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Around tree planter


How to Build a Planter Box Around a Tree

By   Vincent Andrew | Last Updated :   October 24, 2021 | Filed In :   DIY & How To

Building a planter box around a tree is a great way to maximise the use of your garden space. It can also create a nice visual effect, particularly if the tree itself isn’t much to look at. After all, there’s little you can put close to it, so that part of your garden might look a little barren.

Building a planter box around a tree is easy and quite cheap. You can use scrap wood from other DIY projects, as well as stones or rocks. Here’s how to do it in six simple steps:

Credit: Shutterstock

Step 1 – Choose the right size and shape

Have a good look around your garden. You don’t want the planter box to be too big or too small. Balance is key.

If you want to protect the roots of the tree, leave at least 6 feet between the tree trunk and whatever plants you’re going to grow. Pay attention to ground-covering plants as they might invade the area sooner or later.

Since a tree trunk is round, you might be tempted to go for a circular planter, but this similarity in shape can be jarring to the eye. Plus, building a round planter box is more complicated.

As a rule, a planter box built around a tree should be square. It’s best to avoid a rectangular box too as it might make the area seem unbalanced.

Turn a bland area under a tree into an attractive focal point. Image credit: Pinterest

Step 2 – Clean and level the area

Clean the area of roots and weeds and make sure to fill any holes. If the area surrounding the tree is not perfectly flat, try to correct that by adding an extra layer of soil on the sloping side.

If the ground is too hard, gently break up the soil using a shovel and a rake. For particularly hard ground, use a tiller. Borrow one from a neighbour if you don’t have one.

Important: Work carefully so you don’t damage the roots of the tree.

Step 3 – Gather the materials

The beauty of this type of project is that it doesn’t require many materials. You may need to pop to a DIY store and buy a few pieces of wood and you can also use leftover pieces from previous projects.

All you need are four pieces of wood that you can cut to the same length.

Tip: If you’re going with wood, choose cedar wood which is very resistant and ideal for outdoor projects. Cedar wood is naturally resistant to bacteria and fungi and it contains natural oils that protect it from rotting.

You could even build a seat around the edge of your planter box. Image credit: Pinterest

Step 4 – Build the planter box

Place the four wood pieces in a square and see how the size looks. If you’re satisfied with the size, get your electric screwdriver and eight screws. Make sure the screws are long enough so the pieces of wood are attached firmly.

You should pre-drill the holes to avoid wood splitting. Also, grab a carpenter’s square and check that wood pieces are placed at a 90-degree angle.

Tip: Use 2 screws per corner to make sure the wood stays in place.

Step 5 – Fill the planter box with soil

At this point, you need to consider the requirements of the plants you’re planning to grow. Use adequate soil to fill the planter box and let it sink in for a couple of days.

You might also want to cover the topsoil with a protective layer, such as wood chips or rubber mulch. Avoid adding too much soil in the area as the extra weight might damage the tree roots.

Step 6 – Choose the plants

You could choose fast-growing, ground cover plants for the planter box if the area around the tree is particularly barren. You could also plant something colourful for greater effect.

Check the sun exposure requirements of any plants you want to grow in the planter box. Keep in mind that the plant will have little to no direct sunlight and not much rain if the tree has a big canopy.

Tip: Choosing a perennial for the planter box is a good idea as you won’t have to plant again the following year. This saves you a lot of work and prevents accidental damage to the roots of the tree.

Planter box around tree ideas

Any landscaping project involves creativity so feel free to use the guide above and twist it however you want. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Planter box fence

If you have the skills, you can build a more elaborate fence for your planter box, using wood beams and decorative elements. Take care not to make the planter box walls too high because the plants inside will go unnoticed and that would be a pity.

Small planter boxes

If you have several trees close by, you could build small planter boxes and grow colourful plants in them. Using the same type of plant in all boxes will create a unifying element.

Brick or rock planter box

Also, you can experiment and use other types of materials for the planter box walls. You can use bricks or small rocks to trace the borders of a flower bed under a tree. Rocks are a great choice if you want to make a planter box with rounded corners or an elliptical shape.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with bricks and stone. Image credit: Pinterest

Terraced planter box

Another idea you could consider is building a terraced planter box. For this to work, you’ll need a large area. A terraced planter box works best on a sloping surface.

