Prepping our Garden for 2 Typhoons this week in Okinawa

Welcome Typhoon Guchol and Introducing Tropical Storm Talima.

Looks like once Guchol leaves us tomorrow, we get a break until Thursday when Talima passes by. Fun fun!

A quick few iPhone pics of today, before the typhoon arrived.

We prepare by moving the flowers/ pots to shelter. Pretty much anywhere they won’t get directly hit by 150 knots of wind. They’ll mostly get an overspray of rain and just enough wind to not destroy them completely.

Justice accidentally dropped a pot. It was the one she named “Pot Pot”. But we luckily had an extra pot for a quick and easy transplant. No harm done. Except to the pretty decorative ceramic pot;(

Of course the kids use our rope and bungees for stuffed animal dog leashes, so they’re lost and not found when we need them.

As a last minute ghetto rig… We tied the grill down with bandanas! Whatever. It worked. And you can see the lovely, decorative rust courtesy of previous typhoons and the regular rain and humidity of Okinawa!
Our power is likely to go out soon. Hopefully, I’ll get around to posting a garden update next week. I’ve been super busy lately and the garden blog is first to get neglected!

Enchantment Mix Cosmos

2011©Jennifer Martinez

The Enchantment Mix Cosmos took off faster than any other we planted this year.  A beautiful addition to a struggling garden.  I misread the Burpee seed packet: 4′ (feet) but I thought it said 4″ (inches) so I planted them in our smallest pots.  It didn’t take long to realize that these babies had out grown their intended size within the first few weeks after planting.  Oops.  Oh well, they are still our most healthy flowers to date.

The smaller pots stunted the growth of our Cosmos for the most part, however they have been our most productive plant this season.  I read online that Cosmos are generally wild growing flowers.  That is so true.  My initial plan was to keep them against our side wall that leads up to our front porch.  The area gets good morning sun and shade in the mid afternoon.  It was good for about 2 months, however once the flowers started blooming and the stems continued to grow taller and taller (2-4 feet) the tops started leaning.  I mean REALLY leaning. I’m talking V8 style lean.  Drove myself nuts trying to decide what I did wrong.   So a bit more research online and I understood the problem.

As a garden newbie and former black thumb, I assume that since these plants were tall they would benefit from the wall they rested upon. WRONG.  Basically the opposite is true.  What our tall and lanky Cosmos needed was more sunshine and wind.  That’s right, wind.

It scared me at first honestly, because I just knew that I’d regret moving the pots based on something I read online. But thank you to the random person on a random forum that lead me to find the saviors of our beloved babies.  Wind and sun.  What the wind does is make the stems stronger and thicker to be able to support blooms.  Exercise… it’s like Cosmo Calisthenics:)

So we moved the pots to the edge of the yard where they now enjoy full sun and wind all day.  Okinawa has no shortage of wind and rain so we’re in luck.  Speaking of rain, the Cosmos can go without water for longer than most other plants.  As long as they get a bit of aqua now and again they will do their own thing.  Not drought resistant though, because they will curl up and die after a week.  Mostly the blooms last 4 days before a new one takes it’s place.

From spring to autumn (that is if Okinawa had 4 seasons…) here is the gallery.  Click any image to enlarge.

Related articles

• How to beautify your garden’s borders (telegraph.co.uk)
• Growing Together Part I (greeneyedgoldie.wordpress.com)

Double Edged Sword

The Good News: the garden hose allows me to stay in control

The Bad News:  learning to give up said control at the sporadic whim of Mother Nature

Tropical Storm Meari Proves Fatal

Our garden was off to a great start. Giving credit mostly to the moisture in the air and warm weather in Okinawa. Quickly I’m learning that this weather can be a double edged sword. With the close enough to the equator sun on one side and the flood our garden mid-afternoon monsoons on the other.   (Combined with tropical storms and typhoons… don’t forget we live smack dab in the middle of Typhoon Alley!)

Weeks of Drought

Both beds full of potted seeds growing faster than expected.  Proper amounts of sunshine, shade, and hose water daily. The first 2 weeks after planting we had no rain, and we’ve used the hose more often than expected. 

Days of  Wind and Rain

The everyday moisture and humidity is wonderful majority of the time. The rain helps until it floods the pots and the ground underneath.  Then the sun returns in full force soaking up every nutrient the plant was given in a matter of hours.

Due to the fact that I’ve never gardened before, it’s extremely hard for me to tell if the plants are waterlogged under the soil.  If the top soil is the only remaining dry spot or if it’s dry all the way through.  The soil has sunk down and settled into a compact mud that cracks at the first sign of sun.  It feels soft when I push my thumb into the dirt, unfortunately I don’t know what any of it means.  If only I could see what is really going on inside the pots within the soil.

Quickly I’m learning that if not careful this heavy rainfall, followed by high heat can be dangerous and life threatening to our poor little plants.  At the moment it’s just tough to tell what they need. It’s not as simple as wet and dry soil. For now, I’ll need to do some research on how to keep our new garden progressing.

 

Typhoon Songda Tree Damage Slideshow

Image via Wikipedia

Drove around with the kids the day after Typhoon Songda hit us last week and my son asked if we could stop to take pictures of the trees on the playground at his school. So although we were all starving, we stopped and I’m glad we did. Basically exhausted this one particular tree that was torn apart, and it was quite a sight. Went home itching and scratching.  It’s possible that crawling around in the grass in shorts, the day after a crazy storm might not have been the best idea.

Definitely the most powerful storm we have encountered since moving to Okinawa in 2008. It was mostly wind and some rain that came in strong throughout the night and stopped almost immediately… before starting again.  The video I captured was all wind and complete darkness due to the fact that we lost power mid-night.  (I did get shots of the flickering power lines that I have yet to get from my camera, so I’ll post the typhoon night pics eventually.) Yes, I work backwards from time to time.  The tree damage pics I find much more interesting. My husband calls me a tree huggin hippie.  For the trees I’ve loved over the years, can’t say I’ve hugged enough:)

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Garden Update: First the tropical storm, a typhoon scare, and now a Super Typhoon.  Hence the garden being on hold, and I haven’t blogged in a month:(  So as much as the ground has flooded I have decided to use flower pots, instead of attempting to plant in ground.  What’s the point, if it could potentially get washed away in the next storm.  It’s all good, now I see why majority of the Okinawans have their garden completely covered and protected.  That’s the condition of living smack dab in the middle of Typhoon Alley.

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