For the entire six months I have been living in Costa Rica, Julio and I have spent most of our free time away from home exploring Costa Rica or inside our home, remodeling. Side effect: the outside of our home has been neglected.
I walked outside today to assess the damage, but was surprised to realize that the garden had been tending itself! All of these luscious plants grew when I wasn’t looking – Hello rainy season!
During the rainy season, the earth really comes alive and the landscape changes drastically. Everyday, I can walk outside in the morning and discover a new flower or see the rich variant greens of the rainforest foliage spreading further up and out. And here in Alajuela, we get sun until about 2 or 3 in the afternoon and then it rains, or pours, into the night, so there are very few days that it rains all day long.
Thank you Costa Rica rainy season for tending my garden.

Pink Ginger Lily, Costa Rica
My garden is not only benefiting from the rainforest, but from the volcanoes as well. All the plant and animal life here in Costa Rica is exceedingly abundant – the volcanic eruptions have very richly fertilized the soil. In fact, Costa Rica is home to almost 6% of the entire world’s biodiversity. Impressive, seeing as how the country is less than 1% of the world’s land mass.
All this new growth is very inspiring and I took quite a few photos of our yard today. Thought I would post a few to the blog. If anyone knows the names of these plants, please comment or email me so I can update the captions, thanks!

The tip top of an ornamental baby pineapple, Costa Rica

This pineapple did not quite make it. It’s pretty, but dead. And still effortless on my part!

Go Pineapple Go!

Rainforest Clover, Costa Rica

Rabbit’s Foot Fern, Costa Rica
I have an effortless garden at my house. And it shows.
i think the pale pink one near the bottom right is a form of ginger lily. beautiful!
Score! It is a pink ginger lily – thanks Sonya!
Love the pictures as well as the new template!
Thanks! Do you know what any of these plants are called?!
I actually did not change the template – just the background. I took a photo of the Costa Rica Coat of Arms inside Teatro Nacional, played with it in Photoshop and made the background. I am thinking of converting the blog from one to two sidebars, though…
One of them looks like a pineapple. Just sayin,
ok, now I am REALLY excited – it IS a baby pineapple! Yay!
That purple bumpy one is crazy.
Opps, yes template. Love it! You’d think that after 5 years of living amongst such beauty I would at least be able to identify one of the plants, but sadly I cannot. 🙁
Julie, that purple bumpy one is what inspired me to write this post. There are some seriously crazy things going on in the rainforest.
Do the pineapples we find in the supermarket grow in Costa Rica? Or those a different species?
Some do – it depends on where that particular supermarket imports them from. You can ask them if there isn’t already a sticker on them.
wow all them plants