What I hadn't taken into consideration at all was the salt: salt in the air, salt spray, salt that coats everybody and everything, salt that soaks into the sandy soil.
Turns out there's a limited number of landscaping plants - whether they bloom or not - that can withstand that sort of thing; and so, much of what I planted didn't do well or just plain up and died.
Granted, when I began to plant things away from the beach many of the plants that I wanted to grow at False Bluff ended up thriving, although the 'thriving' depended entirely on the plant's salt-resistance. For instance, the ylang-ylang trees had to be planted hundred feet from the edge of the Caribbean; and hibiscus very nearly that.
However, I learned that once the plants were put in their comfort zones, they did what I thought all the plants I wanted to grow there would do...they thrived. But I wanted plants right near the sea, along the beach, that were as ornamental in their own ways as hibiscus is.
Therefore we're opening a nursery that specializes in plants that will thrive close to the sea despite the salt - plus a collection of hibiscus that will put on their show a little farther away from the beach.
This photo shows one of several rows of plants where our specimen, or mother, plants are lined out. These are the plants that will provide cuttings and divisions to create more plants, plants that will be for sale to people who, like me, want to be able to grow pretty things right near the Caribbean. (Additional space is devoted to the propagation from seeds of such things as sea grape.)
This is only a small part of the nursery...
