Reforestation

When the first lot of planted trees was still alive after two weeks, I planted another two trees, soursops and a few days later I deposited some germinating coconuts on strategic places on our land. And because we want flowers, and especially flowers that attract hummingbirds, I also planted some heliconia plants, which I obtained froma bit of fallow land of our neighbour (who is only interested in rice anyway...) When Loes came to have a look at our land on 19 December all trees were still alive and the mahoganies must have grown at least two inches. So we were convinced our planting technique was correct.

December/January is not the best time to plant trees in Panama because the dry season has just begun and many species do not survive the stress of being replanted. But we could still get a few hardy species, so we have been planting during the last few weeks. Around 21 December we planted 15 Sauces (willow). We know it is native and provides shade, but we do not know exactly which species this is (there are three tree species commonly called sauce). We also planted about a dozen palm trees and two guava trees. Planting the latter was not strictly necessary, because we later realized that there are already quite a few guava trees spontaneously growing on the property. But we only recognized them as guava trees once we had planted the ones we bought… The same goes for the native nance. Oh well, at least we now have guava and nance exactly where we want them and these trees do attract many birds.

Op 28 december we planted another 80 plants and trees that we bought in another nursery. We planted another 10 mahoganies, these ones slightly larger than the first lot and 10 guayacans (Tabebuia ochracea), another tropical hardwood, which also happens to have beautiful bright yellow flowers. Furthermore 10 wild cashews (Anacardium excelsum), 10 “red apples” (Not the European one, but probably Syzygium jambos), 6 Campana amarillo (Schizolobium parahyba), 5 red dwarf gingers, 5 pink giant gingers (Zingiber spp.), a Panama tree (Sterculia apetala) and two “caouchoucs” a latex-producing fig species with large leafs. We started the new year by planting another 32 heliconia plants of four different species. We also bought 24 seedlings of a tree called ‘ harina’ (literally ‘flour’). Those are still acclimatizing in our own nursery.

Photos are available via a yahoo internet album, click the link here:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/loesroos/album?.dir=/970bre2&.src=ph&.tok=phpumIGBxI5Zi6q4
(the numbers behind the photo titles is the percentage of reduction applied nothing special...).

So we now have an additional 100 trees and 50 shrubs on our property. Some of the trees have been attacked by a leafcutting caterpillar and crickets/grasshoppers. One tree has definitely died and we are not yet sure whether our panama-tree will make it through the dry season. We got the last one and they are supposed to be planted in the rainy season… According to the literature that Loes found in the Smithsonian Institute, it is supposed to lose all its leaves in January, so we remain hopeful.

In the mean time there are quite a few trees coming up spontaneously now that they are not longer grazed by cattle. As we said, we have dozens of nances and guava trees, but there are also a few beautiful fig trees (Ficus insipida) and a shrub/tree that the locals call ‘canela’ (Mesembrina spp.).

But 8 hectares is a large area (we estimate we need about 3000 trees in total) so we concentrate on a few areas. We have already placed an order with one nursery: a list of 115 species of which 30 have high priority. We only asked for two to five individuals of each because tropical forests are very diverse. We also want to buy trees from several different nurseries to increase the genetic diversity. In Malena we also dropped 85 bags for seedlings with a farmer who is going to collect seedlings of various trees for us. And we are producing seedlings ourselves as well. Our neighbour gave us a cocoa fruit and we planted the seeds, as well as seeds of pawpaw trees. So those have to be planted in May-June as well. Pawpaw, guava and nance are very popular with fruit-eating birds such as tanagers and toucans and they are typical pioneer species that will provide shade to young forest giants such as the Tonka bean (Dipteryx panamensis).

From May onwards we will be starting to plant about a thousand trees. Would you like to come and help us as a volunteer?