Secret Gardeners: Joao’s garden in Brazil

The small town of Santo Antônio do Monte (St Antony of the Hill) in Minas Gerais, Brazil, is named for its hilly landscape. With a small population of circa 40,000, it is quiet (other than the sounds of guineafowl). There are green fields with grazing cows, toucans flying around the trees, and Seriema birds wandering along the streets. 

10 years ago, I bought a plot of land on the hill just next to my parents’ house. For the first seven years we planted trees and kept chickens, while we worked out what to do with the land. Over the last couple of years, we’ve been building a small, one-bedroom bungalow. Despite advice from builders, family, and everyone else, we refused to cut any of the original trees down and instead built our house around the established garden.

Where is your garden located and how long have you looked after it for?

My garden is in Santo Antônio do Monte and started 10 years ago with the planting of two mango trees by my father. One was planted from the seed of a mango he ate at the time and is now a beautiful tree – but only produces about 2-5 mangoes per year. The other is a grafted mango tree from a garden centre. It’s much smaller than the other but produces around 70 mangoes a year! They can weigh anything from 500-950g, and taste absolutely delicious.

Which is your favourite plant?

The mango trees are my favourite. They were planted 3m apart, perfect for hanging a hammock. Sleeping in a hammock is a traditional indigenous Brazilian thing to do – everyone should try it! It’s like being in a swing, but instead of sitting on it you’re lying down. The trees also provide shelter for the birds, and shade on hot summer days.

Tell us about the other plants in your garden

When my father planted the mango trees he also put in a mulberry. When we were constructing the house, the builders wanted to cut it down. My father, who now sadly has dementia, visited the new garden and the first thing he said was “you didn’t cut down the tree!” The mulberry is very special to us as a reminder of that moment years ago when he planted it.

We also have an olive tree, bougainvillea, orange tree, Sicilian lemon, and satsuma tree. In Brazil there is a tendency to pave over land and not grow grass or trees at home, possibly because it is believed to encourage mosquitoes. Every year the temperatures get hotter and hotter, and I truly believe this is because of the lack of trees. For this reason, our garden is very unusual – between our garden and my parents’ next door we have about 20 trees.

On the pavement outside the front of the house are two trees: a pink trumpet tree and a golden trumpet tree, which are both doing well and provide good shelter from the sun. We also have some young Ravenala madagascariensis – The Traveller’s Palm – which are about two years old. They are useful palms because they hold water in their leaves. You can drink from them if you are struggling for it, hence the name.

We also planted a herb garden at the back of the house with lavender, rosemary, basil, and thyme, all herbs commonly used in Brazilian cooking. The bedroom overlooks the garden, and we hope the fragrance of the lavender will waft in through the windows while we sleep. Hummingbirds also love lavender, so we hope to attract lots of them to our garden.

What do you enjoy the most about the space you’ve created?

It’s a very relaxing space. The whole garden was designed for quiet relaxation for the whole family to enjoy. On top of the toolshed, we’ve built a platform so you can lie under the mango tree and look at the stars. There is a small swimming pool and dragonflies dip in and out of the water all day.

We recently salvaged some chairs from a junk shop originally from a buteco (pub) which original lettering on them, and they’re great for sitting on around the garden.

I built a bird table from an old tree trunk to encourage wildlife – we get doves, canaries, parrots, sparrows, common waxbill (bico de lacre), great kiskadee (bem-te-vi), and rufous hornero (João-De-Barro). The waxbills are making a nest in the mango tree.

What is your most used gardening tool, and what do you use it for?

The strimmer – I use this to chop the grass down. We had some open earth at the back of the house, so we recently planted grass seed to cover it up. We had grass appearing within three days! The red soil in Brazil is incredibly fertile and nutrient-rich and gets its colour from the high levels of iron oxide. Hopefully next time we return to Brazil the grass will have covered the ground completely and it will be time for a chop.

What’s next for the garden?

I want to add a few Bay tree pots, and possibly another citrus tree to encourage more bees and pollinators. There is a Bougainvillea potted up at the front of the house which I’m trying to train to grow up the front of the house on the pergola, inspired by Greek houses.