islandgal_barbados's Profile

I live on the tiny island of Barbados in the Caribbean. Barbados has an area of 166 sq miles and is 16 miles wide and 21 miles long I think. Have left school a long time ago and the brain is a bit slow. The locals are called Bajans a shortened form for Barbadians. As a  former British Colony we can boast of having the oldest parliament in the western hemisphere. We became an independent nation in 1966 and recently hosted the finals of World Cup Cricket. By the way Cricket is a bat and ball game and is the passion of most Barbadians except for me since Gardening is one of my first and foremost passions. My husband and I bought our home about 11 years ago in the north of the island in the parish of St. Lucy. The property consists of a fieldstone house dating back to the 1800's  and sits on 2.3 acres. When we purchased it, it was a dump and very little was done to the former cane ground. Sugar cane is grown all over the island and mainly exported to the UK.  Tourism is the major industry and the largest percentage of visitors are from the UK, and sugar the second but almost dead industry. Back to the property, I have been frantically gardening for the past 11 years with help of my hubby and hired hands when we can afford it.  We grow water lilies and have built three ponds and one mud pond that is seasonal. The first pond was a broken down cistern that we cleaned out and filled in and repaired. We started one pond and ran out of room and built another two and are still out of room. However we have decided not to build another one since we need to do other things around the house. I did dig a hole in the ground where water settles when it rains so that became a fourth pond. I open the gardens every two years or so to the public through the horticultural society. I am thinking of opening it to visitors in the winter season (december to April)

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