That Tree at UTech…

There are many beautiful trees on the University of Technology (UTech) campus and one of the most beautiful is the iconic elephant ear tree in front of the Faculty of the Built Environment (FOBE)…

It is clear that the tree was taken into consideration when the building was designed…

Picture taken from FOBE website, 2022-2023 Orientation video

…which was very appropriate for a building that would house the Caribbean School of Architecture and the School of Building and Land Management.

The tree and the building are in close contact…

…on the upper floors.

It is a wonderful, spreading tree…

…with an impressive trunk…

…solid branches…

…and masses of such delicate leaves….

The pods under the tree show why these trees are called elephant ear trees (Enterolobium cyclocarpum). The oldest tree at Hope Gardens is an elephant ear tree that is more than 200 years old. I wonder how old this tree is.

A beautiful sight/site, whether you look in towards it…

…or out from under it….

That venerable tree at UTech must have been witness to so much change over time. May it stand for many more years!

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An Act of Remembering…

Walking through the gardens of St Paul’s Cathedral in London recently, I noticed this bench…

…and the plaque on it. I don’t know who Sandra Archer was or who arranged for this act of remembering… family, friends or colleagues…

Our family did this recently, after my husband died. A plaque on a bench, under a tree at Hope Gardens…

An act of remembering…

 

Pausing on Garden Boulevard, Mona Heights

Garden Boulevard is the longest road in Mona Heights, running from the intersection with Old Hope Road near the Hope Gardens gate all the way to the intersection with Mona Road, where the aqueduct leads into the Mona Dam.

As I turned onto Garden Boulevard at the Mona Road intersection last week, I noticed that some of the trees along the sidewalk had recently been cut.

It was the bright colour of the cut wood that caught my attention and made me stop, park and get closer, to take photos of the pruned privet trees. The only sign of those who had done the cutting was a red cap seemingly forgotten near one of the pruned trees.

Cut surfaces of different sizes and shapes.

 

And already, across the stump of one felled tree…

…something new had begun to grow….

Small details captured while pausing on a long road in Mona Heights one morning….

(And if you’d like to see the full length of Garden Boulevard, take a look at this video I found online- click here.)

 

Surrounding Hills & Mountains: Weekly Photo Challenge – Tour Guide

“Share with us an image, or two, or three, (or more!) of where you live. For bonus points, tell us what it is about the photo(s) that you love.”

I have lived in the Kingston Metropolitan Area of Jamaica almost all of my life. On the flat land of the Liguanea Plain. And I love the surrounding hills and mountains that you can see…driving on the Palisadoes strip, on the way in from the airport…

…to the west, as the morning sun shines on them…

…the mountains to the north, seen from Hope Gardens….

A flat lander, who loves being able to see the hills….

Weekly Photo Challenge – Tour Guide

 

Not Always The Most Beautiful: Weekly Photo Challenge – 2017 Favourites

“To celebrate the end of the year, share the most meaningful photo you’ve taken in 2017.”

An impossible challenge! All the flowers, the sunsets, the clouds! Just one photo? The most meaningful? Impossible!

But what I will share is this one, taken one morning at Hope Gardens. One of the ground staff was cutting away dead branches on a palm tree. I took a series of photos of him as he cut, but I wasn’t successful in capturing the energy and skill of his actions. Then he stuck his machete in the grass, as he dragged the cut branches away. This one said so much to me.

Weekly Photo Challenge – 2017 Favourites

Took Time On National Heroes’ Day To #BigUpJamaica

There is a whole lot about our country that needs radical change and we know it. And still we love this place. Fi Wi Jamaica, the University of Technology’s “national social intervention project which seeks to bring awareness to and, ideally, protection for targeted socially oppressed groups and individuals in Jamaica”, sponsored a Twitter event today, National Heroes’ Day. 

Many individuals and organizations joined in:

I joined in with a series of tweets of my own:

If you want to learn more about the Fi Wi Jamaica project, take a look at their page on Facebook or read a recent press release of theirs, which blogger Emma Lewis shared in a post: Fi Wi Jamaica: Past, Present and Future

 

Big Gardens, Tiny Car: Weekly Photo Challenge – Scale

“Have some fun with perspective and show just how big, or little, the world can seem.”

One morning in Hope Gardens, looking at the sky, the clouds, the mountains, the trees, the road and a tiny, tiny car…

(Hope Botanical Gardens, established more than a century & a quarter ago on 200 acres of land on the Liguanea Plain, is the largest public green space in the Kingston Metropolitan Area of Jamaica.)

Weekly Photo Challenge – Scale