Blog Charco del Palo

When we started to take care of the Las Piteras complex, just under a year ago, at first we didn't pay many attention to it. It just looked like an old an overgrown banana tree. Just one of our workers drew my attention to the fact that it is a very unusual plant, a so called white bird of paradise, a Strelitzia Augusta, also known as Strelitzia Alba. In fact, while our lanzarotenian Strelitzia Reginae are all orange-colored, this specimen has much larger and white flowers, and it is also four times as high as their local species.

The Strelitzia Augusta furthermore occurs almost exclusively in South Africa, where it grows in the protected gorges and on the slopes of the watercourses of the "Garden Route" at the east coast of the country, where it can reach up to ten meters high. Moreover, this plant does not seem to be affected by our salty air from the ocean, and it also defies very well the north winds, just leaning a little to the south it blooms all year round, but especially now in the months of May to July.

Meanwhile she was cut by our gardener and doesn't longer look so wild, Domingo is really a great gardener and I will be curious how our exotic plant will develop in future. My old friend Eddy, who unfortunately died some years ago, probably planted it directly in front of the door of his apartment.

In addition, I finally found someone who cleaned our two palm trees from Casa Finisterre and liberated them from their drooping and dry leaves. These twins also have grown quite tall, can still remember how they were two baby-palms :)