The planter boxes should be of the same shape and perfectly symmetrical. As for the plants you cultivate in each box, make sure their colours create a nice contrast.

Tip: The plants growing in the larger outer box should not be too big or they may overshadow the plants in the box closer to the tree.

In the end, take this project one step at a time and don’t rush it. You’ll enjoy it more and inspiration will come more easily, too.

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Ideas for Making Planters for Around Trees | Home Guides

By SF Gate Contributor Updated October 21, 2021

A tree surround planter adds color and visual interest to the area around the base of a tree, but precautions are necessary to allow both the tree and the plants to thrive. Excessive damage or interference with the root system of the tree threatens its growth. Thoughtful selection and planning for the plants, materials and design result in an attractive and functional flowerbed.

Planting Area Size

You need an idea of how large to make the planting area to start this project. Planting closely to the tree trunk increases the risk of injury to the roots. Your watering of the plants may inadvertently create too much moisture for the tree. Leave several feet between the tree trunk and the flowers you plant around it. Leave a no-planting zone of 6 feet around the trunk of oak trees. This recommendation requires a large planter area around the tree. Mark the desired size of the planting zone and take measurements to help decide on the specific area.

Tree Planter Design

Round planters around trees replicate the roundness of the tree trunk. For contrast, choose a square design for the planting area. Square planting areas are easier to build because you can don't have to create curves with the selected border material. Terracing or building multiple sections gives you more design options.

You might build a small inner section defined by a border with another larger section surrounding it. For the best growing environment, work with the natural grade of the soil surrounding the tree. If the soil slopes down away from the tree, make a terraced planter with a higher inner planting section and a second lower planting section surrounding the first. Avoid building up extra soil around the trunk of the tree.

Planters Can Be Borders, Too

A number of landscaping border materials work as the edging for a planter around a tree trunk. The Talk Decor website suggests trying pavers, brick and stones to create flexibility in the height of the border. These materials also make curves easier because of the small size of each piece. A row of pavers or bricks installed at ground level allows you to mow around the planter easily. Landscape timbers work well to create straight edges for the planter border. Simple plastic or metal landscape edging provides a lightweight option for defining the planter edges.

Gather information on the size and weight of the selected border and how it may compact the soil to avoid harming the tree. Compacting the soil reduces oxygen available to the roots, sometimes affecting the growth.

Best Flowers to Plant Under Trees

Plants grown under a tree receive little direct sunlight and rain due to the tree's canopy. Bob Vila recommends that you choose plants that grow well under these conditions and are also suited for your specific climate. Plant species native to the area are better adjusted to the conditions and are more resistant to potential pests.

Some of the best flowers to plant under a tree include perennials so you only need to disturb the soil the first year to initially plant the flowers. Smaller plants also minimize the amount you need to dig and result in less impact on the tree roots. Plants with a reasonable chance of flourishing in the planter under the tree include hummingbird sage, California fuchsia, bush poppy, yarrow or creeping sage.

References

Planter's Bungalow | Family Art Website

                                                90 before talking about the garden and villa of Bevis Bawa, it seems to us that it is necessary to acquaint the reader with the history of English gardening in Ceylon, at least briefly describe the life of the estate during the colonial rule. This digression from the narrative will help to draw parallels and better characterize the features of the style that is commonly called "tropical modern".

With the final establishment of British rule on the island in 1815 (the year of the capture of the city of Kandy), all kinds of businessmen and entrepreneurs, hunters for profit, rushed to Ceylon. In addition to the traditional spices and precious stones that made this island famous, the land of Ceylon also attracted with the opportunity to quickly establish highly profitable agriculture, in particular the cultivation of agricultural products that are expensive in Europe.
After the first experiments with various types of tropical plants in the 1820s, the choice fell on coffee. Already in the next decade, large-scale deforestation was organized in the highlands around Kandy and coffee plantations were set up in their place. An even faster increase in the area under coffee was stimulated by the land ordinances of 1841 and 1842, which authorized the administration of the colony to sell off "no man's" or "common" land to anyone who wanted to start coffee production. It was, of course, only about European planters, or rather, British ones. Thus, the “coffee fever” began, which invaded not only the virgin forests of the island, but also captured almost all agricultural areas. The scale of economic expansion threatened the destruction of traditional agricultural crops and provoked an outburst of resentment from the local population. Massive expansion of plantations during the second half of 19century forever changed the ecology of the island.

