No Longer an Occasional Gardener

 

Part of the reason I've been struggling to update this blog is because I'm simply not an Occasional Gardener anymore. I've become not only a full time one but in fact a career gardener doing large scale gardens, parks, private gardens and restaurants. I'm also involved in edible flower farming, and nature based content and programming. 

Just as I started here on this blog documenting and making sense of all my gardening activities whilst also learning the skills required to maintain this digital plot, I feel its now time to do the same in a new digital garden where I will be documenting my pursuits at a different scale. The image above illustrates it somewhat - now my work involves clients, teams of workers, major earthwork and sometimes hundreds and thousands of plants.

Thank you so much to all the readers and friends I've made writing this blog, hopefully you will join me over at IndieFlora.

Yellow Highlights

This will be the second time I have had to apologize for a long silence. Just like the first time, when I took almost a year off working on planting my then recently acquired home garden, this current pause is also due to major gardening activites, this time a huge landscape project I had the opportunity to work on which I will describe later.

But first let me get back in the saddle talking about my own garden which when left too long undocumented goes through so many changes that its hard to know where to start. Here on the Dark Verandah, a significant event was the collapsing of the bamboo fence. After a huge storm, I woke up to the entire fence blown over. Closer inspection revealed much of the base had been compromised by a combination of rot and termite damage.

There was no fixing this, but I also realized that the border the fence wrapped around had become quite mature and substantially tall enough to screen the verandah area from street view. There were gaps which triggered some moving around of some Rhapis palms and the addition of some bamboo and things went back to an equilibrium of screening function and lush aesthetics.

What has remained sticks to the original idea of this being largely a non floral foliage border - here's the inspirational seed sown years ago when I visited the Green Border at Wave Hill. Then a visit to a garden show in Singapore suggested a tropical version of my favorite combination of green and chocolate. And thats where we are still today - a mainly foliage border which runs the gamut from chocolate to greens.

Somewhere in that mix is an increasing note of yellow highlights. The primary reason for that is random purchases of variegated yellow foliage plants have matured, increased their visual presence and I've liked the effect enough to keep adding more. The fondness for them derives I think by its imitation of 'dappled' light.

A few different varieties of yellow variegated crotons or more correctly named Codiaeum variegatum occasionally show up at the farmers market making available quite different forms from large shrubs to small plants with lacy foliage.

The variegated Fragrea Ceilanica in the foreground of the RHS image has been hovering in a small pot until I properly identified it. Unusually, I had its name from the nursery but I was concerned it might be a large tree so hesitated about planting it into the border. Now that I've seen it used in landscaping mainly appearing as a large shrub, it is now in a large pot, its curving branches and bright variegated colouring in a featured postion.

Hoya in Bloom

Just as I am about to do some serious fixing up on the dark verandah, I have this glorious starburst of Hoya flowers. I had just returned home with some shade fabric for this project, put it down and glanced up to see these backlit wax flowers almost as if they are sugar coated.

A huge windstorm blew down the bamboo arbour which shaded this area. The bamboo was already on its last legs, some decayed and cracked which meant the whole thing needed to be replaced. This of course stalled forever mainly because the hardware store I get the bamboo from is not so convenient to get to and procrastination because it requires substantial effort.

On a recent trip to a nursery, I saw that they had bamboo which they used themselves for supporting plants and were willing to sell me some. It's a more suitable type than the ones I've been using which I buy wrapped in plastic intended for use as drying poles for laundry. This type is from China, treated for use specifically in agricultural situations and requires a prohibitively large minimum purchase.  I was with a friend of the nursery owner which secured the deal. I have gone a step further and varnished the poles - lets see how much longer they last this time.

After the storm, I had to move all the hanging plants I had over to one side where there was still a little shade, and even there, there is substantially more light than they were exposed to previously. I lost a couple of the ferns and perhaps an orchid or two. I'm not sure if it is the increased  light or the bunching of plants that has triggered this Hoya to flower, but I will now of course have to see what I can do to maintain these favourable conditions.

The arrival of flowers has also enabled a hunt of discovery for species kdentification, like most plants I buy this was unmarked or named. The leaves are sizeable with some flecksm so its quite likely that is it is  Hoya sp. Ban Ngong Ngoy a species from Thailand that has carnosa like leaves and pubicalyx like blooms. I have had this plant for about 4 years now which has remained mysterious, hardly changing in size. I've just been happy that it has continued to be alive

The foliage to the the left and right are Lycopodiums which deserve a post of their own at a later date.

Cracking Tropical Garden Design

The recent Singapore Garden Festival was really terrific. Every year its goals of engaging community and showcasing creativity around the subject of plants and gardening are resoundingly achieved in an ever increasing space- it was double the size of an earlier manifestation. This year might have been a vintage one with many ideas to take home and mull over, and some local pride in having the best in show category taken by fellow Malaysian Inch Lim. 

But this post is about the most inspirational one for me - the landscape garden titled Silence that took the silver medal and designed by last year's best in show winners Andrew Wilson and Gavin McWilliam.

