are lots of seedlings.  We selected 2 to dig up and transplant at our place.

Little seedling.

Little seedling in its new home near the location of the old fig tree.  I have great expectations for it.

We will be doing lots more rescuing and transplanting as the rainy season kicks in and the days get a little cooler.  

Goodbye Old Fig Tree

It was a good tree.  Although you couldn't call it pretty, you could call it pretty awesome; it provided shade for the generator shed and the garden beds below it, fruit for many species of birds and bats, and home to the most massive Myrmecophila orchid I have ever seen.  Below is the homely fig tree 13 months and 1 week ago as seen from the sunset balcony.

The fig tree, still suffering from a bad trim job that we gave it when it was interfering with our satellite internet reception.  It needed to have dead branches cut out too.

Then, on 4 August, 2016, Hurricane Earl hit northern Belize.  We felt some of it - high winds and lots of rain on the order of a tropical storm rather than a hurricane for us here in southern Belize.  The fig tree weathered the winds of Earl, but not the rain - the day after Earl came through the fig slowly tipped over in the dead calm.  Its shallow roots just pulled free from our sandy soil.

Fallen fig tree behind the gen shed.  It considerately slowly rolled off the roof, leaving some slight bends in the metal. 

Such a shallow root system just couldn't hold it up in the water saturated sand.

Over the next week, we started trimming the tree into smaller pieces.  I learned just last week that locally this process is called "junking up".  There are people who make a living "junking up" trees.  

Richard, junking up the tree.  But saving as much of the big orchid as possible.

Orington, AKA Tiger, standing next to the large orchid in the partially junked tree.

After we cut off the limbs with the orchids, we put those limbs under the cashew tree next to the old fig tree.  They are doing well, and even bloomed this year after a substantial post-Earl die-back.  The main trunk and the roots were too big and too hard for our chainsaw to make a dent.  So we let the remain portion rest in place, hoping that with time rot would set in and make it easier to finish junking up the tree.  Last week, we tried again.

Orington and Pascal attacking the roots with a machete. 

In the meantime - look at that Agave flower stalk soaring to the left of Orington.  The guys had never seen an agave bloom before.  I had to break it to them that after it bloomed, the main plant would die, but that the young agaves around it would take its place.

Slow going with a machete.

 Time to get the chainsaw out once the little stuff is dealt with by the machete.

Roots trimmed of with the chainsaw.

But our chainsaw still could not make a dent in the big trunk and main roots, even after a year.  We had to call in a professional to junk up the tree. Enter Godwin and his big chainsaw.

Godwin going at the tree.

 No one touches Godwin's chainsaw except Godwin.

He made several girdlings of the trunk with moral support from Orington, Clinton, and Pascal.

Clinton giving it the machete test to see how much more needs to be cut with the saw.

First section gone, working on the second.

Clinton trying to help push apart the sections while Godwin wields the saw.

The last section.

Trimming through the roots.

Flipped back with the roots down to get a better angle for cutting.

We can finish this part with our smaller chainsaw.

The fig tree was a good one and we have some fig seedlings to set out in places that aren't so close to our various buildings and structures.  Near this spot, we will plant a Coral Tree, which is much better suited to the high water table.  More on it next time.