A couples of months ago, I planted a bunch of baby engkala trees (Litsea garciae) on the neighbour's land in order to fight back against the grass. I've never planted engkala before this, but supposedly it works. I planted the trees along the edge between the area that they farm and the area used as cow pasture. There is NO canopy cover over there, no shade at all, but fortunately there were still some dead leaves from the native trees that they had cut down, so I could at least mulch around the babies.

The days immediately after I planted them were unseasonably hot and sunny with no rain at all, and it looks like they got burnt pretty badly in the sun. The neighbours also seem to have stepped on some of them and sprayed that whole border area with glyphosate (so all the other vegetation is dead), but against all odds, every single engkala is alive and putting out new growth. I think that's awesome. Everything is trying to kill them, and these trees just say "FUCK YOU. WE ARE ENGKALA. RESISTANCE IS FRUITILE."

Engkalahu akbar!