Report from Quito

Years ago I ran across a middle-aged gardener who told us on video how we could increase our vegetable yields, deter pests, and eliminate all yard work forever by dividing our garden plots into grids of one-foot squares. Sucker that I am, I duly tried it in my vegetable garden, which was in itself an attempt to wrest some control over an enormous and entirely uncontrollable yard. When you’ve got more than an acre to take care of, focusing on a square foot at a time is a form of denial or self-preservation. They’re the same thing, after all.

That big yard is now someone else’s responsibility, and so is the long hedge of lilacs and the lavender bushes and the cedar raised beds and various berries and perennials and fruit trees and creeping charlie and cattails and hostas and all the rest, tended (or not) over 35 years by me, my mother, my first and second husbands, and various others whom we paid. Can’t say I’m sad about leaving it behind, because it had worn me out.

Now, my garden grows in pots on a fourth-floor balcony that is indeed measured in square feet – about 21 feet long and not quite five feet deep.

One of the many ways the builders of our 16-unit apartment house saved money on construction was to install railings that are frighteningly low: at their tallest point they come up to an adult’s hip, or the point at which a body bends and topples forward head first. I get a glitch in my stomach whenever I go out there, so my first gardening thought was to put some pots and tall greens between me and the railing. Plus, it was pretty stark out there.

Our friend Sofia had taken us to Nayon months ago. It’s a suburb of Quito known for plant nurseries. Unlike Minneapolis, where every grocery store sets up a quonset hut of seedlings and planters in April, Quito concentrates all its gardening glories in Nayon. We bought nothing on our first visit, but we admired the bounty at Sofia’s favorite spot, Vivero Christian. She took us back there a few weeks ago, and we purchased four herb plants (parsley, basil, rosemary and mint) along with some French lavender, a purple salvia – I love blue and purple flowers – and a tall, architectural horsetail. I bought some pots for the herbs, and a nurseryman transplanted them for me. 

Those pots are now standing between us and falling off the north end of our balcony.

Mother-in-law’s tongue appears to be the national plant of Ecuador. You see them everywhere, including for not very much money at the Kywi hardware store, so now we have three on our balcony. Kywi also had geraniums, azaleas and gerbera daisies – unlike other hardware stores, Kywi does not carry seeds of any kind – that we brought home to augment the attractions of a hummingbird feeder. 

Ecuador may have more hummingbird species than any other country in the world. We met some of them up close in Mindo, where at least two birdwatching attractions encourage visitors to hold small red dishes of nectar in their palms for the birds to feed from. These tiny, tame creatures actually light on your hand with their infinitesimal claws. Some of them fling drops of nectar on you as they drink, and you can see their skinny tongues at work as they do it.

Our driver Xavier took us there the first time and named each variety of bird as it came to drink; my favorite, especially spoken in Xavier’s soft voice, was the racquet-tailed cotton boots. Mindo is called “magical Mindo,” and if you can get past the contrivance of the bird-feeding setup, you can actually feel some of that magic. Mindo also has a butterfly zoo and chocolate “factories” where you can participate in the life cycle of a cacao bean.

When we spotted hummingbird feeders at Kywi, we knew we needed to put one out. I had my doubts, since we’re higher than most of the trees in the area and had mainly concrete to offer as cover. But I clustered some of my newly planted pots around the feeder, which Bill hung from a bracket affixed to the railing with zip ties. And in less than a week, the first bird found the feeder, and a few days later at least two varieties were visiting daily and occasionally chasing each other, as hummingbirds do. No racquet-tailed cotton boots . . . yet . . . and even without a dish of nectar in my hand, I am able to stand or sit mere inches from the feeder when the birds come to drink.

Both of us feel more at home, not to mention less likely to pitch over the edge, with greenery and a few flowers on the balcony. Although it’s usually too sunny or too windy, we’ve enjoyed coffee out there a time or two. I have dreams of a flowering vine trained against one end, a dwarf lemon tree, and boxes of nasturtiums and cilantro. All tidy, all contained, all beautifully manageable, in 100 square feet.