It was an ambitious design, a concrete spiral that you climbed up into a walled circular space with a serene urban vibe, sophisticated in its use of colour: concrete, black marble, black and green foliage with some shots of orange .

I also like that it was clearly tropical but had a modern spare feel - not the dense lushness you usually associate with tropical gardens. There was also a sense of urban space but casual and relaxed.

The high concrete walls also echoed the realities of living in a tropical city - concrete is a familiar sight and an increasing need to secure privacy in an increasingly crowded space. The design solution offered a a tasteful modern approach with its palette and materials but the real genius was its inclusion of some cracks in the concrete that were then artfully planted.

I thought this genius because it introduced an idea of wildness in a light and subtle way. Here in the tropics, urban wildness is usually overwhelming as things get overgrown in an instant. The nature you see in the cracks of building and pavements explodes rapidly into sinewy ariel roots and weeds a few foot tall.

Here instead low ground hugging plants like Elephantopus Scaber, a woodlant plant I'm more likely to find on a forest floor on a hike create interesting textures with creeping sedums and tufted grasses. Often on my walks I notice patches of  these many low growing plants that I will now make a more concerted study of because this has now inspired me to do something about the real cracks that I have in the concrete patio of the Gravel Garden.

Thats what these shows are about beautiful intriguing designs that also suggest ways to deal with a problem. I've been staring at these cracks for the best of the last five years wondering if I want to go to the expense of repairing them or does the regular weeding/cutting maintenance suffice. I've also been strategically moving pots over the worst parts. Now something different is about to happen here- I will keep you posted.

Dots of Red

The Gravel Garden is where I nurtured this idea, based on observation of some plants that do extremely well here - Sanseverias, Rhoeo discolor, which looked to me like broad abstract brush strokes. By the time it found realization in my own garden, it took on more of a dusty white palette. That started when I found the, dusty grey green sanseveria, the white edged agave and white euophorbia Lactea pictured here and things seemed to be telling a story in that direction. Orange was the only color that seemed to really want to belong here as well as these dots of red color.

Since form was important here, its seemed only right that even color should have a more precise one. The potted Acerola or Barbados Cherry Malpighia Emarginata  tree was what suggested that. It was orginally in the Tropical Potager, since its more a food type plant, but the red cherries seem to want to belong here. So it got dragged here where it has remained and thrived. It has done astonishingly well as a small potted tree and has had only one upgrade in the last four years to a larger pot. It deals with watering neglect like a champ and bounces right back after a hard prune.

I was originally attracted to it at the nursery by its whitish branches and pink flowers. I couldn't help thinking its dainty leaves and flowers were the opposite of lush large tropical ones we more commonly see here, giving it a personality set apart. Then it set fruit, which it does quite regularly, sour with a large stone - not quite a match with its lush red looks. It does however pack a gigantic serving of vitamin C - a whole day's worth in one single fruit.  So some get squeezed into glasses of cold water or I use it in salad dressing or even in cooking if I want a sour element.

I kept the logic of small leaves and little red fruits going with Limeberry Triphasia Trifolia - see top margin of RHS photo. Also in a pot but not quite the same happy camper as the Acerola - it often yellows and drops leaves when not watered adequately or requires manuring. It does have a lovely arching habit though. The real star of that photo however is the small red flowered Euphorbia Geroldii related to Euphorbia Millii which I also have.

Although both the Limeberry and Acerola quite regularly provide these little red dots of color, the Euphorbia Geroldii, a new addition to the garden - is almost always in flower. Underplanted with a lime green sedum, it really has become an eye catcher. On top of that its thornless. Pretty as the Euphorbia Millii is, you can't help but notice its huge thorns and I have to admit I haven't quite got the hang of its watering/potting needs as I've lost a few already. This guy however has been going strong and I've started some cuttings of it too.

Dark Cordylines

Over in the Tropical Potager I have started to use cordylines as flowerless colour accents and here in the Dark Verandah, they are similarly an important resource for dark chocolate tones that come in a variety of shapes and textures.

Pictured right is Cordyline Fruticosa 'Earthquake' purchased unlabeled at a nursery but relatively easy to identify because of its unusual twisted foliage. It has never looked this good in its previous two locations where it sulked and had most of its leaves eaten. Here in a much sunnier position its starting to come into its own, its dark sculptural shape standing out against its neighbours.

On the left, most probably Cordyline Fruticosa 'Compacta', identifiable by its much smaller compact leaves is a freebie from a nearby abandoned house where a huge shrub is spilling over onto the sidewalk. Cordylines have a wonderful ability to be easily propagated by simply cutting a branch and sticking it into the ground. Without the slightest complaint, it takes it from there and before very long is rooted and part of the colony. It can flop when it get taller, so Ive been cutting and re starting them to get a clump thats full but shorter. Quite often they end up in a vase in the house as they are almost like chocolate flowers with the lower leaves trimmed off.

Not so easy to propagate is my Cordyline Fruticosa Black Magic -see how dark it is here when I first got it. Now it is quite magnificent, almost like a small palm in the center of this picture. It hasn't sent up any other branches to propagate though, so it's charms remain solo. Thankfully it doesn't seem to need much, and remains healthy in a relatively small pot.

