Calla Lilies

One of the flowers I'd been looking forward to growing in Costa Rica were calla lilies (Zantedeschia aethiopica). I knew very little about them, other than the fact that they grew in the tropics in areas with relative cool temperatures. Upon arriving we received a few bulbs from relatives and we stuck them in the ground in various places, none of which had very good soil. They didn't do well.

My wife said they liked damp soil, so a year ago we put some in a pot with good soil, and placed it in our new fish pond. The bulbs were just an inch or two above water level. They didn't do well either. Probably too much water.

I looked up calla lilies in two tropical gardening books that I'd recently acquired. GARDENING IN THE CARIBBEAN did not even mention calla lilies. I found this puzzling at first, but now realize that it logically would not include them because it only covers plants that grow in hot and/or warm climates. GARDENING IN THE TROPICS treated them only very briefly, and stated, ". . . best grown in plenty of light, but not in direct sunlight." When I told my wife this, she said, "Well, the book is wrong because in Costa Rica they are grown in direct sunlight."

I eventually looked up calla lilies on the internet and discovered information that verified my wife's take on sunlight. They do like direct sunlight.

Okay, so about this time we needed to create a series of catchment basins for the
water that ran out of our fish pond during heavy rains. Lots of water (but not too much), plenty of good soil, and direct sunlight -- maybe I could make a catchment basin that would be the perfect spot for calla lilies. So, I dug up an area just downhill from the exit pipe from the fish pond, worked in some sand and lots and lots of compost, and created two gutters exiting from the new basin so that excess water would run out. Next I took the pot of callas from the pond, divided the bulbs, and planted them in the new basin.

Within a couple of weeks we noticed that the plants were putting out dark green stems
and leaves that were much thicker and healthier than they were when they were in the pond. Within a six weeks we had our first blooms, and they have continued to thrive, multiply, and put out masses of blooms for four months now.

In October we got 33 inches of rain, and it seemed to rain almost the entire month, nonstop. At times the calla bulbs were under two to three inches of water for up to five or six hours at a time. But the excess water ran off and the rest soaked in. The callas just love their new environment. I have continued to add compost (and compost tea when they are dry). They, and we, couldn't be happier.

I've noticed that our callas only grow to be about 15 inches tall. The cut calla lilies that I see in the market are about two feet tall. They are grown at higher elevations than our lot. So, I assume that it is the cooler weather that they thrive on.

Happy gardening!

Pecking Order

We love to watch the birds in our garden. They are totally different from the ones we had in our garden in South Carolina, with the one exception of the house wren. The house wren here, however, is a different subspecies, and sings more sweetly than the one on South Carolina.

After two years of observation we have learned a lot about the birds. One of the biggest differences is that many of the birds here are nectar and fruit eaters. In South Carolina we put out mostly seeds, and ocassionally some suet. We tried putting out fruit a couple of times, but only succeeded in attracting butterflies and wasps. Here in Costa Rica, 16 out of the 78 species we have on our property are fruit and/or nectar eaters. We have two platform feeders where we put plantains, and sometimes bananas or papayas.

There is a lot of competition among the birds for the fruit. Some bird species tolerate other species at the feeder; other species will chase off any other birds. Over time we have figured out the pecking order, i.e., which birds dominate other birds. The order seems to be determined by a combination of size, size and shape of bill, and personality.

Blue-crowned motmot

Ironically, at the top and bottom ends of the pecking order are the two largest birds. The blue-crowned motmot is the uncontested king of the feeder. When it lands there, all other birds make a beeline for the bushes, where they remain until the motmot has had its fill and eventually lumbers off with a full belly. Although motmots are fairly sedentary birds and seemingly nonaggressive, they have long, vicious-looking bills, and will sometimes peck at other birds that try to land on the feeding platform. Motmots sometimes stay at the feeder for a half hour or more, resting between feeding sessions. If this goes on long enough, the birds in the bushes become wrestless and the clay-colored thrushes in particular begin to buzz the feeder, being careful to stay just out of pecking distance.

Near the bottom of the pecking order are the red-billed pigeons, which weigh almost twice as much as the motmots (the pigeons weigh 230 grams; the motmots, 120 grams). The pigeons have very small bills in relation to their size, and a very passive personality. They wait on top of our poro tree and watch the feeder till the morning feeding frenzy is over. Then they descend en masse on the feeder.