Beginning of colonization

In just five years, from 1838 to 1843, more than a hundred new plantations were formed in the Kandy district, and by 1846 there were more than 500 coffee plantations in Ceylon, covering an area of ​​20,000 hectares. Other crops, such as indigo and sugar cane, have not been as profitable as coffee. Only cinnamon was highly valued as an export crop for a long time, but even it could not compete with the mass production of its Indian substitute, cassia. After 1850, large investments were made in the establishment of coconut plantations, but coffee production continued to flourish in the meantime, and by 1875 the area occupied by coffee reached 100,000 hectares.
The rapid increase in plantations, on the one hand, required the expansion of the transport structure of the island. Such a program was deployed starting in 1855, and the first trains went already in the early 1860s. On the other hand, the demand for labor increased, but the matter was complicated by the fact that the Sinhalese peasants refused to change their way of life and go to work for the planters. In the 1850s, the influx of new labor came through the recruitment of Tamils ​​from South India. Although they were originally temporary and seasonal workers, over the course of a century more and more people were needed, and many Hindus remained to live in Ceylon.

In the late 1870s, coffee trees were suddenly attacked by a disease that spread very quickly from plantation to plantation, and soon destroyed all coffee plantations. However, it was quickly replaced by three other crops: highland tea, hevea (especially after 1880) and coconut palm. Tea production was labor-intensive and required large capital investments that only very large companies could afford. Rubber and coconut began to be grown by medium and small planters, mainly in the flat part of the country, where a drier and hotter climate prevails.

Governor's Bungalow in Nuwara Eliya. Later "Grand Hotel".

By the end of the 19th century, there were more than 1,200 tea companies in Ceylon, covering 250,000 hectares. Their owners were large foreign companies, as well as a whole army of small European farmers, whose number grew from year to year, and by the turn of the century had exceeded 2,000 people. At the same time, the other two sectors of agricultural production also developed. Plantations of coconut palm, grown mainly in the areas of Colombo, Matale and Chilaw, together with the rubber farms of the dry zone of the country, occupied more than 400,000 hectares. In the year of independence of Ceylon (1948) the total area occupied by the plantations of the three listed crops was one million hectares or 15% of the entire territory of the island.

What were the first colonists like? These were men with a desperate character, "players" who put their lives on the line, ready to go to the ends of the world, into the unknown, for the sake of gaining material wealth. Often without any education, the so-called "honest" adventurers. For many of them, this was the only chance to "break into the people." In their case, nothing could be relied upon, only the benevolence of fortune. History has preserved the names of tea companies, indicating that most of the "first wave" planters were from Scotland - Napier, Kinross, Elgin, Caledonia, McDuff, Clarendon, Stirling, Holyrood, Lammermoor, Strately and others. These early settlers lived simple lives, building crude stone bungalows with thatched roofs, living in seclusion and taking local women as wives. Every day of the planter was filled with hard work and tireless care for the development of the tea industry, he could not even think of any rest.
However, towards the end of the nineteenth century, as the tea industry flourished, a new generation of planters emerged. They were more educated, most brought their wives with them from the UK. The new generation carried with it all the features of the provincial aristocratic Scotland of that time. There were courts, rugby and golf courses, Catholic chapels, clubs where planters could meet to drink whiskey and play cards while their wives chatted and planned the next tennis tournament or costume ball.

19th century tea planter's bungalow.

Each tea business was centered around a factory and ancillary workshops. Workers' houses were usually grouped lower in the valley, closer to running water. The owner occupied the main bungalow, usually located quite far from the factory, on a high hill, always overlooking the surrounding hilly landscape. His assistants occupied smaller bungalows on roughly equal scenic lots in other divisions of the estate. Bungalows now looked like improved copies of the buildings of their homeland - the lowlands of Scotland. The walls were built of cut or crushed stone, the roof was covered with tiles, and the architectural emphasis was on small glazed bay windows protruding forward on the facade of the house. Above the roof were brick chimneys. The main living room usually opened onto a deep, wooden-columned veranda overlooking the garden and nearby green hills.