Despite the extraordinary choice of shape and color available with this plant genus that I've drooled over on the International Cordyline Society's website, the recurring problem here is availability. Nurseries generally stock popular varieties - typically the green and pink ones. Flower shows in Singapore tend to be a good source for more unusual choices, I need to be on the lookout at the next one for more of this superb choice for the tropical garden.

Wild Indigo

Me and Indigo go way back. Check out the trail of posts that started with one about False Indigo. Today another chapter opens with Wild Indigo, Baptisia Tinctoria which I encountered for the first time, quite appropriately, growing wild.

We don't really see a lot of wildflowers here mainly because of the enormous rate of growth that happens. A patch of disturbed land might first have some grasses and wild flowers but then quite quickly yield shrubs and trees rapidly wiping out whatever preceded it. So wildflowers have oddly become the preserve of built  up urban wasteland, in particular abandoned properties especially if they have been torn down and there is rubble. Rubble ensures the poor thin soils that allow them to grow but not anything else more deep rooted.

Here in these urban sandy, stony pockets I have come across the usual suspects: Ironweed, Cyanthillium Cinereum, Celosia Argentea and this yellow flowered Wild Indigo - image on the left. The fact that it looked somewhat like my old friend, except with yellow flowers, made it easy to identify and I would occasionally stop to grab some seedpods to plant at home. I never got round to planting them but one day on a walk in the neighbourhood, I saw a few of them on a patch of abandoned land. I pulled a couple up by the roots and planted them straight into the garden when I got home. The image on the right is those plants, substantially taller than most of the specimens I've seen growing wild.

It apparently yields an indigo dye although inferior to other plants which makes me wonder what this North American native is doing here if not planted before for that purpose, most likely a garden escapee. I did see it once in a friends garden and asked some time later if she had seeds for it but she said the plant had disappeared. Perhaps thats what's in store for these guys in terms of longevity, but at least I know that there is abundant supply of it around the city.

Native Greens

It's an unusually cool morning here, dipping below 80 degrees F.  After a light drizzle, I head out into the garden with my camera to see whats going on. The Dark Verandah is always a good spot after rain which seems to enhance its lush cool vibe, perhaps because of the much higher percentage of foliage. Thats where I found these recent additions as the subject for today's post about two green foliage plants.

On the left Hemigraphis Repanda is what it says on the invoice. Let me say first of all that to even have that information is notable. I bought the plant at a nursey in Yong Peng about an hours drive away but so worth it for that very reason - they name their plants on the invoice and they also have a couple of people there that are really knowledgeable.

I actually bought a similarly named Hemigraphis Repanda from them a while ago which compares exactly to the images you would find if you google the name to find a distinguishing trait of purple coloring to the underside of the leaves. The leaves of this plant are minus that, completely green and smaller and much finer. It must be some variation of it.

The plant I purchased earlier has since died, quite probably because this area was much less shaded than it is now. This plant on the other hand is thriving. Its doing well enough for me to have divided it into 2 other pots and even give a small pot of it away as a gift. Its dense bushy, grassy features looks superb tumbling over the edge of a pot.

On the right is Osmoxylon Lineare. Unlike the Hemigraphis above which is rare to find, this plant from the Aralia family is a very common planting especially in public spaces. It's new to this verandah area but not new to the garden as I had it over in the Tropical Potager when I first got it quite a few months ago. Its in a pot and seems to get quite easily stressed when dry, so the spot I had it in which is sunny and more likely to be subject to neglect from lack of watering wasn't a good fit. Here, it enjoys the cooler shade and being right near my front door, I can immediately spot it's drooping leaves if  we've had a dry spell.

Both plants are native to Malaysia which is one of the themes here on the verandah and the challenge of maintaining that theme is pretty much described above: hard to identify plants to establish that they are native or they are so commonplace that I wonder if I really want to have them here. The latter issue arises because of the huge of amounts of public planting, particularly on newly minted property development that just slaps down the same old plants everywhere. The lady palm, Rhapis excelsa, is another plant with this problem which I also have here but in context, they both add to a story of variety in shape and shades of foliage that I'm trying to achieve.

Balancing Red

Shortly after seeing my evergreen wreath in the sidebar on the right hand side of this blog, I had an urge to 'balance' it with something red and immediately started looking for some relevant images. Why I wonder? Years of cultural conditioning during the christmas season of balancing out evergreen pines with red holly berries or red bows? Why red with green in the first place?

In the medieval roots of winter solstice celebrations red and green were commonly associated with dichotomies - from old to new, the pairs of fire and water, male and female. So there is a history of this combination. Situated at opposite sides of the color wheel, the combination is often considered jarring as a design choice but at Christmas perhaps when the bleakness of a monochromatic landscape craves something more vibrant, this combination has endured and remained popular.

I've never previously been a great fan of red in the garden except when the reds are dark or unusual or combined with something else in a striking way, but not here in the tropics. Here I've been craving more reds. Is it because of the huge amount of green foliage that dominates, so no matter how many red flowered plants you have, they are but tiny splashes on this green canvas? Is it because of the blinding sun that washes colors out making more subtle color combinations that I used to prefer downright dull? Probably both.

