A Farewell to Ethnogarden - Maybe Not

Reminiscent of a line in a Joni Mitchell song, the ethnobotanical garden on the east end of campus is slated to become a paved parking lot. Maybe. The final plans for the track, field, softball diamond, and affiliated parking lots have yet to be made. The garden may yet partially survive the construction. In any case the potential for the loss helped spur me to begin to make long overdue decisions. The mango trees have become significantly larger since the garden began and are shading out many of the plants that were originally planted.

The swamp taro, although growing in flowbed for drainage from the campus, is struggling in the expanding shade of the mango trees. The Senna alata is also "moving" out from under the shade.

I will attempt to regrow the gardenia and jasmine plants, other plants will have to be dug up and moved.

 Ixora casei

Potting soil

The present plan is to move the plants to the orange area between the Yapese men's hut and the Japanese cemetery. The bananas may also have to be moved from the area in red.