Bungalow Veranda

The furniture was made from local woods, but the decorative details came from Victorian England. Tables were set with crystal and chinaware, and pictures of cows grazing in misty river valleys adorned the walls. Waiters in snow-white uniforms served the hosts such culinary delights as turtle soup, steak and oyster pie, cream caramel. Planters who two decades earlier would have sat at a rough table in work breeches eating plain curry rice might laugh at the current hosts who dined in full evening attire by candlelight.

Bungalow at Summerhill Manor

The main pride of each estate was a garden, most often created by the wife of the owner of the bungalow. A typical garden could extend over several hectares and consisted of several parts. The main porch of the house looked out onto a tidy lawn, surrounded by flower beds and green curtains of flowering shrubs and trees. Stone steps led guests through flowering arches to the lower terrace of the garden, where there was a tennis court and a croquet lawn. Part of the garden was occupied by a garden with European vegetables, and part was an orchard, where, along with traditional Scots apple and pear trees, mangoes and avocados grew. From the English garden, visitors descended along winding pedestrian alleys down through forest glades to water cascades and a pool with a fountain. Below we offer a typical plan of a planter's estate.

It must be admitted that the arrangement of a real English garden required great effort and patience. It is known that the British are hardworking when it comes to their own green corner. However, the planters in the new location faced unforeseen difficulties. The construction of fences from wild elephant raids on the plots, the fight against local weeds and plant pests, leveling steep slopes, terracing, drainage, protecting alleys and paths from frequent rains washing away gravel, combating drought, as well as a host of other difficulties required constant care for garden, especially if it was a whole park.
The first task of the owner was to create an English lawn with a smooth green lawn. It turned out that the seeds of European grasses are most often not suitable for the tropics, so they had to look for local analogues that replace the English varieties. There were no grass clippers on the island, and all the necessary garden tools were imported from Europe. A lot of effort was spent on eradicating termites and ants.

View from the bungalow at Castlereagh

Next came the flower beds. Wild-growing trees with dense foliage served as a green background, the benefit of such trees and shrubs was in abundance, and from flowering plants bulbs were first preferred, and later the colonists began to understand the local tropical flora. The owners chose the forms of flower beds in such a way that they were associated with the gardens and parks of England, familiar to every colonist from childhood. These were flowerbeds, round and oval, mixborders, flower ribbons, and very often one could find a bizarre mixture of local and imported plants in the flower garden. For example, a tall agave could grow in the center, and multi-colored coleus, begonias and calatheas were grouped around it in a circle.

Tianting Manor Garden. Named after the Chinese village,
from where the British first brought tea to Ceylon.

The flower bed had to be combined in color and plant height with the soft greenery of a cut lawn, therefore it was located either along the edges of the lawns or along the paths of the garden leading away from the central parterre. The owners of large bungalows could afford whole flower carpets, which they were extremely proud of. In the highlands, especially in the Nuwara Eliya region, the climatic conditions made it possible, in addition, to grow in gardens, along with plants from hot countries, those species that were characteristic of the middle latitudes - nasturtiums, balsams, pelargoniums, bluebells, popovnik. Spectacular components of the garden were gazebos, arches and pergolas entwined with flowering vines, where the owners of the garden could retire with a book.
An important element of the aesthetics of the English garden are walking paths and paths. Sometimes it is thanks to the unique plan of the network of such paths that the originality of the garden is created, its difference from other gardens. In this matter, the British are real artists. In Ceylon, it rains almost every day, sometimes very heavy, so gutters were usually equipped along the paths to preserve the artificial turf. Rainwater, in addition, had to be diverted somewhere. To do this, in each garden there were pools and ponds. Since the terrain often had a slope, the paths were connected to each other by stone stairs, but not front ones, as in Italian villas, but those that resembled the ruins of medieval English and Scottish castles. The charm of the "dilapidated" steps delighted visitors, and this technique was also very widespread in the colonial gardens. Elements of natural relief emphasized a variety of themed rocky gardens: rockeries, alpine gardens, shady gardens (moss garden and tree fern garden).
Along with the winding paths fashionable among the planters of the late 19th century, straight wide alleys, the so-called avenues, began to appear. Usually such alleys were planted on both sides with plants of the same species, which created an extraordinary effect, especially if it was the main entrance to the estate. Each such alley received some romantic name - Amherstia Avenue, Golden Rain Road, Bougainvillea Alley. Following the example of the Botanical Garden in Peradeniya, many planters planted palm alleys, thus giving their gardens a tropical flavor.
The alternation of closed and open spaces - a characteristic technique of English gardening - was helped by numerous water devices: streams, ponds, lakes, pools. Next to the water features, one could see romantic grottoes and moss-covered sculptures, reminiscent of authentic artifacts of ancient Hindu architecture. Here it was possible to hide from the midday heat. The fruit garden and vegetable garden, as a rule, were located separately from the walking area. Greenhouses were also built separately.
At the end of the 19th, and especially at the beginning of the 20th century, orchids were very fashionable among amateur flower growers in Great Britain. Orchid collectors could pay a fortune for a new and unknown species. Orchid hunters set off from foggy Albion to all corners of the world to get, if not a new species, then at least an orchid of an unusual color. The colonists did not lag behind the British. In many gardens, greenhouses and greenhouses were built with orchids, especially with hybrid species that did not grow wild on the island. Here, the most cherished dreams of collectors, as well as amateur breeders, could come true with enviable ease.