In the photos, the red Passiflora Coccinea is a delight regularly producing red stars of color overhead on the arbour. In the mornings, I often see sunbirds swinging on their trailing vines, while sippping on nectar from the flowers. The Costus Woodsonii sends out  3 foot spikes with red cigar shaped flowers smouldering at the end. Its a terrifically common plant here though used exhaustively in public planting schemes probably because of its dependability and low maintenance requirements.

There are a few more red items I'll update on, including some Ixoras that aren't sizeable enough to make much impact but the search continues for more red, my pinterest wish list is piling up with red flower desires and I scan the markets and nurseries for not just red floweres but foliage too. 

Garden Disasters

I've had a few but these two were spectacular. A neighbour's tree fell over the fence and crashed into my arbour in the Potager. That was the first one. It required three of us to deal with and dispose of the tree, Then we had to ensure the passionflower sprawled over the arbor was intact enough to  raise up again. My friend who had a truck and  who was my source for transporting bamboo supplies from the hardware store no longer had a working truck, so my wheels spun while I tracked down a store that would deliver. A busy schedule delayed this even longer and then it became avoidance - I didn't want to to even look back there let alone start the huge effort of fixing it.

Eventually, months later, it got fixed although a section of one of the borders died off from being smothered. Now that the arbor is back up, I'm back out there again on a regular basis which has spurred yet more activity as I notice things and start moving things around. So in a way the destruction has triggered a new phase of regeneration.

Not quite the same outcome on the other side of the house where I had the bright idea to move my large water pot a few inches. And it moved much more easily than I thought it would, so I decided to move it a little more, which is when the hairline crack, the one that made it such a bargain in the first place, cracked until I was left holding a piece in my hand while the content of the pot flooded onto my sneakers. Oh wow there's a small family of frogs living in there.

Not much you can do with a broken pot, so I have it in the border with its broken part turned to face the fence. Now to find a solution on how to fill a broken container with no drainage but is missing half its back and can't really contain water.

And then there was the attempted break in this past weekend where the perpetrators used all kinds of things from the garden, like fence panels and mosquito screens to ward of my dogs and somehow barricade them on one side of the house while they tried unsuccessfully to enter on the other side. Not technically a disaster in the garden, but I now have to rethink everything about whats safe to leave outside while I'm not there. Garden tools, spades etc now have to be locked away.

To ease the pain, the weather has very kindly been raining almost every day so the garden looks healthy and after all the turbulence of carpentry and painting and moving and shifting we are back to cruising speed.

Flowerless Color

In this front section of a border in the tropical potager, I've tried getting color accents with a few different kinds of flowering plants: Portulacas, Marigolds and Zinnias but with little success. My lassez faire gardening style just isn't up to their watering or feeding needs apparently and I continue to lose them time and time again. So, in its current permutation I'm trying a flower free color palette.

What has been a constant is the base combination of a lacy, mainly yellow (with green and pink) Coleus mixed with a pink and bronze Alternanthera ficoidea. They have woven together into a warm colored carpet of sorts and have indicated that they are content to be here.

I bought both the Aglaonema and the pink edge Cordyline from the plant section in the supermarket, not usually the most inspiring of places but both had this interesting color combination of pinks and greens. They both ended up filling in some spaces in other parts of the garden until I had this idea that they should instead play more leading roles here. The effect is more subtle than flowers but there's an interesting enough play on the colors being from a similar palette and a contrast of foliage forms.

The Cordyline in particular is a plant I need to look a little deeper into. Its reliability as a native of this region is a prime asset but the range of colors and leaf forms are yet another. The drawback is that there is not a lot of choice at the nurseries and supermarkets so I'll have to look a little further afield.

The Aglaonema, I'll confess says office plant to me - you see them everywhere in corporate lobbies and I presume for similar reasons, easy maintenance and they offer some color variations.  Lets see if they do well enough here to get me a little more excited about them.

Right at the middle bottom of the picture is Rivina humilis, which has only just started to provide the true reason its chosen to be there - its red berries. Currently its delicate foliage and floppy habit with small white flowers provides some delicate contrast but I wait for it to get a little more established and for it berries to provide some sharp color here.

On the right Persicaria capitata has been somewhat of a thug, in fact it owned  pretty much all of this space at one time before I started hacking away at it to make room for other plants. It does however have some redeeming features: interesting marking on the leaves, the stem color has a reddish tone but best of all, when it gets a little stressed or aged it takes on burnt autumnal hues -which is when I like to cut it back, using the foliage indoors in a vase.

It does however need regular controlling as it imposes itself well beyond the space its been alloted. It has some medicinal qualities and is edible so I do occasionally add a few leaves into a salad - it has a sharp sour taste and is a little fibrous so needs slicing up.

One last color element - green moss. For some reason the brick here is thick with moss which adds yet another color value between the yellows and greens that really works. And when it all really 'works' is in the morning when the sun is behind, backlighting this section.

