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.

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.

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.

Compost Happens

At  the back of the house, there is a brick structure which I believe were destined to be dog kennels. Unfinished, the walls are about four foot high forming two bays with an open front that looked very much like compost heaps I had seen in a grander garden somewhere on my travels. Of course that is exactly how I have utilised them.

The windfall of having a structure that might as well have been purpose built for composting is additionally sweetened by a ridiculous amount of available organic material. The grass gets cut twice a month which is a couple of feet's worth in one of those bays. Then trimmings of sugar cane, banana and papaya trees and miscellaneous garden cuttings supplement the kitchen waste of coffee grounds, vegetables, fruit trimmings etc. The supply is prolific. I even have the choice of occasionally dragging a neighbours bag of grass or trimming from outside.

I don't even turn it. Days of hot dry sun and then soaking tropical thunderstorm make the decomposition process intense and it is year round. Once one bay is full, I start filling the next and halfway through, the first bay is composted and ready to be used.

I use the layer just above the compost that is not quite ready but has started to break down as a 'nourishing mulch' for the plant beds in the Potager which are closest to this heap. I might mix this with some dried leaves too. The compost I then use in the specific areas I'm planting or mixed with some top soil for potting. The compost is a rich dark chocolate cake which I just marvel at and harvest so to speak in roughly three month cycles. I can't quite believe how ridiculously easy this is now that I 've got into a groove with it.

I avoid putting weeds  in there although the grass cuttings may unintentionally include some and a friend advised against any kind of citrus that has bactericide properties that can slow down the process. Once while helping myself to some of that luscious dirt  with my hands I scooped up a gigantic grub, possibly a rhinocerous beetle. I don't ever do that anymore with my hands.

I also have an unofficial compost heap outside these bays, against one of the walls. Here I do put weeds and turf and twiggy branches that I can't be bothered to strip of their leaves but no kitchen stuff and I leave it for a longer time. I started doing this because I didn't really know what to do with all of that and discovered that after a year, it composted just the same, but with a little more woody bits that need to be sifted out.

I use this other compost when I'm planting a new bed, turning it in deeper so that there is less chance of weed material having any effect. My guess is that with a longer breakdown, it's less likely to happen. Although, I'm beginning to not worry so much about this as weeds from blown seed is so prolific that the real game is in making sure there's a good amount of mulch and some kind of weeding goes on before they get out of hand.

Its a good job that I do have this resource because the soil here is incredibly clayey. At first I followed the lead of the locals in leaving it that way, as plants seemd to do fairly well in their gardens but then they also do a lot of watering (that clay gets hard when its dry) and a lot of fertilizing. I have since learnt to manage better by reverting to a soil  mix that I've learnt with experience is pretty much an ideal growing medium - sandy loam.

Tropical Harvest

Doing some clearing up in the garden also means scoring a small bounty of produce. Enough even to share, so I walked over with some to my neighbour and on the way home foraged a couple more things that grow by the side of the road.

Looking at what I had in hand, I realized that this is all really quite different from my previous life as a gardener in the New York area. My tropical harvest is not only of different botanic material, but three years now living back home in the tropics, they are also the ingredients of a different cuisine and lifestyle.

Lets start bottom right where I have some Pandan leaves, Pandanus amaryllifolius, and some Cymbopogon nardus, Citronella grass. The Citronella, I have by accident. I bought what I thought was lemon grass from the farmers market and since some still had roots, I planted them in the garden. I always thought they looked a little different, the stalks have a brown skin that curls away. One day a friend came over, sniffed a leaf and said- that's Citronella.

I trim it when it gets untidy and braid it with the pandan leaves to use as an indoor freshener that also has insect repellant properties. The Pandan leaves are traditionally used for cooking, added for fragrance to coconut rice and also color to some local cakes, but I noticed some locals with a bunch tied into a knot under their car seat for these air freshening and repellant properties.

The Kaffir limes which I thought were not edible, except as marmalade, are in fact quite edible. I read this somewhere which said that left to mature on the tree, they are not as bitter. Indeed, its nomore than grapefruit bitter and there's an interesting perfumed flavor that echoes the leaves which are more commonly used in Tom Yam. Nice squeezed into a glass of cold water.

The other fruit is Averrhoa bilimbi, Blimbing, a cousin of the starfruit that is sharply sour. I've had it pickled with slices of lemon as a side or mixed with a sambal but I also like it sliced thinly as a sour note in a salad. This is one of the foraged items that grows on the trunk of a tree across the street.

The other foraged item is those pods on the top, Leucaena leucocephala, Petai Cina. The tiny seed inside is another great salad item, nutty with a slight pungency reminiscent of a popular vegetable here the much larger Petai, Parkia Speciosa which I don't quite like mainly because of its lingering after effects which you can read about in the link.

The bunch of greens are a mix of an edible weed, Asystasia gangetica or tropical violet, which cooks like spinach, some Thai Basil and Persicaria Capitata, more of a medicinal herb that's boiled to make a tonic drink but I use it as a salad green which has a slightly sour taste.

Ulam

Ulam is an interesting local culinary concept of Malay origin that is somewhere between a herbal garnish a salad and a vegetable side or green, except raw. It's not as thoughtful as a salad. There's no chopping or tossing in a vinaigrette or even contemplating mixing it with other greens or ingredients. It's a generous if spartan handful of uncooked leaves that you add to your plate, as pictured above, and you're done.

On the right side of the plate is a fairly common ulam, Ulam Raja a type of Cosmos (Cosmos Caudatus ) and the lacy leaves have an aromatic herbal bite. The flavor is not unlike a herb like Parsley or Chervil,  or a strong flavored green like Arugula. The fish on my plate, rubbed with turmeric and fried could be interchangeable with a slice of fried tempeh or chicken similarly prepared. The curry gravy that flavors the rice is called assam pedas, a concoction fueled by chillies and tamarind that make for its literal meaning, sour hot. Some experience is required to make the combined choices on your plate find the right groove of pungent, spicy, savory and starchy.

Below it is Euodia redleyi from the citrus family which is not so common, in fact today is the first time I've tried it. It has a chalky slightly bitter flavor but also a light crunch. Besides herbacous greens, the tender young leaves of  certain shrubs and trees like this one or the Cashew nut tree are also used for ulam.

Pucuk Pegaga or Centella Asiatica, is another popular ulam green with a bitter tang. I used to buy this at the supermarket and then discovered that the version in the supermarket was in fact an aquatic plant Hydrocotyle ranunculoides. Centella Asiatica's leaves are more fan shaped and not so leathery. When I tracked this indigenous version down at a market stall, I asked the lady about the difference. She said the aquatic plant had longer stalks and was easy to cut and sell in bundles. The Centella has short stalks, usually including its roots and was not as tidy. The roots of course make it easy to press a few into pots and I've discovered an excellent ground cover that does double duty.

I'm determined to have a good selection of ulam growing in the garden. Apart from the nutritional punch of a handful of leafy greens, they are also usually imbued with medicinal properties. To be able to step outside, snatch up a some leaves and instantly have on your plate something aesthetically pleasing, nutritious and therapeutic is quite something.