Finally, the main part - the house (in the Ceylon version - a bungalow), as was customary in family estates in their homeland, planters placed in the very center of the estate, surrounding it with a garden from all sides. The main entrance was located in the east or west, depending on the direction of the monsoons in this area of ​​the island. Given the heat and the aristocratic lifestyle of the planters, the house always had an open picnic area in the shade of trees, where there were rocking chairs, hammocks hung, and local Sinhalese servants served refreshments for guests and owners. Open verandas overlooked a central lawn with a croquet or tennis court, and the windows overlooked the distant green hills and mountains.

Bungalow at Thotalagala Manor

A typical Kandy bungalow - Amunugama Walaawe.
This is now the Kandy House Hotel.

The life of the owners of coconut and rubber plantations in the flat zone of Sri Lanka differed little from the life of the tea magnates of the mountainous and hilly regions, which we have described above. The only difference was that mainly Sri Lankans worked as managers, and, consequently, there were fewer European bungalows (and, accordingly, English gardens) on the territory of the “dry” zone of the island than in the mountains, and the hot climate here did not contribute to them. device.

A typical coconut planter's bungalow

One hundred years after the events described, by the time of independence in 1948 the aristocratic planters had grown old, most of them returning to Britain. In their place, new Europeans appeared, and after 1970, all tea enterprises in Sri Lanka were completely nationalized. Since then, the roof tiles of the bungalows have been replaced by corrugated iron, and the lawns and croquet fields have been turned into vegetable gardens and orchards. Thus ended the era of European colonial gardening on the island. However, many of the bungalows scattered throughout the country have mostly survived and are now used as tourist hotels, and some of them have been bought out by the heirs of the "second wave" planters.

Curious in connection with this, we found on the Internet the recollections of an American blogger about a few days spent in Ceylon as a child. We have decided to place excerpts from these memoirs in this chapter.

“The beautiful bungalow in the photo is Gala Bungalava (translated as “Stone Bungalow”), where I lived from the age of four in 1970 with my parents and brother. Now the building is part of the university complex in Peradeniya. This two-story house once belonged to a tea planter. The bungalow is located at the foot of the Hantane mountain, and only recently I learned that the estate was built in 1939 and belonged to Colonel Thomas Yates Wright. His wife designed this building on her own, and I must say, very successfully. Colonel Yates published Ceylon 1889-1949 in 1951, where he mentions this house.

... I remember that frangipani trees grew on both sides of the stairs, and this alley stretched all the way to the road. Next to the house was a large garden with beautiful flowering bushes and a fountain. A little further along the alley was a grove of some trees, and under one of them was a tombstone. This headstone is a memorial to the Colonel and Mrs. Wright's beloved dog. In those childhood years, I did not know that the grave belonged to a dog, but I thought that a person was buried here. I was then very interested in who it was here.

Our family lived in the upper right wing of the bungalow. The upper left wing was occupied by another family, with whom we later became friends. On the lower floor there was a large veranda, where all the rooms on the first floor opened. This house made a huge impression on me, despite my age of four. I still remember the smell of dampness as water leaked through cracks in the ceiling when it rained. There was a lot of mouse droppings in the rooms, and we had no choice but to set up mousetraps as soon as we arrived at this house. At night, when we forgot to close the windows, bats flew over to us.

