March 8, 2020 - 177 - "It's Not That Easy Finding Greenery...continued"

Every Vision Has It's Challenges

     So, our vision for clumps of bamboo morphed into a vision for a particular kind of trees.
     Ficus are common here and are easily trimmed into the sort of shape we wanted.  ...but they drop a lot of leaves.

    Our gardener, Rodolpho, suggested laurel trees.  

Adventures to the Plant Nursery (Viveros)

     So we headed off in search of trees.  Me with Fabian, Rodolpho's son, in the cab of Fabian's truck.  Michael and Rodolpho in the back, (riding in the back of a truck is still legal in Mexico) sounding like two teen age boys.

     ...except when Rodolpho would get onto his son about exactly where we were going, and exactly what the perfect route to get there would be.  For a long time Fabian said 
respectfully.  Si.  Si.  Si, Papi.  Oh, si...  But after a while he was saying:  "Okay...relax.  Relax.  I've got this...."  (I don't know the exact translation of this but it was pretty obvious.  It was the International Language of Fathers and Sons.)  

     The roads were bumpy and I was hoping Michael was holding on, instead of just yucking it up with Rodolpho...but I didn't want the guys to hear the International Language of Nagging Wives.

     The first nursery we visited was closed.  (Hours are approximate here.  There might have been a family event, like a wedding, birthday, or the fact that it was Saturday night and everyone wanted to get together.). 

Beautiful Plants

...unfortunately, they just had two of the laurel trees we were looking for three.

Onto The Next Nursery

     The next one had a lot of beautiful plants.  Including these carefully trained trees:

See that little guy sitting in the bigger pot?
He's getting trained to look like the guy
on the right.

Wow!

Jackpot!  

     Next nursery:  No trees, but the owner of the nursery was a delight.  Kind of brash and no-nonsense at first, but as I practiced my bad Spanish on her, and asked her questions, she warmed up to us and was willing to share her vast knowledge of plants.

     At one point Michael remembered we also needed a large pot to re-plant some things that were outgrowing their pots.  

Michael:  Dang!  I should have gotten some pots at the last place.

Me:  Why not get them here?

Michael:  Do they have pots here?

     Over his shoulder I was looking at these pots:  (A tiny percentage of the ocean of clay pots they had for sale.

It looked like some Roman ruins recreated in clay.

 ....then I rounded a corner and saw what we originally looked for:  bamboo!  healthy bamboo! 

    They call it Palm Bamboo and it was lush and green.  They were all filled in, and looked very promising.   We negotiated for four, loaded them in the truck and brought them home to our rooftop.

     And the original vision is rekindled!

Hombres Riding in Trucks

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"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

-Eleanor Roosevelt

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