The magic house

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    La casa mágica

    Journalistic curiosity has wanted to take me to the privileged place that is the house of Guille (José Guillermo González) and Mery (María Antonieta Espinosa Suárez), built almost a century ago.

    The building was new in those days, but it did not have the charms of today, because the chirping of the birds was not heard, the zunzún did not arrive every afternoon at the same time; and there were not more than 400 varieties of flowers that surround the magic house.

    LIFE AND DREAMS

    Many years ago, Guille and Mery dreamed of creating a kind of unique world: “a garden where we could recreate ourselves, and that would reconcile me with that past, when I gave flowers to my girlfriend, the same woman that I have by my side since 51 years ago.

    “I planted my first plant, a sugar apple's tree. Later I grew others without having knowledge of botany, only with the experience that dedication gave me. Today, there are, among the great diversity of plants, 160 varieties of orchids, from the Paphiopedilum, also called Zapatilla de Damas or Sandalia de Venus, the belonging ones to the cattleya family, National Flower of Venezuela; to the so-called Bella Lorena, a hybrid obtained by a Cuban scientist, from the cross between two species of orchids, Spathoglottis Plicatta and Spathoglottis Kimballiana.

    “I have learned that the orchid family is the one with the largest number of species in the plant kingdom, because it is estimated that in the world there must be some 35,000 species, belonging to about 750 genera, in addition to the hybrids that are registered every year in the literature.

    "Most of them proliferate in tropical and subtropical climates: New Guinea, Colombia, Brazil, islands of Borneo and Java, Cuba ... But their distribution is very wide throughout the world, except for the extremely dry deserts, the poles and the areas of very high mountains ”.

    They maintain the ornamental plant yard with daily hard work as fertilizer, the first one of its kind in the country to be declared of Excellence by the National Group of Urban and Suburban Agriculture, a category that rose in the last round to Triple Excellence, maximum distinction awarded by that Group.

    Guille, the entrepreneur, is always ready to walk long paths in search of new species of flowers that he does not have in his yard. He has come to Tope de Collantes, Havana or Pinar del Río to found a flower that, if he cannot bring it, he exchanges it, "but almost always I return with something new," he says.

    “Here we are also visited by many children who belong to the circles of interest linked to the care of nature and I explain to them about the urgency of taking care of each plant, because it is like taking care of the life of planet Earth, very mistreated in recent years. They say that the yard is a miniature botanical garden ”.

    Time passes between stories and anecdotes: “I still remember that poinsettia that I cut out when it was not time. Death was the prize for daring. Since then I study botany and read how much material I can get about plants and, especially, flowers. I improve myself because I realize that the secret of doing it well is not only in the invested years in each new crusade, nor in dedication, but in knowledge ”.

    THE PRESERVED HERITAGE

    Guille has never stopped repeating that all his flowers are beautiful. Only when people insisted on him, he speak of the so-called Bird of Paradise or Estrelitzia Reginae, also known as Bird Flower, Fire Birds, Crane Flower, or Little Bird Flower: “it is the most captivating of all”.

    Those who cross the threshold of their home, receive the ecological air, mixed with the perfume of flowers, one of the reasons for which it obtained the recognition for its contribution to the conservation of biodiversity, according to a diploma awarded by the Ministry of Sciences , Technology and Environment.

    Besides, it stands out the excellent condition in which one of the oldest houses in the batey is maintained, and for that reason, the National Council of Cultural heritage awarded the couple a recognition by virtue of the importance of the conservation of the structure of wood associated with the industrial sugar heritage in 2007.

    Guille gives priority to everything that happens in this kind of microworld, an office assistant, bank worker, cane cutter, literacy educator, militiaman during the October crisis; a nomadic and multifaceted men, convinced that nothing seduces as much as flowers.