Thriving in Adversity

Its the dry season here and on cue the drained peatlands of Indonesia have become tinderboxes culminating in the annual event of Haze that chokes this region. The first time I experienced this was shocking, to actually 'suffer' an oppressive climatic issue that you have no control over. This time, while it is still ongoing, it has not been quite as severe although much time has been spent indoors with windows and doors shut. One reason might be that we have continued to have some rain on and off to soften the blow.

Despite this, plants in the Gravel Garden continue to thrive. Just today I took this image of the Sanseveria Cylindrica's impressive flower stalk. The Natal Plum, Carissa Macrocarpa to the far right, continues to get bushier, spilling over the wall with flowers at the end of its trail. Further along the border, the variegated Agave Americana has sent up a huge flower spike through the variegated Pandanus Tectorius which is perhaps not so good news as it does indicate the approach of its own demise. On the other hand, not a bad thing perhaps as the Pandanus has begun to oppress it  by putting it in substantial shadow. Top right, the white edged Agave Angustifolia Marginata keeps on keeping on, I've harvested two suckers from it, so now it is three. In the middle of the picture, in case you're wondering, there is a bleached driftwood next to the gray thorny trunk of a lime tree.

None of theses plants are native to this region, apart from the Pandanus, but are doing extraordinarily well here in this garden with little to no fuss. I don't have to worry unless it doesn't rain for more than a week. Its unusual if it doesn't rain after four or five days here - but there have been instances where its been dry for over a week and last year there was an unusual drought that lasted almost 2 months. This is actually very, very different from the climate I experienced as a child living here where, the normal occurrence would be for the equatorial convectional heat to reliably produce a short shower almost every day with the occasional day without rain.

I attended an interesting symposium in Singapore about Biophilia the other day where there was a conversation about natives and it was remarked how much better non natives performed in the much drier climate that we are experiencing. Not forgetting also that urban environments in the tropics are also quite different in the amount of raw exposure we have to overhead sun as well as heat energy bouncing off  acres of concrete. Its a reality to take into account when climate change, adverse climate events and the built environment create radically different circumstances for you when you are tending a garden. In contrast- the Dark Verandah on the other side of the house with its largely native plants continues to require a lot of fussing, and daily watering.

Many of these dry loving plants though have had a long history here, usually inhabiting pots on the porch most probably because of their tolerance for neglect. Some like the Carissa have been adopted by the Chinese community as symbolic 'money plants' their evergreen resilient waxy leaves manifesting 'ong' which loosely translates to 'luck'. Agaves are often found in gardens decorated with eggshells on the end of its points. Its probably just a decorative thing although from a Feng Shui perspectives these eggshells serve to blunt the pointy 'poison arrow' effects. My Gravel Garden however looks different to local friends and visitors, even though many of the plants are known to them, because I've curated them in this stony dry landscape more reminiscent of California gardens than the lush tropical aesthetics they are used to.

Thriving in adversity may well become the future expectancy of our garden plants with the onset of more climatic and urban change. The 'foreign ness' of non natives may be less significant than their ability to adapt into local cultures and environments. This was an interesting point that the academics at the symposium were riffing on - as we inevitably create new urban landscapes, that have merit for being more densely efficient, we need to develop new strategies to not only cope but to innovate and create new regenerative landscapes that thrive.

Scent of Orchids

I occasionally sit out here in the mornings with a cup of coffee. This chair is just round the corner from my front door. Early in the morning with the sounds of birds and sometimes even a light mist, its quite magical. A little later and the sun will have already have taken on a force only known here in the equatorial tropics, but this spot remains an oasis throughout the day.

The nearest durian tree has already sent a branch overhead, then a bamboo fence and lush border wraps the entire area. Overhead I've fashioned a bamboo arbour from which I hang branches covered in epiphytic ferns and orchids. I've also started lifting the pots onto a  base of cinderblocks - I want whatever's at the bottom growing upwards to start weaving into whatever's on top growing downwards. The sum effect is that of a thick but loosely woven botanic shawl that creates shade and even seems to chill the air a degree or two on this dark verandah- something you can feel the minute you step into it.

A few mornings ago, besides the cool dappled shade there was something else, a fragrance, powerful like something in a bottle. A quick search yielded a broken raceme of the Aerides Odorata pictured left. Broken, perhaps because I had picked it up off the floor recently - it happens, the wood rots and when I move things round, tragedies happen - and moved it to another spot. Perhaps, a spot it likes a lot more hence persuading it to flower.

A flowering orchid is no mean feat here as I continue to fine tune this area to create more of a microclimate that can withstand my often neglectful care of these delicate creatures, not to mention a knowledge gap of orchid needs. I have just about turned a corner on keeping them mainly alive, some are starting to look quite healthy and now this, the holy grail, flowering. Often I buy them in flower and once done, never see it again. This particular orchid was a gift, which was not flowering at the time of receipt so this is a particularly momentous event.

Its name, Aerides Odorata is one of precise botanical accuracy describing both its 'airy' epihytic nature and its odorous personality. Its found widely through south east asia, the flowers are waxy and almost translucent looking.  Often with wild orchids, you have to go up close to catch the delicate fragrance but the scent of this orchid is really quite something. Scent of course is already somewhat unusual as most orchids in gardens here are varieties appreciated more their colorful appearance and devoid of scent.