Male Hoffmann's Woodpecker (photo courtesy of R. Hays Cummins)

After the motmot comes the Hoffman's woodpecker. It is a medium-sized bird, but has a long, sharp and powerful bill. It is willing to share the feeding platform with other birds, but if challenged (which is usually by a thrush) will quickly drive the other bird off. It is kind of like Teddy Roosevelt -- it walks softly, but carries a big stick.

Next come the clay-colored thrushes (until recently called clay-colored robins) and the Baltimore orioles. There are lots of thrushes and they are around the feeder all day bullying the other birds to no end. The orioles are aggressive when they are here, which is only part of the year. They chase off most other birds, but seem to delight in squaring off with the thrushes. The thrushes usually stand their ground at first, but the orioles generally win out in the end.

Great Kiskadee

Great kiskadees come next in the pecking order and also fight a lot with the thrushes. Black-headed saltators follow. If at the feeder singly, they cannot stand up to a thrush, so what they do a few times a day is they come in as a family of four to six birds and take over the feeder. Not even a motmot can stand up to a mob like that.

The kiskadees and black-headed saltators are followed in the pecking order by a motly crew of grayish saltators, flame-colored tanagers, summer tanagers, and ocassionally hepatic tanagers. At times they will squabble among themselves, but they are basically non-aggressive birds.

Summer Tanager

Below these are blue-gray tanagers and Tennessee warblers. These birds almost always come in pairs. The blue-gray tanager seems to be a friendly bird and is generally not bothered by the other birds, with the exception of the thrushes. The Tennessee warblers just started showing up this year. They will land on the feeder when any other type of bird is feeding, with the exception of the motmots, and dart in to to peck at the plantain, and then quickly back out again.

We also have three species of hummingbirds, but they do not eat fruit, only nectar, so do not come to the platform feeder.

Happy gardening!

The Greenhouse

We have a greenhouse. It's a little different from most greenhouses. It happened because of two unfortunate circumstances. Here's how it came about.

Our guesthouse is built on a slope, with the front on the downhill side and the back on the uphill side. Instead of building the front a little above ground level (which we would have done, and which would have resulted in the back being AT ground level) the builder put the front at ground level, which resulted in the back of the house ending up about three feet below ground level. Then he extended a patio about 15 feet out from the back and built an eight-foot high retaining wall. So when you look out of the rear windows of the guesthouse you are looking at a wall. All this was done without our knowledge, and when we discovered what he'd done, it was too late to change it. So we had this little patio behind the guesthouse that we just hated.

Next, when I began gardening I quickly became aware that some of the plants (like tomatoes) did not like the cool, wet, windy weather. So, in essence, as they say, we took lemons and made lemonade -- we had our handyman build a transparent roof over the patio. Voila! we had a greenhouse, a place to put plants that were sensitive to wind and rain.

Rainwater storage tank

One unique design feature --  we designed it so we could collect the rainwater that ran into the roof-gutter and channel it into a 110 gallon tank with a spigot at the bottom. We use this water for the plants in the greenhouse. We also use the water to ferment compost tea. Being natural rainwater, with no chlorination, it is perfect for this purpose. After nine months of watering the plants, we have never run out of water from the tank.

I started tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, and a few other things in the greenhouse. Never having had a greenhouse, and never even having thought about having one, I was faced with a learning curve.The greenhouse was going to be the silver bullet to end all my problems, I thought. But, alas, things went downhill from the start -- everything became sick.

It just so happened that the beginning stages of the greenhouse corresponded with a month of damp, cloudy, foggy weather. Not good.

The tomatoes got blossom-end rot, early blight, late blight, and powdery mildew. Although the peppers got powdery mildew, they did produce some peppers, but they were small and sickly looking. Cucumbers were planted in pots that were too small, and they got powdery mildew, produced a few cucumbers, which quickly became infested with tiny green worms that bored into the fruit, and then they just pooped out altogether. The eggplants got everything that the tomatoes got, but in spades. I started some celery plants (which really didn't need to be in the greenhouse) and they were small and puny looking.

Gradually I began to discover my mistakes and have taken corrective actions. Things are doing much better now.

