Trees

The garden once formed part of an ancient palmeral. The ‘Majos’ (the pre-hispanic civilisation of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura) in Haría greatly appreciated the Canarian palm using it for everything from housing to clothing and by feeding the fronds to goats, whose manure was used for cultivation and food.

My project to restore the cloud forest to the cliffs above Haría involves two main native species: the local wild olive, acebuche, as well as the lentisco. Both species struggled to grow beyond a metre or so until a windbreak of the hardy Tamarix canariensis had developed. This tree has salty leaves and produces charming blossoms (below).

The Acebuche produces no useful fruit but, as olive groves in Italy are currently being devastated by disease, perhaps such wild relatives may contain a resistant gene that could be added to cultivated varieties. The lentisco (below) has matured into a beautiful tree, providing much needed shade further into the garden.

Although not native to Lanzarote, we love the drago tree and have probably planted too many of them! We normally never water the garden but the tree below was recently transplanted and needed a helping hand.

Near the house are some Canarian pines which form the magnificent forests of Tenerife, but not native to Lanzarote. They have a quirky habit of growing new shoots on their lower trunks.

The only other non-native trees are species of Prosopis, native to the Atacama desert in Chile, where they survive years without rain by absorbing atmospheric moisture through their leaves, the moist, sometimes foggy air here suits them perfectly. They are situated around the pergola and frog pond. Close to the frog pond is a cultivated olive which has only fruited once after a rainstorm, but is there for comparison with the Canarian wild olive next to it.