In England there’s an old saying: ‘When the March winds do blow, we shall have snow.’ In sequence it is followed by the countryman’s forecast, ‘When April showers come your way, they bring the flowers that bloom in May.’ Shades of Al Jolson. Fortunately there are no falls of snow here in Guyana, although when you’re stood near to the top of Roraima you might well believe that it’ll just be a matter of time, it gets so cold.
At sea level gardeners are generally blessed with the most glorious weather, and especially so in the islands many (but not all) of which have a Mediterranean type climate. Here in Guyana one cannot claim to have the same climate as Barbados. It is wetter. There is more rain. You do not have hurricanes, and apart from the occasional gentle long-distance shake neither do you have earthquakes – thank goodness for that. You are especially fortunate in being able to grow almost anything. You can almost see the growth. Seeds start to germinate within hours of being sown.
Of course you need to give protection to your plants: Protection from the blazing sun, the drying winds, and the heavy rain, but gardeners here mostly know all about these things. In my opening paragraph I said that in England there is asaying that when the March winds do blow we shall have snow. Not to be outdone you also have snow – Snow on the Mountain, which flowers perversely in March whilst the same shrub flowers over Christmas in Barbados and most of the islands. This plant which is correctly called Euphorbia marginata or E. leucocephala is one of the great sights in the gardener’s year. I once had one of these plants which came from a seedling collected in Barbados, and it never flowered at Christmas time as its parents had always done. It was one of thousands of seedlings, and this brings home the point about seedling variation. In much the same way as our children show some of the characteristics of their parents (good and bad) so it is with plants grown from seed. So my plant of Snow on the Mountain looked like its parents, had the same size as its parents had the same flower colour as its parents, but didn’t flower at the same time. One way to make sure you get a plant which flowers at the same time as mum and dad is to propagate it from cuttings. In this way there is in fact no difference whatever. You must make sure that the cuttings are taken from healthy stock, and are free of any imperfections or disease.
This applies to cuttings taken from any plant species which you can propagate from cuttings. Take cuttings from the sunniest side of the plant which are strong and healthy, rather from the shaded side which might be weak and prone to disease.
Watering during dry weather is very important to the survival of your plants. It is vital that you get this right. Plants lose a lot of water through their leaves, and plants in pots lose it from the pots in which they grow, which means from their roots as well as their leaves. Plants which are drying out always give you warning when they’re suffering, generally by the way their leaves start to droop. In hot dry weather the last thing you should do is spray the foliage, which is just asking for it to be scorched. They need soaking at soil level. Let your hosepipe trickle onto the ground around the plant until you are sure that it is well moistened. Then make sure that you have a layer of compost around the plant to prevent it all evaporating. When dry give potted plants a good soaking. If necessary immerse the pots in a bucket.
Take all care and may your God go with you wherever you may be.
