Trinidad garden

A tropical garden in Sangre Grande, Trinidad & Tobago

I have always loved tropical and sub-tropical plants and gardens. It may be a bit of a cliche but growing up in south Devon can have that effect. This however is a proper tropical garden – in Sangre Grande, Trinidad. I took a bit of a liking to the chillis; you can get an idea of how daft I am in the photo where I am touching a ‘cherry’ chilli with bare hands, which like the silver-plated idiot I can be at times I picked and eat. Big mistake. I like chilli, but not this hot – and fresh!

Incidentally, I got my partner Rena to pose in the garden – an early experiment with bokeh! Not a good pose (my fault, not hers) but it came out pretty well I thought. I am also in one of the photos, and for those of you into good music you will see I am wearing my Thermonuclear Sweat t-shirt – a reference to what was then – and remains today – one of my favourite records – by Defunkt. Boy do I wish I still had the shirt today.

I am pretty sure that the stunning tall red flower is commonly known as Indian Shot and the blousy pink hydrangea-like shrub is Ashanti Blood, but I am by no means certain. I think the chilli might be Suriname Cherry, which I gather is common in Surinam, French Guinea and Rena’s home country Guyana. In taste it is quite close to the unique-tasting Scotch Bonnet which, in my view, is an essential ingredient of a good West Indian curry.

Photographs taken in June 1988 on 35mm film and scanned using Silverfast on Epson V850 scanner; reproduced here at reduced size and resolution – contact me for full images.

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