Gardening isn’t the first thing you think of when you are a tourist in Bali. Expats however often take pleasure in looking after their garden. My first house in Seminyak was previously occupied by a Frenchman who loved to grow orchids from the trees in the garden. When he moved he took them with him.
My pembantu Ana does the gardening and there is not much extra space for me to do anything, so up to now my garden has been on autopilot. In the tropics trees and plants grow at an alarming rate and outside my upstairs bedroom, the neighbour’s bamboo is threating to push my roof up.
All this talk about greenhouse gases, Asian haze, crop burning, CO2 etc. got me motivated to try something. Around the corner from my house is a large chunk of open land, covered with jungle. A paved path runs along it and is overgrown, the flower bed at one side a total mess, the edge of the field just a pile of wood and other debris. Further down the locals have dumped plastic garbage and the rest of the land is just left to itself. I thought it might be interesting to build a huge compost heap (the German Method) and maybe clear some of the junk along the path, making the neighborhood look a little better. Today I bought some tools, which included pruners and a small trowel from Bintang supermarket for 53,000rp. At Ace Hardware I picked up a carbon steel machete (made in USA) for 81,000rp.
Given things grow so fast out here, its reasonable to assume bacteria might decompose plant matter faster too. On Sunday I hope to get down there for a couple of hours and build my compost heap. Will be a fun thing to try out. Regarding tools, you can pick up cheap stuff at places such as Bintang and other local stores. Ace Hardware has better stuff (not the best though) and charges high prices. A pair of gardening gloves was $9! I’ll stick with my bike gloves.
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Hi Nick
Gardening is the first thing I think of when I’m in Bali! We’re from Darwin and share a similar climate (but sadly not the same fertile volcanic soil.) Still, things grow fairly rapidly here too and Bali inspires many of us to get into our gardens in a big way. Quite a few Darwin backyards now feature bales and pebbled paths and Bali-style statues. Sometimes it’s just like being there…Still not as good as the real thing but it’s close.
Cheers
Colin Wicking
Colin,
That;s interesting. I must admit it was a real surprise to me how fast things grow over here. Obviously the species of plants and trees have a higher water content than those in cooler climates. There are 2 trees in my garden that produce large white flowers. These things are total pollen sacks, so I cut them down. The things is they won’t die and the stump relentlessly sprouts bud. One time I forgot to trim it back and after a couple of months the things was again up to the roof!
When you see photos of places such as Ankor Wat, and wonder how they can get so overgrown, the answer is easy, people leave for a couple of years and there you are.
I think I need bigger tools.
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