Oddly enough when I first moved in here, there were a lot of things in boxes in the store room since the sixties or seventies and one of those boxes was full of a soap that was popular here with an 'orchid' scent and a picture of an orchid on its wrapper. Too perfumey for me so I gave them away - but that heavy floral scent, is what this orchid does smell like.

With all the tragedies I've had with orchids, I've had somewhat of a moratorium on their purchase since they are somewhat more expensive but I might have to lift that going forward with this little breakthrough. I'm drawn to wild orchids because of all the fascinating variations of  their leaf and root forms and sometimes the added possibility of the flowers being in that palette I love- greens and dark colors but this scent thing has added yet another intriguing dimension.

Guernsey Garden

I've been remiss in not writing about the first garden that I helped design for someone other than myself and that's my aunt's garden in Guernsey. She had an offer from a neighbour to take a little off the side of her garden in return for more space at the back. In the photo the side is the wall straight ahead, and to the left the arch of roses leads to the additional rear space.

I had been to her quaint stone cottage, a step back in time on an ancient village lane, a couple of times before but the job of redesigning the space was done remotely while I was home in London. It was actually a tricky thing as the back area was sloped and the entire space was asymmetrical. Measurements were exchanged over the phone and my pencil sketch faxed over.

The solution I came up with was to put the main part into a circular quadrant which you entered from the side of the house and the back part was stepped into a higher level with a somewhat secret seating area. Tucked round the hedge on the right side is the kitchen door, where you get the full effect of the view - circular raised bed and a glimpse of what is beyond the rose arch.

Apart from a few suggestions that were more architectural like planting Ceanothus on the side wall the planting scheme was decided on by my aunt and another gardener friend with a general guideline that it should be 'cottagey'. Sadly I've never seen the finished result in person having moved to the US shortly after, but a couple of years ago she sent me some photos of the now fully mature garden and I have to say it looks pretty good. I did envision something a little taller in the raised bed at the entrance so it would be more of a surprise when you stepped into the space, but I can also see how a clearer view might also be more inviting.

Coincidentally the other garden I've been commissioned to design, the one in Mamaroneck is similarly a raised bed cottage type stone wall design. Although these cottage gardens feel like a hazy memory here in the sunny tropics, thanks to facebook, every time my cousin visits Guernsey and posts photos I'm right back there - like this one on the left of tulips in spring. 

Shady Meadow

The only kind of gardening that goes on in the orchard is a mowing about once a month, sometimes stretching to six weeks if the weather is dry and slows the growth down. I've experimented with leaving parts of it wild but I get concerned that my dogs who do like to go down there on occasion, might end up with ticks which they are miraculously free from now without any chemical help.  Touchwood. So it is allowed to get a little bit wild but not too much and thats what it was like today when I went down there to take some photos.

I was surprised to see last week when I went down there, quite a lot Chinese Violet, Asystasia gangetica. Not a huge surprise as its a pretty invasive weed  here - just that it looked more meadow like with its pretty flowers mixed in with  the lanky Alternatha Sessilis pictured here. Both are actually edible so I picked a nice bunch of the Asystasia which ended up in a frittata. There's an interesting video recipe for a dish combining alternatha sessilis leaves with lentils that I must try out.

There are a few different grasses down here, Kyllinga nemoralis, which is a big problem wherever I have lawn because it grows so quickly. Here it's polka dot white flowers look quite pretty and its an interesting plant in its own right with some interesting medicinal qualities, its leaves having antimicrobial properties.

There's also Nut Grass or Java Grass or Cyperus rotundus, whose roots are supposed to have protected cavemen's teeth from decay. Otherwise not a particularly interesting looking plant. There are a couple of patches of fountain grass which I will not see unless my gardener has machine issues and delays his visit for a couple more weeks, taking it up to a couple of months between mowing. Bamboo grass Pogonatherum crinitum keeps a low profile here whereas I see it becoming quite tall in places that have been left to grow wild.

This shady meadow has changed somewhat since I first got here. There were quite few garden escapees down here- Caladiums, Cococasias and quite a bit of Syngonium Podophyllum. I've moved them all into other parts of the garden. There was a medium sized weed tree, Clausena excavata, that got blown over in a storm that has since been removed as have quite a few rocks and pieces of concrete. This has changed sun exposure and competition and for the better - there's definitely a softer, meadow like feel and what seems like slightly different patches of diversity.

Blooming Stress

"Your cactus is flowering, it must be under stress" a friend said. I looked up at the tall blue green column and holy moly there were about 20 buds on it. There were a couple of buds on the other column last week but I was dissapointed not to have seen it become a flower. Maybe it blooms at night, it suddenly registered, and there it was a huge white bloom when I rushed outside to check.

