5 strong, smart guys, a quick thinking horticulturist, 5 long days, and 6 big truck loads

We bought our home one and a half years ago but the pandemic slowed down our plans. In the meantime our new home turned into a bit of a jungle. Fortunately, Kristina Edge of Edge of the Sea landscaping understood what we wanted and had great ideas.

They cut and sawed and made many piles of our overgrown yard. We unearthed many trees. I enjoyed watching the process of pruning them , turning them into even more beautiful old trees.

We have an amazing variety of trees. Just for starters we have wild plums, desert cherries, oranges, sapote, tropical cherry, mango, limes, lemons, guavas .. etc. We are so glad Bonnie planted them and Beto kept them alive but it was challenging to find them.

We have lots of indigenous plants too. Despite the language barrier they educated us about the plants. There are trees whose sap can be used medicinally… rattlesnake bites? Some for incense and of course lots of palo d arco for building pergolas.

We have many old cacti in the garden. One had fungus at its base. They cut it, chopped the top and replanted it for me. They are remarkably heavy! a wonderful way to perhaps save the old cardon. We have cardon that are probably 100 years old.

The agave are beautiful as well with their blue gray color but easier to walk by when pruned. They didn’t have access to their pruning tool but asked for a kitchen knife and did a quick job of turning our agave into a pineapple.

Make no mistake, it was hot, humid and thorny but they worked hard, laughed a lot, taught us much and were happy to drink any Fresca or Clamato provided, and at the end of 6 days…. interrupted for a tropical storm… all of their expertise made our yard into what we imagined it to be.

We had dinner at Willys tonight and talked with Guillermo ( the owner of willys ) about what we were doing. As it turns out he is an avid Gardener with 100s of plants. We had a great competition as to who had more of each tree. I love how people respect plants here and the food they give them… perhaps the desert helps with that.

With the yard cleaned up, the trees will be healthier and happier. Now time to get the raised veggie beds planted. Oh…. and I think I need to buy a few new plants!