Ornamental gardening in Spain now outshines the vegetable patch

Trinc: the ornamental garden that is stealing the spotlight from the vegetable patch

There is a twelve-square-metre balcony that has been a jungle for years. Its owner started with carnivorous plants as a child, when there was no internet and only a book from the forties, and today he cannot imagine a terrace without sarracenias, a highland nepenthes and an assortment of cacti he waters drop by drop. It is the portrait of a hobby that in Spain is no longer just about tomatoes and chard: ornamental growing, landscaping and rare plants have found their own circuit, with nurseries from all over the country, seed sellers on second-hand platforms and a jargon of their own that mixes botany with bar-room humour.

The distinction matters. Unlike the productive vegetable garden, aimed at what ends up on the table, the ornamental garden trinc aesthetic criteria: colour combinations, foliage, flowering and that priceless satisfaction of seeing a cutting take root. The result is a domestic ecosystem where **the most shameless penny-pinching coexists with guilt-free spending** on a plant nobody needs.

Where the seeds come from and how much the whim costs

The recurring question is where to buy quality seed without getting ripped off. The answer circulating among enthusiasts points to specialist sellers on second-hand platforms and their own websites, with names repeated as a guarantee: **Spicegarden**, Mundosemillas, Donsemillas or Factory Jardines. The advice is always the same: buy directly from a trusted seller and be wary of miracle offers.

The budget shoots up when you move from the seed packet to the furniture. A certified-wood urban planter table, 80x120x60 centimetres, comes to around **100 euros on offer** at a big DIY chain. The immediate doubt: is it worth paying for quality wood if the planter will be under cover and only splashed by rain? The most common answer is that this kind of table is fairly easy to build and the materials cost considerably less, provided you have a minimum of DIY skill.

Aphids, mealybugs and other seasonal pests

No ornamental garden escapes the war against bugs. The aphid is the classic enemy, and everything has been tried against it: **potassium soap at one tablespoon per litre of hot water**, diatomaceous earth, garlic preparations macerated and boiled for twenty or thirty minutes, and even marigolds planted among the crops as a trap plant that attracts aphids and is then cut and burned.

The mealybug is another story. Once it settles among the leaves of a trunked plant, removing it with a brush and alcohol works for a month and then it comes back. The conclusion reached by the most experienced growers is that it is time to resort to a **systemic insecticide**, with all that implies. And for weeds, thick cardboard packaging covered with pine bark mulch has become established as the most effective herbicide-free method: it weakens bindweed without needing Roundup.

Lawns, drought and the eternal water debate

Anyone with a pool who wants grass around it faces a textbook problem. In the Galician Rías Baixas, with humidity and mild temperatures, everything grows, but a prolonged drought leaves the garden patchy. The options being considered range from **ryegrass mixed with poa and fescue** to hardy kikuyu, via low clover or bellis, which tolerate mowing and avoid monoculture. The warning is clear: if you tire of couch grass, getting rid of it is a nightmare.

The technical consensus is that a fine lawn means either breaking your back or paying someone, or relying on a robotic mower that runs daily. There is no shortcut. The alternative for dry areas is olive trees, laurels, myrtles and pomegranates: **trees and shrubs that withstand drought** and reliably regrow with hardly any care.

The cactus that came back to life and the flower that kept everyone waiting

Plant resurrection stories are this hobby's best argument. A peanut cactus that seemed dead after an exhausting flowering recovered with specific fertiliser and patience in barely a month. The dried flowers were left in case any seed took hold. And a ficus benjamina bought with a net around its base turned out to be an **air layering**: the sacking can be cut without any problem so the roots can spread.

The hobby has its collector's side and its crusading side too. There are those who get indignant seeing mislabelled plants in a shop, those who would torture anyone who glues paper flowers onto cacti, and those who call strangers' homes to ask for cuttings. All of that fits on a single balcony.

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In the end, the question hanging over every season is not what to plant, but how much you are willing to spend on something you cannot eat. The answer, depending on the case, ranges from the **100 euros of the wooden planter table** to a bonsai collection that never pays for itself. Nobody keeps count. That is the fun of it.