What an Antigua Garden Does When You Leave It Alone
How does a garden plant itself?
A garden plants itself when the species in it reproduce without help, through roots, seeds and fruit that fall and sprout where they land, and a gardener who works with that instead of against it. Lionel’s breadfruit is the clearest example I have ever seen.
“The breadfruit plant is unique,” he said. “If you were digging, say, fifteen feet away from the breadfruit to plant something else, and you happen to scratch the root, a new breadfruit plant would emerge.” I checked I had heard him right. “Right. The root goes all over the place. If you go further in the back, you will see small breadfruit plants popping up all over, because the root got scratched.” One tree quietly becomes a grove. That self replicating abundance is the same logic behind the self sufficient eco stays we track across the Caribbean.
How do the coconuts plant themselves?
The coconuts plant themselves by carrying their own water and food inside the nut, sprouting where they fall, and floating to new ground on their husks. Lionel crouched by one already shooting on the ground to show me.
“The baby coconut will feed on the water that is inside of the coconut,” he said. “And then it will begin to put out a shoot. And then it begins to put out root.” The husk is built to float, which is how they travel. “Some of our coconuts come from all the way across from some other island.” A tree that arrives by sea and roots itself is exactly the kind of low effort abundance a garden eco stay is built around.
What does he have to fight in the garden?
Not everything is welcome, and Lionel is honest about the parts of the garden that fight back. The hardest is a weed.
The wild tamarind he digs out
“This plant is all over Antigua,” he said of the wild tamarind. “It was brought in to make feed for the cattle. If this stays here, it will produce maybe about five thousand seeds.” When the family took the land on, “we had lots of them, and we had to dig them out from the root. A lot of the seeds were in the ground, and after rainfall all those seeds will germinate, and then you have to go outside and pluck the baby wild tamarind.” I asked if it tasted like tamarind. “No, no, we don’t eat it at all. But the cows love it when it’s young.” Five thousand seeds a plant, pulled by hand, is the unglamorous side of a genuinely green stay.
How does he garden without spraying?
He gardens without chemicals by working like a detective, hunting the problem by hand and letting the dead feed the living, so the garden keeps its own balance. A vine had got into the soursop, and he deals with that the slow way.
“You just have to go like a detective to look for them,” he said, then dig the root out or cut it. “All this will become dry and become food for other plants. So nature continues to feed itself. Basically, that’s it.” Nothing leaves, nothing is poisoned, the waste becomes the next season’s food. It is the same closed loop thinking behind the certified sustainable stays we rate across the Caribbean, just done by one man with a pair of hands.
Why does he share the garden with the wildlife?
He shares it because, to him, the birds and the bats have as much right to the fruit as he does, and a garden that feeds everything is a healthier one. He does not begrudge them their share.
“We’re in the same environment,” he said simply. “We all have to survive.” Earlier, looking at sugar apples the birds had already taken, he had said the same thing, that they have to eat too. That generosity, toward the wildlife and toward his guests, is why Lamblion sits among the black owned eco stays we champion across the Caribbean, and it is part of the same heritage Lorylin keeps in the backyard garden handed down from her grandmother.
Can you watch the garden work on a stay?
Yes, you can watch all of it on a stay, the saplings coming up where nobody planted them, the sprouting coconuts, the no spray balance, a few steps from your apartment. It is the rare holiday where the grounds are not landscaped for show but alive and working.
Lamblion is a black owned, self catering garden stay, one of the best eco stays in Antigua and the wider sustainable hotels across the Caribbean. Read why you pick your own breakfast here, see the verified facts on the Lamblion listing, and book a stay through Expedia.
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