In April, we headed down for the fourth year since acquiring the land to work on Siva Ashram. This year we focused on infrastructure, layout and the maintenance of the gardens versus just planting. We were joined by Nick and Tracey Bloor, our intrepid friends who “swung” over from Brisbane, Australia, “on their way” to Scotland. Last time we checked, Costa Rica was way off the road traveled to Scotland from Australia, but we’ll look the other way on that.
Nick helped start the Brisbane Botanical Garden, and we are so grateful for his help. He and his lovely wife, Tracey, helped Tatiana to prune 200+ plants and trees, and also taught our local team how to trim and prune trees so that they are healthier and happier in the long term. Between Nick and Tracey, we must say there was some serious enjoyment of the libations, and at one point Nick may have been blamed or “thrown under the bus” for some shenanigans involving our favorite local coffee house and brewery (Olo Alaia), but what happens in Nosara, stays in Nosara…
On a more useful note, Nick quickly identified a pest that had ravaged our citrus trees and after some discussion of chemical versus organic options, we settled on neem oil because we would like to create an organic botanical garden that is in harmony with nature. The only problem was that there was no neem oil in the area... We are a bit remote and things like organic pesticides are not easy to come by! Since our friends Jasmine, Jeremy and Ella from Columbus, Ohio, were also “swinging by” from their vacation in New Zealand, we asked them to bring some powdered Neem leaves to make our organic pesticide. After some sadness and tears, we said "ciao" to Nick and Tracey, and welcomed Jasmine, Jeremy and Ella who became our next round of slaves... I mean, helpers.
While Tatiana, Nick and Tracey were elbow deep in tree pruning, Dandapani oversaw the completion of the service road that cuts from east to west of the property. This was a crucial part in the development of our botanical gardens. As part of the gardens become complete we want the heavy machinery and vehicles to stay off those areas so that we can begin to refine the landscaping. Another big accomplishment during this trip was having our team remove over a hundred termites nests all around the property. They were starting to affect the trees in a bad way and had to be removed. We also had trucks deliver boulders of various sizes so that we could begin building Ganesha Avenue (the path leading to the Ganesha shrine and some of the flowering mounds along the path). Our goal was also to build the Ganesha mound where the future shrine to Ganesha will be built. More on this in our Part 2 of our update which will be coming soon. We hope you enjoy the video below.
If you'd like to Gift a Tree to our spiritual botanical gardens you may do so here.
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Siva Ashram - 2017 April Update, Part 1 from Dandapani LLC on Vimeo.
