There is a living art to fencing here. Lines of trees planted roadside in meter intervals, wire strung invisibly between. Some are pollarded hard, pale and knuckle-topped. Others sprout, and every so often a huge, tangled mass of tree and vine is woven into the line, all life in the canopy high above the brown-grassed field below. Bromeliads fountain from planks, waney edges traced with wire to deter the long-eared cows’ wandering. Philodendrons and brown fur-like ferns skin up the wood.
The bougainvillea here is fantastic. Deep purple pink walls of it, candyfloss pale growing through. The white I tried in the shelter of the front garden mocks my attempt with its size here, flowering down paper-thin lanterns. But the coral peach I like the best, not one colour at all in the bright clear light, like the corrugated roof panels and fading Imperial signs.
a year in the garden 