Gardening at a distance - Spanish Real Estate forum - Spanish property

John97 · 07-27-2008, 01:57 PM

Establishing and maintaining a garden in Moraira while living in London has been a challenge.
We bought the property – a run down house on a 900 sq metre plot -six years ago with a reasonably established garden which was promptly wrecked by the construction of a pool, patio and barbeque. So, effectively we had to start from scratch. Although we spent a lot time in Moraira in the first year or so, as teachers we were limited to the school holidays, and the garden was not the first priority when refurbishing the entire house. Now we visit in the February, June and October half terms. We don’t have a gardener nor do we have irrigation.

We now seem to have found a formula which provides an attractive garden which can be maintained reasonably easily in the time we spend there. These are some of the discoveries we made:-
Get rid of hedges – at least those that grow fast. I found that a huge proportion of my time was spent maintaining a fast growing hedge which was never particularly beautiful. Obviously lawns are out of the question.
Make sensible use of gravel with a weed reducing membrane below. This needs regular spraying with weed killer and although it does not totally prevent weeds, it makes the control a darn sight easier.
Use plants which establish easily with minimum care. This basically means a good watering when planting (usually done in October) and then total reliance on rainwater. The star of the show is oleander which you can plant and forget. When established we prune and feed once a year in October and then sit back and enjoy. Successes also include bignonia (which makes a beautiful show in the summer although it tends to be a bit too rampant sometimes) and lantana (which we prune hard in spring and then it produces a nice show). A surprise success was the planting of a rose bush – yellow abundant flowers in June. I don’t know the variety but it is growing nicely on the outer fence of the Paichi Garden Centre on the Teulada road from Moraira. We also seem to have been successful in establishing a jacaranda tree with its beautiful blue flowers in May. We have a very beautiful bougainvillea but this was very well established before we bought the property. We have been very disappointed at our total failure to establish any new bougainvillea plants. I think it requires more TLC than we can give it in the early days and months in order to become properly established. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to succeed here? We had similar failure with an orange tree.
Useful ground cover plants have been prostrate rosemary and the various types of succulents which are very cheap in the various garden centres.

So, now we are able to tame the garden in a few days every time we visit. It’s hard work but it gives us a lot of pleasure and satisfaction.

Homefinder · 07-27-2008, 03:25 PM

La Palmera Garden in Moraira.

Thank you for that John 97 - very interesting!

I know Villa Palmera well as it is one of the houses that I let and maintain. Truely, the garden always looks good and the maintenance required is minimal.
If you look at John's website Villa Palmera in Moraira you will see that he he is so proud of the garden plants that he forgot to include many pics of the villa itself.

The fast-growing hedges that John refers to are Mock Orange (Gandules) and they really are a menace. The worst aspect is the small seeds which are about the size of a peppercorn and have been known to completely block the impellor on a pool pump.

I cannot understand though, why he could not get bougainvilla to grow. Obviously they have to be started in the Autumn so that they have the Winter to establish roots. After that, as long as they are in a spot that gets lots of sun there is no stopping them.

Quote:

We bought the property – a run down house on a 900 sq metre plot -six years ago with a reasonably established garden which was promptly wrecked by the construction of a pool, patio and barbeque.

I bet there is a good story there as well!

Homefinder

PS: John - You are quite entitled to post pics and a link like this. That's not self promotion. You are talking about your garden and the pics and links enhance the thread.