The first lesson learned was that most plants in the nightshade family -- tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, peppers -- not only don't like a lot of rain, they generally don't like high humidity either. Ed Burnhardt of The New Dawn Center  taught me this. "Grow these things in the dry season, when the humidity is down," he told me. The dry season is upon us now, so time to start those tomatoes.

The second lesson was also taught to me by Ed -- tomatoes (and many other plants) will benefit from Epsom salts (and some lime) if grown in the wet topics. This is because the high rainfall leaches magnesium out of the soil. Magnesium plays a role in strengthening plant cell walls, allowing the plant to take in the nutrients it needs. It also aids in seed germination, photosynthesis, and in the formation of fruits and seeds. I had begun to use Epsom salts in the outdoor garden, but figured, I had given the plants in the greenhouse such good soil, they really didn't need Epsom salts. But then Art Sulenski, a gardener from the San Ramon area, mentioned in a post on the internet that he had used Epsom salts in his greenhouse. So I tried it. Within a week the plants had perked up and the tomatoes and eggplants were setting fruit for the first time.

The next big revelation was the importance of trays under pots. I had never grown anything in a pot before, so didn't understand the importance of having the pot sit on a tray or saucer. Over the years my wife had had potted plants indoors, and they always sat on saucers in order to protect the floor or furniture they sat on from water that might run out the bottom of the pots. I had also learned from her that African violets needed saucers, and when watering them, they should always be watered in the saucer, never from the top. But, I figured, I wasn't growing the plants indoors, and I wasn't growing African violets, so trays weren't necessary. The idea of trays came when I noticed that tiny ants were building colonies in many of the pots. I posted a message on the crgardening group about how to prevent ants in pots. The answer came back -- trays full of water under the pots. When I did this, the plants began to perk up almost immediately, especially the celery, which had been languishing (it is a plant that likes damp conditions). So, trays not only help control ants, but also keep the plants moister. Another benefit is that this reduces the frequency with which they need to be watered.

The other two minor lessons learned were to make sure the pots are large enough, and to prune off diseased and sickly-looking foliage.

Now that I have learned these basic greenhouse 101 lessons, I look forward to growing healthier plants.

Happy gardening!

November Weather Report -- Sunny weather returns

Pascuita (Euphorbia leuococephala) which begins blooming at the end of November, and is a sign that Christmas will soon be here.

 The rains stopped on the first day of November. The next morning the sun emerged after an absence of almost a month. Local radio stations began receiving calls from listeners reporting a strange round, yellow object in the sky (how quickly we forget what the sun looks like!).

The rest of November was sunny or partly sunny, with measurable rainfall every two or three days -- just about perfect for the garden. Clear skies brought warmer days and cooler nights, with highs around 77 and lows around 61. Winds picked up from the east (the trade winds) and we experienced gentle breezes or light winds most of the time. Total rainfall came to 7.7 inches. Rainfall for the year now stands at 124 inches.

I spent much of the month getting the vegetable garden ready for planting.

This was the third November we have experienced in Costa Rica. Although considered part of the rainy season, I have found November to be an overall pleasant month -- rains are diminishing while sunshine is increasing; humidity is dropping while winds are increasing, and changing direction from the west to the east. This is healthier for the plants, and also reduces mold and mildew in the house, so is healthier for the gardener as well.

Happy gardening!

Tree Tomatoes, revisited

In the blog entry for October 18 I mentioned how well tree tomatoes did here, but also some of their drawbacks:

  1. Hard to peel
  2. Not much pulp
  3. Seeds as hard as beebees

We have since learned more about the tree tomato, and that it really doesn't have any drawbacks at all. In fact, I'm now eating a couple of fresh tree tomatoes ever day and it has become one of my favorite fruits. In an attempt to describe its flavor, I'd say it's a little like a cross between a tomato and a persimmon. But please don't hold me to that, as it's been a very long time since I tasted a persimmon.

What we discovered was that we weren't letting the fruit ripen enough before eating it. One day I found one of its fruit that had fallen on the ground. I took it inside and put it in our fruit bowl. After three or four days I sliced it in two, scooped out the pulp and ate it. The skin was not nearly so tough, the seeds had become soft, and there was plenty of pulp.

I like the tree tomato so much now, the first thing I do in the morning is I go out and check the ground around the tree to see if any fruit have fallen.

Happy gardening!