By Victoria Torley

When it comes to plants for the garden, I like the odd stuff, the weird stuff, the stuff that’s unusual. I like it when people ask why I have a bare patch of dirt and then the Resurrection flowers pop up followed by leaves. In Georgia, we had ‘naked lady lilies’ that did much the same thing.

It was fairly easy in Georgia to keep that bare patch bare while we waited for growth. After all, we had this thing called “winter.” Not my favorite season by any means but it did keep the weeds under control. Down here in Costa Rica, we get no such help. In fact, we get the opposite – the rainy season.

A lot of people, myself included, like to take a vacation in the rainy season; we like to go somewhere dry. We have a glorious time but find ourselves in shock when we return home three weeks later. “How did that get there?” we ask ourselves.

‘That’ could be anything from a black raspberry bramble to an ornamental banana plant. You know it wasn’t there when you left home, but it’s there now, smack-dab in the middle of the monkey grass border around the flower bed. And that well-defined flowerbed? It is now overgrown with unidentifiable weeds. Unidentifiable except for the wild morning glories that have crept over and up just about everything.

And what are these weeds? Monte is the only answer you’ll get from your Costa Rican gardener. You can ask just about anyone and no one knows. Why not? It seems like no one has taken the time to write a book called “Weeds of Costa Rica,” even though we certainly have enough weeds to fill several volumes.

But – and it’s a big but – the rainy season has some advantages. You now have about three months to plant those trees and shrubs you’ve been planning on without having to worry much about watering them; the skies will do that for you. Your job is to pick just the right spot and just the right soil. Here in Arenal, the weather for planting is perfect. Nice cool mornings with the rain still on the grass, then bright sunshine until the afternoon. Oh yes, the afternoons. Lots of rainfall to water the new plantings.

So get out there with the things that need to go in the ground. As for me, well there are no bare patches but the resurrection flowers do just sprout up among the weeds. I guess I’ll stick with them.



We all know the hibiscus with its large open showy flowers, but there is another hibiscus, the Turk’s cap hibiscus or Turk’s cap mallow ( Malvaviscus penduliflorus and Malvaviscus arboreus ) which are lovely in the garden.

Both varieties are commonly red-flowered and the 6-9cm flowers look as if they are perpetually ready to open into large blooms, but never do.

They are more like large buds that are slightly unfolding. They are an easy-care shrub, sun-loving but adaptable to light shade.

Since they can grow three meters tall and wide, either pick a large spot for them or prepare to prune. A bonus? Hummingbirds love these flowers.



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For more information on this article of request for information about gardening, Ms. Victoria Torley, gardener columnist, can be reached at victoriatorley1@gmail.com 

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