Patricia wrenched some of the saplings of M. peregrina completely out of the ground, and I found their sandblasted cadavers tangled in the vegetation a long way away. Moreover, the intense rain from the hurricane washed a lot of the soil from the M. peregina slope away, starting to expose the roots of the already beleaguered plants.
The moringa collection depends on being able to generate scientific results, and these in turn depend on having plenty of plant material available. Unhappy plants don’t grow well and produce the requisite material, so something clearly had to be done. It was a huge relief to have funds from my university that allowed us to build stone retaining walls, effectively terracing (quite attractively, I think) the Arabia section. The deep soil that the terraces provide around the plants is aready resulting in better growth.