Do cacti flower under stress? Its certainly a stressful situation, hot dry sunny slope and the plant has become huge and quite crowded, I recently cut out a few of the less attractive parts. The other plant pictured, not a cactus, but Euphorbia Antiquorum quite certainly blooms under stress. It is so prolific that I've sliced huge 4 foot chunks and potted them in tiny pots - just because that's all I had at the time and a few weeks later its covered in bloom.

As a creative, the idea of stress having a positive outcome is of course statistically proven, countless projects and endeavours have 'bloomed' after a harsh gestation. The phrase 'the harshest soils often yield the best wines' not sure where I read that has always struck home. So I went searching the internet and Plants, compared to animals, insects, and humans, have to be a lot more sophisticated with their response to stress since they are stuck wherever they grow and cannot run from whatever stress they encounter," from here was a sobering perspective. Indeed stress is a trigger for all kinds of complex responses and certainly a cue for flowering.

Although there may be  some nutrient depletion going on here, its hard to equate the word stress with these two plants as they have largely been doing the opposite which is thriving. The cactus started out as a gift from one of the part time hands that first helped with the digging and preparation of the garden. Once he saw the few plants I had selected to put into that location - aloes, agaves, euphorbias, he arrived the next time with a 2 foot length of this blue cactus. Four years later it has multiplied ten fold with a couple of the columns reaching about 5 foot tall, which on higher ground towers above as you walk by. Which was why I didn't even notice the buds until friend pointed them out.

The euphorbia was about 3 foot tall in a pot and here on the property when I took it over. It is now four ungainly monsters over 6 foot tall that require regular propping and trimming or they would fall over. There's smaller ones in pots and I've just planted an army of them along a wall in the orchard to help keep out trespassers during durian season. Once identified, it was interesting to discover its a regional species also know as Malayan Spurge hence its ubiquity in most gardens in this city.

The cactus, I've yet to properly identify although the white, night flowering clue has helped narrow it down to perhaps Cereus Validus or Cereus peruvianus. In either case I can expect a fruit to follow, hence their other name apple cactus. Curiously the subject of fruit is when I first heard of stress and plants. On a visit to an organic fruit farm, I was told that plants are scarred or pruned, to trigger a fruiting response.

Room to Grow

The arbor in the tropical potager is now fully covered with the Passiflora Coccinea. What a great job its doing of that. Very nice even cover over the bamboo trellis  trailing over the edge with a string of red flowers. I was recently offered a rattan coffee table that made me rethink things and bring the table over from the verandah, which I don't know why I didn't do earlier, its slatted and matches the slatted bench I already have here. Then I found a bamboo gate that concertinas, allowing me to gate off entry into this area, see left pic, from my dogs who love to dig in the beds here. Add a couple of solar laterns from Ikea and I have a garden room with a roof, a gate, lighting and a table to entertain or have a cup of coffee at in the mornings.

So I've entered a new phase in this part of the garden, spending more time here, enjoying the sunbirds swinging on the Passiflora and surprised by the amount of butterflies, lizards and squirrels it attracts. With this time spent,  I've also started to notice all the problems and empty spots which means when I'm at the farmers market, I'm more likely to think about buying plants to fill those spots.

I've wanted this garden to be more flowery and a more colorful but have had a terrible time making that happen. One issue is just getting to terms with what happens here in the tropics- things happen very quickly. Things get huge then sickly fast. Within days what were perfectly good and flowering have burnt to a crisp. Things in pots send roots out of that little hole in the bottom and before you know it there a monster of a plant in a tiny pot. There's a different pace here and I find myself discovering, too late, that something doesn't fit.

Another standout issue- perhaps because I want more flowers is how quickly nutrients leach out of the soil. I 'm only just beginning to grasp how much more compost and manure ( I use sheep manure from a guy at the market and chicken manure from the supermarket) to add.  When the miniature roses and the thai basil start to look a little lacklustre - I know its time to feed them again.

I'm also beginning to move away from just flowers and cheat with more colored foliage like lime green Osmoxylon lineare or red leaved Coleus and Cordyline that are much easier to please. Both the Coleus and the Portulacea also need regular pinching and replanting or they get lanky and start to fade.

There are banana trees here that cut out the very strong sun but I've been wrong in thinking that the shady spots at certain times of day, stay that way throughout the day. My worst mistakes have been to underestimate how dry it can get here. Its easy to forget that the long spells of rainy weather sometimes turn into long dry ones and I've paid the heavy price of checking in a week later to find carnage.

April is a rainy month here and things are going well. New plantings are adjusting, there is fruit on four of the banana trees and I'm loving the warm acid tones of lime, yellow and orange reds in one of the beds- you can see a bit of it in the right hand side pic.

Green Flowers

I don't often see green flowered orchids at the farmers market but I did today and two spectacular ones at that. Dendrobium Callophyllum on the right is a native of Java, Lesser Sunda Islands and the Moluccas. Hallelujah it likes  sun and I have just the spot for it. I will be moving it out of its pot (growing on charcoal) to attach to a branch to hang on the Dark Verandah. Most of the epiphytes I have, similarly set up are clustered around the shady bits so its great to have this filling one of the sunnier gaps. And fill nicely it will as it has 5 or 6 fairly lanky arched leaf stems.

