plants? in a garden??!!

so after 4 weeks of digging holes, building walls, a deck, steps, and a table my time finally came to step up to the plate. we had professionals on site for a week skim-coating all the cement and cmu block walls and the color team followed along with bright, cheery paint. (what a difference a little color makes!) the beds were nearly ready for plants.
my plant partner and i took a few cab rides to the guatemala city nursery to find all the plants on our plan that they carried and pick substitutes for the ones they did not. not as straight forward as it sounds. all questions had to be translated (by our very able bilingual classmate) and then there were so many variables to consider: plant height, exposure and moisture requirements, color, texture, size at maturity, size available at the nursery, how many plants, toxicity, no stickers or thorns (which many tropical plants have), durability (the plants may not have the easiest of lives) and then whether or not we could get our hands on them in a week or less. dizzying and exhausting to say the least. oh yes and the plants themselves were organized a bit haphazardly at the nursery. you get the picture. somehow, through steely will and incredible fortitude, we ended up with a lovely plant palette that included lava rock and macademia nut hulls and that pleased and "wowed" everyone. oh yes, we were under budget as well! it was really quite delightful if i do say so myself. and i do.