There are many things I did not expect when I first got a garden in Cayman.
I did not expect to have to import soil if I wanted plants to grow. The amount of water and fertilizer needed for a garden to flourish is additionally surprising. Water, soil and fertilizer here is costly, and suddenly gardening in the tropics is an expensive hobby. But it’s worth it.
I rediscovered the therapy of gardening, whilst I was experiencing anxiety due to the pandemic this year. I was inspired to get out and get dirty, try a few projects, and I fell in love with my garden. Despite living on the beach, there is a surprising number of plants that can grow in or near sand. Most folks in Cayman who have a little yard will happily talk at length about their mangoes, starfruit or avocado trees, which grow so easily in this climate, and the fruits they bear are bountiful. At a party one evening, an older gentleman pulled out his iPhone, to proudly show me photos of his prize-winning avocado which was the size of a newborn human! Because I live directly on the beach, unfortunately the salt spray prevents me from growing such tasty delights, (I have tried, and I have failed,) but I know plenty of folks who have success on canals and further inland. Many people here are passionate about growing their own produce. In Cayman, edibles which thrive include tomatoes, spinach, kale, bananas, mangoes, plantains, akee, cassava, breadfruit, yams, sweet potatoes, okra, sugarcane and a variety of herbs.
I stick to flowering plants that are salt tolerant, and I appreciate the variety one can find within this strict limitation. Aside from salt, a beach garden comes with other factors that I had not anticipated until I lived on one. Sand shifts, and after a heavy downpour at night, one can wake up to find half the beach is gone! The balance is that it comes back with strong onshore winds, but there’s no accounting for when that’s due. It can take months for lost sand to return. To reduce the sand movement, many of our neighbours have built little ‘rip-rap’ groynes on their beaches, which are linear piles of differently-sized rocks that stretch from the beach into the sea. It seems to work for them, so we should probably follow suit before our sand is permanently captured further round the bay.
Today, however I am busy laying fertilizer, topsoil and mulch to give our plants a fighting chance through the dry months to come. In the late afternoon I spray weed-killer on the beach. I know, this sounds odd, weeds on a beach. But a beach gets surprisingly verdant after the rainy season, when a host of seeds spring up as juvenile plants. The beach also needs sifting regularly, to maintain that light and fluffy travel brochure appearance. Our sand sifter needs a new part, which we cannot pick up until we are out of quarantine, so it out of commission right now. We own a Italian ‘Baracuda’ sand-sifting machine with a 4-stroke Honda engine. This is the alternative to a power lawnmower, because we don’t have any grass to mow! Today I get to work on the sand the old-fashioned, less-effective way, with a metal rake. Whomever said a beach garden is low maintenance never lived on one.
While I am distributing the topsoil over the hedge, I admire all the life that thrives in our backyard. I see lizards that are black, brown and iridescent green. Yellow breasted birds with zebra striped faces, called Banana Quits, flit from branch to branch. Tiny red ladybirds chomp on bougainvillea leaves. Fire ants take their pick from the compost heap. A Little Blue Egret and it’s young pick out fish from the shallows. Despite the name, the adult egret is black and the young a contrasting white. A pair of brightly coloured Cuban Parrots call out as they fly overhead. And then, a six-foot long grass snake slithers out of the hedge across my feet! Aghh!
I did not expect that at all.