Dendrobium Ionopus on the left requires medium light so will join the crowd huddled under the shadier spot, perhaps further up front. It will stand out though with its unusual pendulum blooms and spidery foliage. The flowers hang off rigid stem like lanterns on a stick. Where the Callophylum is a fairly bright green, this one is pale , tending to yellow. This orchid is endemic to Phillippines.

I have other green orchids, one is a Coelogyne (a gift) and the other is an unidentified one that I bought. Both were blooming when I acquired them but haven't done so since which is an admission of a huge problem that I have with orchids - I haven't really got the hang of them yet. In a sense they are somewhat high maintenance with their watering needs and their fairly specific sunlight requirements. These sunlight requirements include a nuanced understanding about the difference between bright light and light sun and early morning or late evening sun. Lets just say I'm still learning. It helps when the vendor can give me some directions or at least a name for me to look up its needs. and this is just to keep them alive, I've yet to master whatever feeding or other requirements they need to reflower.

For this reason, these two were priced just right. I see many gorgeous orchids at the market and they are not inexpensive. I've murdered enough of them to resist the temptation to splurge. These were affordable to buy both but also costly enough for me to pay attention to them as I have lost many an orchid, in that early stage when its situation hasn't really been fully understood yet. Additionally, there are a few other factors like storms and squirrels that lead to  discovery of a dead, dried out, or rotted that has fallen in between the pots underneath it.

Ultimately, it will be about finding a balance between getting the conditions and situation right and enough care without it being a burden. Its certainly worth pursuing though as even this narrower range that interests me - wild orchids of this region, has beautiful specimens of extraordinary shapes colors and scents that send out their siren call everytime I go to the market.

False Rue

As I often complain, I'm in ownership of a quite a few plants that remain unidentified as that's how plants are sold here- without any kind of label. Occasionally the seller might be knowledgeable enough to identify the plant- sometimes it even helps just to know the local name. Otherwise its a google search that might take a while to track down. Let me just say though, it is astonishing what google can do with a few keywords.

I now also have about three textbooks written by local authors and make it a morning habit to flip through them, cup of coffee in hand. This is the other method that occasionally yields a good result when I make the connection between a photo in the book and something I just bought. Its amazing what slips through though as I discover something only on the 20th reading.

And then there's the more random situation where you are looking for something else on the internet and you identify something quite different altogether. That's how I discovered False Rue, Baeckea frutescens. I was looking for information about 'tropical pines' and there it was - an image of its slender branches of pine like needles that droop in downward elegant curves. All the vendor could tell me when I bought it is that it is very slow growing.

Its not a Pine but in the Myrtle family, and while 70 of the 75 species are endemic to Australia, this one is native to South East Asia. Turns out, it also has a host of medicinal qualities and I write this while enjoying a very pleasant scented herbal tea made from it. I can't help thinking of it as the kind of 'comforting beverage doubling as medicine' that those Septagenarians on the Greek Island of Ikaria are nourishing themselves with. In fact its whole vibe is mediterranean both woody and herbal not unlike something growing wild in Greece or Spain you might run into on a hike. It enjoys similar conditions here, the poor soils of rocky hill slopes and sandy coasts.

The branches' arched lines and interesting shades of color - quite limey when the growth is new, make it a regular choice of foliage for a friend who practises Ikebana and has a larger more mature specimen growing in her garden in full sun. So thats where I put mine, in the White Corner where its hot and sunny, and its doing just fine.

Lightning Orchids

My dad called these Lightning Orchids, which I've discovered is not correct, the plant is Dendrobium Crumanatum and the common name for them is Pigeon Orchids. He said that they flowered after a lightning storm and he's not completely wrong about that. This orchid forms buds after there is a temperature drop, usually due to a thunderstorm. Nine days later long necklaces of white flowers with a yellow throat bloom gregariously with members of this species in its vicinity. The blooms are fragrant, particularly in the morning and last only a day.

This ephemeral quality perfectly suits where these orchids reside, on the branches of the durian trees in the orchard. Its an area that is not 'gardened' I cut the grass once a month but otherwise leave it mostly alone and enjoy the occasional surprise of these orchids which literally lights up the trees with these strings of white flowers. Apart from the durian flowers, these are the only other flowers here.

They are a relatively common wild orchid, you see them in a lot of trees but due to this ephemeral, weather specific behavior, unless you are actually in regular contact with them- you might miss these little shows that they put on. They also really want to stay wild - I've tried having them on wooden branches hung in the porch and they never flower and generally look ill at ease. So their ideal situation is what exists in the orchard a colony growing on the branches of a small grove of untended trees, protected but with a lot of light.

Its been an extraordinarily cool and wet monsoon this year which is unusual to even say as we really live far south of the monsoon belt and shouldn't really be experiencing such a clear seasonal pattern. But we are and there's been serious flooding throughout the country, particularly on the east coast, a consequence of climate change and deforestation. I have to admit, I've loved the cool mornings and the garden has also loved the daily soak that it gets. We're now back into hot dry weather and it must have been that one heavy shower we had over a week ago that cooled things down and triggered these orchids to put on a show.