Alex and I have loved Anguilla (in the Caribbean), its people and its tranquil beaches since discovering this quiet island in 1994. No longer the quiet island it once was, it is still a special part of the world to us. Malliouhana, our favorite place to stay, was the first luxury hotel in Anguilla, built in the 1980s by the Royden family who ran it elegantly for years. When Leon Royden retired, he sold the property to a new company in 2011 and the Malliouhana is currently managed – in much the same way – by Auberge Resorts. It’s a lovely place to visit or stay if you make it to this part of the Caribbean.
At breakfast this morning, I heard that the chef and kitchen staff were getting spices and food from the garden, so naturally I asked around to find out more where they were coming from. The staff arranged for me to meet Bev, the garden supervisor, who greeted me after breakfast and took me around the gardens. I immediately found a kindred spirit who was excited about every aspect of her work on the hotel grounds. A native Anguillan, she’s worked in these gardens for 19 years! Bev approaches her garden in many of the same ways I do with mine – mixing flowers + fruit + vegetables throughout the garden, planting mostly local plants that belong here, being personally connected to every living thing in her garden, compulsively needing to fill in dirt patches in the garden with plant material, and planting so much that she can’t help but have excess to share with others. I loved her instantly.
The first area we toured was the nursery. Her approach is to propagate the plant material on property which greatly reduces the need to purchase plants. This includes cuttings from her own personal garden, if Malliouhana doesn’t have the plant material she wants. I had noticed the ‘babies’ throughout the grounds, so it was clear that they were using this approach. She is proactively plugging in the holes wherever she finds them. With the abundant sun and water (from rain), the plants will mature in no time.
The above picture is the gated vegetable garden with starts in each of the pots. She has mostly spices in these pots, but also has tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, spinach and peppers. This, she proclaimed, is her favorite part of her job: growing vegetables and spices from seed.
Once the seedlings take off, she transplants them into the adjacent garden so they can mature in the ground. I didn’t ask her what she was going to do with the tomatoes from 150 tomato plants, but I did ask her what she does with the excess not needed by the hotel restaurant. She divides the extra up between her co-workers. She will have PLENTY this year!
From the vegetable garden, we wandered the rest of the property where she showed me familiar and unfamiliar plants, like this noni plant whose leaves, flowers, stems, bark, and roots can be used to make medicine for a long list of ailments. She also has a massive number of aloe plants which will come to the rescue when a vacationer forgets to apply sunscreen in this intense sun…
I was shocked to find a few pomegranate trees planted around the property. Who knew they grow in the Caribbean? The coloring was different than mine in the Napa Valley – more yellow so they’re obviously a different variety.
She proudly shared their banana patch with me, where they currently have three bunches of bananas growing. I’ve never seen bananas growing in Anguilla before. Adjacent to the banana patch was a budding avocado tree, looking incredibly healthy. No fruit yet, but it’s still young.
Towards the end of the tour, she pointed out these beautiful trees with white flowers that I recognized as new from last year – Snow on the Mountain is their common name. They are so pretty when massed. At the base are several agave plants, natural sweeteners.
She is growing quite a bit of Devil’s Backbone, which is easy to grow and makes a nice border plant. She shared a story with me about one particular area. She asked a co-worker to plant some Devil’s Backbone in a way that she would be proud of her work, and the co-worker created this heart. True to Bev’s nature, she said she needed to fill in the center :).
There are several coconut trees on property. When she asked me if I liked coconut water, I enthusiastically said “Yes!” and she promised me a coconut after our tour. I’d nearly forgotten about it, but she personally brought it to my room 15 minutes later. I guess one gardener to another, we both knew how special that was.