Each wing had bay windows at the front of the house, and there was also a large bay window on the front of the second floor with great views of the countryside. All rooms on the second floor had fireplaces, but we never used a fireplace. I even think that from the very first day of the operation of the building, none of these fireplaces has ever seen a live fire. Our children's bedroom (mine and my brother's) was small and had no windows, so that we would not be frightened at night, the parents turned on a dim green nightlight for us ...

... The dark polished floors in the house were very beautiful, especially the parquet in the hallway. A wooden staircase led to the second floor, the walls also had wood trim.
... To me, as a child, this bungalow seemed like a mystical place. I think my brother and I were very lucky that we had the opportunity to live there.”

Today, tourists and guests of Sri Lanka, passing through the country, admire the even geometric fields of verdant rice (no wonder the main caste on the island of Gowigama are rice growers), slender groves of coconut palms, transparent forests of silvery heveas and even rows of tea bushes on the slopes of the mountains. All three botanical gardens also make an indelible impression on the guests of the island. All this is the work of Sinhalese botanists and gardeners, who not only preserved English traditions, but also advanced in many ways. Recently, private gardens have even sprung up, such as Sam Popham's tree nursery in Dambulla and artist Lucky Senanayake's Diyabubula fantasy garden.

In 1963, an arboretum was established near the city of Dambulla by British naval officer Sam Popham, first as a private property and then for public viewing. Initially, the garden had an area of ​​just over 3 hectares, and in 1989 its territory reached 13. 5 hectares. The Arboretum today is the property of the state and is run by Jayanthe Amarasingh.

The garden contains many representatives of the local tree flora - ebony, buruta, palu, tamarind, helamba. Popham himself spoke of his own brainchild in the following way: “... more than 70 species of evergreen deciduous trees. Here is their refuge, they are the descendants of the real dry jungle that once grew around the famous cave temple in Dambulla. The Arboretum is unique in that it is the only botanical collection of trees in the dry zone of Sri Lanka. Every year, specially designed programs of botanical excursions for schoolchildren and students are implemented here. The arboretum, in addition to the study of individual tree species, is also the center for studying the environment of the arid zone of the island. For this purpose, several spotted deer were brought into the garden.

Sam Popham lived right in the arboretum, in the cottage shown in the photo. In 2001, he retired and returned to his homeland.

Another interesting garden is by artist, sculptor and landscape architect Lucky Senanayake.
This man loved to experiment all his life: with paints, clay, shapes. Senanayake tried to introduce various innovations in his garden. He, like Popham, lives in Dambulla, that is, in the arid zone of the country. It seems surprising, but he was able to grow in his garden such types of tropical plants that, in principle, do not grow in a dry climate. Thanks to several interconnected reservoirs, he created a unique mini-ecosystem where tamarinds bloom next to heveas, and fish splash and frogs croak in front of monkeys and kingfisher.

Sculptures of the artist himself stand throughout the garden. It is hard to imagine that when the artist first came to this place in 1971, there was only agricultural land here.

Senanayake's original sculpture "Boar"

Lucky Senanayake is an adherent of minimalism, he calls his house a "hut". The building really looks more like a hut than a house. True, the owner built a two-story mansion for guests next to the "hut", as they complained more than once about the huge number of snakes living in the garden. But snakes, like other animals, do not disturb the owner, he cares about the "peaceful coexistence" of all kinds of living beings in his garden.
The result of various experiments in the garden was a house made of living palm trees. Inside the house, under a corrugated iron roof, there is a spare water tank hidden.

"Living" palm house

The artist Senanayake is a great eccentric and original. One of his passions is music. Throughout the garden, he hung loudspeakers (dressed in armored covers from monkey marauders), from which constantly sounds something between opera arias and musical screensavers to the theater of the absurd. In addition, he has a unique whistle with which he calls his assistants, and each of them has his own special signal. Even for his close friends, Lucky is always a mystery, because he is unpredictable. However, the artist's garden really deserves attention among other gardens in Sri Lanka.

Lucky Senanayake

In the capital city of Colombo itself, private gardens have shrunk noticeably over the past twenty years due to intense new housing developments. But their owners are still passionate gardeners, creating miniature tropical landscapes in their tiny plots. On the outskirts of the capital and in provincial cities, where there is still the possibility of developing large plots for private construction, you can find beautiful exotic gardens. Around Negombo, in particular, where many Catholics who worked in Italy live, a whole town of new gabled villas with amazing ornamental gardens has sprung up. This town is called "Little Sicily".

