A community pool achieved a completely new look
This community pool area at the Costa del Sol was a sad place to be. After changing the old broken tiles by a fantastique synthethique grass the look changed completely and the big and small humans started to enjoy it like never before.
New modern garden at the Costa del Sol
This new garden was created with the purpose of the owners to avoid hours of garden maintenance work as well as waste of water. All the gardeners as well as a huge part of the garden was plantes with suculent and cactus plants and covered with lava stones. This plants need only once a week a little bit of water and no other cares. At the back of the house we installed wooden gardeners to brake up the long high wall and sintetique grass to create a clean, fresh and green looking area. At the trees area we choosed easy growing trees such as almond, pomegranate, guayabo, papaya, mango, nispero and citrique trees, covering the soil with gravel. At the pool side we planted 36 Scheflera Actynophilla, a very tropical looking and easy growing plant that will cover very soon the ugly view to the nightbours garden. A Kentia palm tree should never missing in a elegant and modern looking garden. At the bottom of the Kentia we planted hundreds of Agapanthus Umbrellatus and at the back Echium Candicans. The blue flowers will soon provide the garden with an amazing blue light. At this garden the gardener only need a brush and some garden sizers to cut of the old flowers as well as some tools to clean the pool and the ponts.
Rhynchophorus ferrigineus: the red beetle that kills our palm trees
Costa del Sol November 2008. A very sad day for our garden team and the owners of this hundred year old Phoenix Canariensis palm tree which was the center of atention of their garden for many years.
Even having been realising the treatment recommended from the Junta de Andalucía as well as having been using biological treatments to fight against the red beetle, one morning this palm tree was found with its beautiful central leaves fallen down. Climbing up we found an putrid and very bad smelling mas full of red beetle animal in all their states of development. This was just 5 days after the last treatment.
To avoid the other 3 Phoenix Dactilifera palm trees being attacked the only solution was to take away very quickly the affected palm tree. After calling the responsible people of the town council, we realised that it would take many months to have them come to remove our palm tree. The owner decided to run with the costs and remove the palm tree immediately with a private company.
In the last weeks many palm trees lost their battle against the red beetle. The Spanish legislation still is not giving an effective solution to this huge problem. The waiting lists to have the private palm trees removed are much to long. Another problem is, that their is no control if the private people make any treatments and no punishments if they do not get rid of the death palm trees, the result is thousands of death pal trees full of new populations of the red beetle just preparing to fly away searching another palm tree, maybe yours.
IIn view of so much ignorance and lethargy of the human beings, this little red beetle decided to invite his Asian cousin “the black beetle” even more dangerous and happy to attack the last resting palm trees at the Mediterranean Countries.
26/11/2008: Barbara S. is asking:
Is it absolutely necessary to remove the tree once the top has died. Does it become a risk?
Dear Barbara: if the head of your palm tree has died, after some time it will fall down. It might be possible that the damage is although on a lower part of the trunk. The palm tree could brake in two and fall. We had several examples in the last years, where palm trees has fallen, sometimes even damaging the house or other plants. Another problem is that if you do not remove the affected part of your palm tree, the red beetle will continue to develop inside the palm tree, even going further down the trunk and hundreds of new beetle population will grow up and then leave in search of other healthy palm trees. Of course, it is not absolutely necessary that you cut out even the roots. You can cut down the palm tree until a reasonable hight and plant some covering plants around, using the remaining trunk as a support for your climbing plants. You can use some kind of ivy, for example “hiedra mineata” if the trunk is in the shadow or summer jasmine, passionflower, lonicera heckrotti or Wisteria, if the trunk is in the sun. Make sure that before planting your make a hole big enough (3-4 times bigger than the pot of your new climber) and add very good soil. In Spain they sell MANTILLO which is not expensive and very good for this purpose. Jeannette de Buck. Decojardin. 27/11/2008
FERIA DE MUESTRAS 2008 AT MARBELLA
From the last 1. of November on, many people had been visiting us on our stand at the Marbella Exposition Show. We are very happy to see the big interest on our artificial grass.
We invite all our clients to come to visit us on our Decojardin Stand at the ” Feria de Muestras” to spend some relaxing hours tasting and buying fantastic Spanish food and vines directly from different producers of several Spanish regions. We like specially the many different Spanish Parma Ham legs as well as the old Manchego cheese.
Although you might find some nice presents for the upcoming Christmas.
The Exposition is situated at the entrance from Marbella City next to the “Piruli” and we be open every day from 12:00 to 22.00h until and including next Sunday 9 of November. The entrance costs 2.- Euros and there is no parking problems.
A Balinese Garden with lawn problems
Today we present you a garden placed in Nueva Andalucía at the Costa del Sol.
This garden is designed at a pure Balinese style, full with little paths, bridges, streams and lakes as well as an extraordinary number of trees and palm trees that allows to create the appropriate microclimate for an huge collection of beautiful tropical plants.
All the landscaping of this garden was marvellous, but not the natural lawn surfaces. The natural grass could not grow well at the grass paths. It was not possible to adapt the water irrigation system properly to all the irregular lawn surfaces. The small pack of dogs of the family as well as the many parties that was celebrated all over the year was although a big enemy of the natural lawn.
After years of failed attempts to get the natural lawn to be perfect, Nico Finstad, www.icon-homes.com, the landscaper of the family convinced them to try with Mediterranean artificial grass. Today, after a whole summer full of parties and fun all the synthetic grass areas of the garden are still beautiful and without any problems.
A new syntethic grass garden in paradise
This 500 m2 garden on the Costa del Sol has recently been completely reformed with synthetic grass Mediterraneo De Luxe. This garden was poorly designed and constructed making it look smaller than it really is. By rebuilding the borders, adding some wooden steps, levelling the entire garden and installing synthetic grass, the garden appeared much larger. The northern garden had several problem areas where water was not properly draining. To prevent future flooding, we placed 15 cm layer of gravel and another 8 to 10 cm bed of river sand before installing the grass. In addition we designed and build a slide slope to drain the water out of the garden.
These property owners are no longer bombarded with lawn mower noise and instead can now enjoy the peace and tranquillity of their beautiful garden. The synthetic lawn and extensive landscaping created a low maintenance garden. For us this garden project was a real challenge in many ways, but in the end we were rewarded by the praises of our clients who exclaimed “we finally have our dream garden!”
