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So little Ash decided that he wanted to play "stick bird" and he's figured out "how it works" so it was time for another round....He's very smart...LOL

It's a nice partly cloudy breezy Trade Winds day today at the homestead.

Some views of the upland rainforest garden today.

Vireya blooming in the upland rainforest.

These are Pinanga coronata palms which are an understory rainforest palm. They are growing at the edge of the native rainforest near the edge of the driveway.

A young bird's nest fern.

So this is what the planting of Rhapis palms looks like along the rainforest+driveway edge. The intention is to slowly make it look like a natural colony rather than a more contrived planting. The fern trees are native in the background w/ R. humilis and then R. excelsa in the mid foreground.

Very young hibiscus is blooming.

The fuchsia bushes are starting to bloom in earnest.

Still working on storm damage from a month ago. Three large storms passed through the island with winds up to 75 mph and one storm alone dropped nearly 3 feet of rain in 3 days. I pruned these Areca Palms back hard due to storm damage. They are already putting out lots of new spears.

What is interesting about the subtropical highlands climate (wholly within the tropics) is that it is neither really tropical nor temperate. Some temperate, subtropical+tropical plants can be grown together here (but not all) that would never be able to be grown together anywhere else in the world.

The Satsuma Mandarin is pushing out all kinds of blooms right now so it will be interesting to see how many fruit it will set. Smells really nice though. This is the first serious attempt at fruit for this young tree.

A Valencia Orange. It is not ready yet despite appearances. These can hold for 4 months on the tree and in the cool subtropical highlands-even longer due to slower metabolism due to cooler weather. For best flavor and sugar/acid balance this is best left on the tree for a very long hold time here.

Kent made banana bread from the processed bananas from yesterday. The weird thing about bananas grown in the mountains is that you can end up with intense banana flavor, mildly sweet+lower acid due to slow maturation+long hold times. This is a v. diff. experience from store bananas or lowland grown

So I pulled 7 lemons and 5 limes from the Improved Meyer Lemon (1st photo)+Tahitian Lime (2nd photo) trees. The bowl has both of them in it w/ the limes on the bottom+the lemons on top (3rd photo). Most got pressed+turned into Lemon-Lime curd (4th photo). We use this on home made yogurt.

Salvaged Dwarf Apple Banana Bunch after 3 back 2 back storms which dropped 3+feet of rain, winds up to 75 mph+2 volcanic tephra falls. Hung bunch ripens top to bottom. Removed each banana rather than hands. Rinsed, peeled, ready for freezer. Discard material for high K+ fertilizer. 86 bananas total.

The Santa Rosa Plum got a hard second year structural pruning during late dormancy. The Red Burgundy Plum got its first year structural pruning this year also. They are both breaking dormancy and starting to bloom also. They are very low chill varieties and cross pollinators of each other.

Kent wanted five lemons for something he is making. The storm knocked off some Tahiti Limes so I got him the lemons and also brought some limes. The limes are very aromatic and have a greenish cast so it is easy to tell them apart when picked.

The lemon tree has lots of lemons on it most of the year. The Satsuma Mandarin is covered in small forming citrus blossoms. This is the first year it is attempting to put out a decent number of mandarins as it is young. Usually it only kicks out a couple of good quality mandarins.

Here are some photos along the driveway now that we have most of it cleaned up from storm damage from the last big storm. It was a pleasant warm (74F in the shade) type of day with lots of sun, some clouds and a light breeze. Rain squalls from the next storm inbound started hitting us this evening.

It was a nice sunny day today with increasing clouds late in the afternoon and a light breeze and temperatures in the low to mid 70s F. Another weather system is moving in so we started getting heavy rain squalls in the very late afternoon. The calm before the next storm.

We are finally getting the worst of the downed trees and branches and assorted debris from the back to back storms cleaned up and chipped through the chipper/shredder. The forest looks much more open now. Wind gusts up to 75 mph and nearly 3 feet of rain fell in 3 days. Another storm is on the way.

So while continuing to cut up downed trees and branches from the March storm, we found this little baby Jackson's Three Horned Chameleon among the debris so we released him/her into the forest so he would have cover from predators. This is the smallest one that we've found.

And this is what two of the cats had to say about it...lol.

So the density of the Monstera thicket with the Pinanga coronata palms growing through it is growing really well. It is slowly screening out the neighbor which is the intent. If good fences make good neighbors, good screens in addition are even better.

Shop IKEA...LOL

So I had to stake the Jamaica Allspice trees that got seriously blown over and bent by the wind in the recent storm. This along with some pruning and striping of leaves from pruned off branches which we dried in the dehydrator to use similar to how you use Bay leaves. This is the first batch.

So the two Cordyline australis were planted in the two large blue ceramic pots by the front steps of our vacation rental but got too large so we transplanted them into the ground and replaced them with young pigmy date palms.

The vireya is in bloom following the back side of the storm and a return to normal Trade Winds pattern.