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Re: A Nursery in Portugal

What a wonderful description of a nursery which has burst out of the bounds
of 'civilised' human control and set off in search of its natural habitat!
I enjoyed reading your description!

Happy Christmas

Meg




>I have just returned from a local Nursery/Garden Centre here in the Algarve
>in Portugal.  It is the exact opposite of the well organised, well laid
>out, well labelled and expensive nurseries that most medit gardeners are
>used to.  Most of the stock has been around for many years and outgrown
>their pots and become a jungle.  As nothing was labelled it was a good test
>to spot the interesting plants lurking in the undergrowth.  In a thicket of
>Cassia didymobotrya which were 2-3 meters high I spotted a shrub with
>orange-scarlet flowers 3-4 inches wide, could it be Tithonia speciosa?
>
>Clambering over broken pots, dead plants and rubbish (Hygiene who said
>anything about hygiene?) I saw a Chorisia speciosa that was once in a pot
>but had fallen over many years ago and grown up again, now some 4 meters
>high. Others in very large pots were well and truly rooted into the ground.
>Pushing through the head high Malvaviscus arboreus which still have their
>bright red or white flowers on them I saw a large Acacia karroo with its
>long needle like thorns which had turned into a respectable sized tree.
>Some of the Sparrmannia africana were being lent on by a row of Populus
>alba.  Unfortunately I do not have enough shade in my garden to grow the
>fine specimens of Begonia fuchsoides that were on offer.
>
>In the end I bought two large Pittosporum tobira, two medium sized Cassia
>didymobotrya, a Eucalyptus torquata that was in full flower, a Montanoa
>bipinnatifida, Daisy tree that I had to break the top off to get it in the
>car, and I had to have the 'Tithonia speciosa'. Seven plants that only just
>fitted into our estate car for 3100 escudos (say GBP10.50 or $17 at the
>present exchange rate).  How do they make a living?  3 times this price
>would still have been reasonable.
>----  Graham Payne  ----  dpsgkp@mail.telepac.pt  ----

Meg Vivers

Administrative Officer
School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences
The University of New England
Armidale, N.S.W., 2351, Australia
Phone (02) 6773 2148
Fax (02) 6773 3312
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