I didn’t realize, and I’m sure most first time home buyers and Do It Youselfers don’t realize how much coin it actually takes to build a house; kitchen cabinets, tile, grout, skilled labor, treated wood, finishing wood, counter tops, appliances, wiring, lighting, fans, floors, locks, driveways, furniture……

Summer and I are managing the expensive work little by little and enjoying our new home AND as you guys know, we are landscaping like crazy. Much like investing in a home in a booming town like Rincon, all of the landscaping we do today is going to be mature and beautiful in 5 years which makes our time spent on the yard an investment.

I was walking around the yard with my coffee this morning, watering our garden, and decided that I wanted to show you guys all of our star players:


Growing Flamboyont
I planted this flamboyant tree on the side of our hill about 6 months ago. It really likes it there because it is growing like crazy and looks really healthy. We just need to keep the vines off of it (and all the other plants)
monster elephant ears
These are Elephant Ears transplanted from Dennis Richs’ Pool Bar. These guys must be prehistoric, because they are just huge. Definitely the fastest growing plant we have so far.
star player flamboyant tree

This flamboyant tree started at 6” tall 6 months ago and is reaching for the sun. Once these Flamboyant trees mature, they are going to provide great shade and beautiful flowers.
this guanacaste tree is going to be huge
This is the state tree of Costa Rica, it is called a Guanacaste Tree. They look like the Flamboyant tree but get to be 6x the size! Great shade tree down the line.
palms, ginger and flowers in our planters
Everything in our planter is BLOWING UP! If you look closely you’ll see Ginger (red flowers), Christmas Palm trees, some invasive plant from the stream bed, passion fruit vines and some flowers that Summer planted.
this queen palm is blowing up
We almost named our street, Crooked Palm Lane because a bunch of Palms we bought last year were all super crooked. We have been staking them and trimming them to help them straightne out. This Queen Palm is getting less crooked everyday.
this was a transplant from under our mango tree
These palms (I think a Royal Palm or King Palm) are so green and majestic when they are mature…I’m looking forward to seeing this one dead center in our front yard.
fastest growing tree in our yard
This rubber tree is well over 12ft tall now, it was about 2 ft when we planted it 6 months ago.

All in all, our trees and plants are loving the rainy season down here. Hopefully, we won’t have to water them everyday once the dry season kicks back in. I am really looking forward to the privacy and shade all of these trees are going to provide us one day.