Grenada & Carriacou / Special Interests / Flowers & Gardens

Grenada, like so many of the Windward Islands, is covered with a mantle of green, from its sea level mangroves, up through pastures and plantation and dry Caribbean forest, to mountainous, rain forested heights. And everywhere this greenery is dotted and punctured with bright tropical colours. The island has is a fantastic array of tropical plants, from the orange-red immortelle trees that shade the cocoa trees to cultivated orchids in specialist collections. And the island is particularly fertile for certain types of plant, notably herbs and certain tropical spices. Besides Jamaica, Grenada is the only island in the Caribbean where allspice grows well. The island calls itself The Spice Isle. There are plantations around the island and it is fun to visit them to see how spices are grown and processed.

Elsewhere the Grenadians use their extraordinarily fertile volcanic soil to create superb gardens. Your hotel garden will probably give a small introduction to tropical plants but there are a number of public gardens which you can visit independently or on a tour, and also many other private gardens of great interest to horticulturalists which can be visited only by appointment. In addition to their regular tours, Caribbean Horizons are able to take you to visit. The owner of the company is a horticulturalist in her own right and has been part of a team that has won a Gold Medal at the Chelsea Flower Show in London.

The Grenada team at the Chelsea Flower Show in London has been very successful in recent years - they were awarded Silver in 1998, Silver-Gilt in 1999, 2000, 2006 and 2008 and the first of ten Gold medals in 2001, the latest of which was won in 2012 - but the most poignant award, also a Gold, came in 2005, just over eight months after the devastation caused by Hurricane Ivan in September 2004. The display in the Great Pavilion, which was put together by growers and designers living in Grenada and in the UK, was created around the theme of 'Paradise Reclaimed'. It was centred around a depiction of the roofless cathedral in St George's with much use of the island's fragrant nutmeg shells - a reminder of the damage sustained by the island's nutmeg crop.

In 2005 Grenada also announced the naming of a new heliconia after Private Johnson Beharry VC, who is from the island. Beharry was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest order for gallantry awarded by the British Army, for two separate acts of outstanding bravery while serving in Iraq. The ‘Heliconia Johnson Beharry’, a new variety, appeared after a spontaneous mutation in St Andrew Parish in Grenada.

Carriacou

Carriacou has a much drier climate than Grenada and the landscape becomes parched brown quite quickly in the dry season. In keeping with their long needed self-sufficiency, the Kayaks (as the Carriacouans are known sometimes) tend to keep large gardens in which they grow fruit trees and vegetables for their own consumption. Crops include corn, peas, okra, breadfruit, limes, oranges and grapefruit. Coconuts are also grown, and picked either green for their milk or brown for cooking. The leaves are used for making mats.

Hillsborough has a simple botanical garden set a couple of streets inland. It is a little unloved, but contains lawns and a variety of specimens found on Carriacou.

See our list of recommended Botantical Gardens in Grenada.

Non-profit organisations and Government links:

Grenada at Chelsea, http://www.grenada-at-chelsea.org.uk/