If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again, or so the saying goes. In Guiones if at first you plant 1000 trees and they die, try again.

Over the course of three days from May 27-29 over 70 community members turned out to help plant 310 trees along the southern part of Playa Guiones. Although substantially less than the number of trees planted last year, organizers are more confident these ones will survive.

The initiative was a collaborative effort between Harmony Hotel’s Sustainability Coordinator, Gerardo Bolaños Céspedes and Costa Verdes, a reforestation organization with projects across Costa Rica. It was the Nosara Civic Association who initially put up the money last year to involve Costa Verdes, however, since then financially and logistically Bolaños has been the driving force in Guiones, according to Costa Verdes director Daniel Uribe.

Organizers are hoping fewer trees will die this year, “last year the mortality rate was close to 80% of what we planted,” said Bolaños. 

This year they have made some changes though. Two tons of organic worm compost were purchased by Harmony Hotel and delivered by Costa Verdes, in addition Costa Verdes brought young trees to Harmony Hotel’s nursery to let them grow and acclimatize to the soil and microclimate here.

Bolaños said they have learned from their mistakes last year, “the trees last year were too young and we didn’t use compost, the trees this year were put in the ground in worm compost,” which according to Bolaños is the best type of compost for encouraging growth.