In the outlying villages, the typical Sinhalese house has not changed during colonization: a small one-story bungalow with an outdoor veranda for relaxation is surrounded by a home garden filled with fruit trees and shrubs. Here, on the backyard, you can find spices and spices, medicinal plants. There is usually a rice field behind the house. Such village farms today occupy 367,000 hectares, and rice fields - 780,000 hectares. If you add up both figures, it turns out that typical agricultural land covers 15% of the total land area of ​​the country. According to historical chronicles, such a traditional complex "house - garden - rice field" has existed for more than 2000 years. Sometimes the "garden" in a rustic form is represented by only 2-3 tall trees that give shade. Poverty today, just like hundreds of years ago, does not allow many peasants to have a decent garden plot. Apparently, it is unlikely that anything will change in the coming decades.

Planter's Manor - Ilya Kleymenov — LiveJournal

In this article I will tell and show how we live here. Let me remind you that this house is two years old and was built in the jungle on the east coast of Madagascar. Simultaneously with the construction of the estate, a plantation of vanilla and cloves was laid. Today its area is about 30 hectares. That accommodates 7.5 thousand vanilla guardians, each has already been planted with creepers, as well as about 5 thousand clove trees and the same number of cinnamon trees.

This year we expect the first commercial harvest.

But in order to work well, one must live well! Especially with children. After all, Sasha, when we started laying the plantation, was generally only 4 months old. We lived first in a tent and then in a bungalow. And only after 8 months they built a house.

This is how our homestead looks today:


2. House.

3. Terrace 4x8. Glass door. We go inside.

4. Salon. Welded a "soft corner" from a metal profile. It remains to make seats from boards and order foam rubber pillows. Very budgetary and rather practical option of "garden" furniture.

5. Freezer. We use it as a refrigerator. An excellent energy-saving solution to the problem.

6. Charging batteries for flashlights 18650 and AA.

7. So far we only have this dining table. In time I will make a real one.

8. My bedroom.

9. Bedroom of wife and daughter.

10. Children's.

11. There is a bunk bed here. But for now, only Ivan sleeps here.

12. Giraffe as hanger and TV set for children's cartoons.

13. Exit to the courtyard. To the right is the door to the toilet.

14. Toilet.

15. And a shower.

16. In front of the mirror and washbasin.

17. Let's go look at the kitchen.

18. Water tower on the left. We pump water from the well into it.

19. Drainage channels everywhere. So that there is no dirt.

20. Kitchen. Stove for a cauldron made of fireclay bricks. Bank with kvass.

21. Wash. Let me remind you that the entire kitchen is made of reinforced concrete and covered with tiles.

22. Gas stove.

23. Today for lunch, beef in curry sauce.

24. And barley.

25. Opposite the stove is a shelf for kitchen utensils. Also made of concrete.

26. Door to the pantry.

27. A large concrete shelf is installed on two walls in the pantry. Here we temporarily store the tools and materials (in the future they will move to the storage room).

28. As well as products.

29. And a solar power plant.

30. Controller, inverter, 3 batteries (200 Ah) and 8 panels of 150 watts provide us with round the clock electricity.

31. Controller.

32. Inverter.

33. We leave the pantry.

34. To the right of the kitchen is the "summer" kitchen. It has 3 rocket stoves that run on wood. Here we heat water for the shower and cook food for the dogs.

35. Behind the kitchen there is a new building - another shower with a toilet.

36. There was an urgent need for it when vanilla was processed. The people worked hard - all the surroundings were dirtied.

37. Everything is as simple and budget-friendly as possible. But still quality.

38. Soon we will tile and paint.

39. Directly in front of you is a septic tank for a new toilet.

40. It is a deep hole. Meters six.

41. Which we covered from above with concrete slabs and covered with earth. They made a breather. Works great, doesn't stink at all.

42. Behind the kitchen is a sanitary corner for washing dishes and laundry. Pipes to drain rainwater from the roof were brought into barrels.

43. Flowers for beauty. Everywhere or grass or concrete. And no dirt.

44. The children left with their wife for the capital, for school. They left me on the farm. I miss you already. We are very rarely separated.

45. Men's food: potatoes with butter and cucumbers with sour cream.

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