The front porch and side verandah seemed the ideal location for this particular endeavour. There are sliding doors off the living room out onto that space, a concrete rectangle that connects to the porch. A container garden it was destined to be, and thats where I started, with the purchase of eight large, dark chocolate, rustic ceramic planters.
Then I went in search of black bamboo, it took a while but I got three large ones which immediately provided this porous vertical element that I wanted and then wanted more of. A storm snapped a large part of my neighbours rambutan tree which required our shared gardener to hack up the large branches with a chain saw. Liking their lines and their lichen mottled color, I dragged the pile destined to be hauled away and started an 'installation' that took a couple of weeks to take shape which was basically a framework for thing to climb up and also for things to grow on, namely epiphytic ferns and orchids.
With that, as the basic premise I have been shopping the nurseries and farmers markets for dark plants, like the mondo grass pictured left which also has a chocolate coleus blurred into the background. I have black Colocasia and a dark leaved Perilla, which I trimmed today along with some of that Coleus and put them in a vase.Its not strictly a dark palette though, theres some lime green splashed coleus and some yellow flowers like the Maidens Jealousy (Tristellata Australasiae) and Ylang Ylang (Cananga Odorata).
I have also been shopping for epiphytes and have discovered this guy at the farmers market that sells wild orchids, like the Bulbophyllum lobbii pictured right which has just begun to bloom. He also occasionally has unusual jungle ferns, gingers and other assorted plants. It is now a ritual to go see what he has every couple of weeks, sometimes returning with the strangest things -more later about these.
'Wild' has also come to mean things I find on walks like the large branches covered with Bulbohyllum Vaginatum that had fallen from a nearby tree. A branch of Congea Tomenosa ( or is it Veluttina ) that had strayed over the palace wall is now established and making its way up to the roof of the porch.
And there you have it, a rough sketch of my 'dark verandah'.
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