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Green Thoughts: Vines for the tropic garden
Green Thoughts: Vines for the tropic garden
Many climbers are tough and resilient, but they are not natural vines inasmuch as they lack aids in the form of suckers, twining stems, modified leaves or tendrils to help them cling and ascend. They seek the sun­light, but because they are substantial and weighty, they crave support of some kind or another, a requirement that in­evitably takes up more of the gardener’s time.
Green Thoughts: An introduction to virtuous vines
Green Thoughts: An introduction to virtuous vines
Mention the word vine and Mr Average will picture bunches of luscious grapes. If he’s had a few drinks, he may already be confusing the word with its celebrated product – the fermented fruit juice we all know and mostly love. But vines them­selves are not confined to varieties of grape – cabernet sauvignon, shiraz, char­donnay and the rest of that ilk – they are key floral elements in your tropical garden, not least in festoon­ing pergolas, climbing trellises or covering expanses of drab wall.
Yes! We Have No Bananas: A walk through of Thailand’s popular potassium produce
Yes! We Have No Bananas: A walk through of Thailand’s popular potassium produce
I was talking recently about gar­dening to an English lady visiting Phuket and the subject of banan­as came up. “Do you know,” she enthused, “that banana skins put around the roots of rose bushes, promote better growth?”
Planning Your Garden - Strategies Based on Nature’s Lessons
Planning Your Garden - Strategies Based on Nature’s Lessons
Over eons, tropical plants have learnt how to cope with a range of conditions. It is worth noting these strategies.
Fragrances and Flavours - Floral scents and pollination
Fragrances and Flavours - Floral scents and pollination
’A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” - Romeo and Juliet
What’s in a (Plant) Name?
What’s in a (Plant) Name?
Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the US president had a rose named after her. She was duly gratified – until she studied the cultivation notes which explained, “No good in a bed; better against a wall.”
A Whiter Shade of Pale
A Whiter Shade of Pale
White has so many associations – positively, it intimates innocence and purity; adversely, coldness and sterility. In Thailand, judging by the dominance of white in floral garlands, it is often identified with good fortune.
Feeling lucky, Plant? Make your day with the dahlia.
Feeling lucky, Plant? Make your day with the dahlia.
Thais are seriously superstitious. There are lucky days when big decisions must be taken, and unlucky days when everything must be put on hold. Lotteries are a national obsession. Ghostly, pale-faced presences haunt every soap opera, bringing misfortune to those who fall foul of their gaze. Good or bad karma are part and parcel of quotidian experience.
Untangling the complex and world-wide botanical web
Untangling the complex and world-wide botanical web
Because the climate here in Thailand is so conducive to growth, we tend to assume that most ornamental plants in our tropic gardens originated in Thailand or at least Southeast Asia. Not true. Sometimes by happenstance, mostly by design, perhaps our flora has fetched up here from other corners of the globe.
Phuket Gardening: Going for gold with Allamandas
Phuket Gardening: Going for gold with Allamandas
We are well into the dry season in Phuket and all the flowering shrubs are showing off their wares. As I look out from my study, I can see a mass of golden blooms festooning the front wall of the garden.
Green Thoughts: Tales from the undergrowth
Green Thoughts: Tales from the undergrowth
Over eons, tropical plants have learnt how to cope with a range of conditions. It is worth noting these strategies. Wherever possible, I like to try and replicate the ways and wherefores of Mother Nature. For example in tropical rainforests, and there were hectares of pristine jungle in Phuket once upon a time, there are distinct micro-climates: all the way up from the understorey level where ground-hugging, moisture-loving and sun-deprived plants clamber amid the organic detritus of leaves and humus, to the canopy where the loftiest trees are bathed in ultra-violet light and the direct caress of rain. There are natural layers in between these domains, but tropical fauna, like tropical flora, find them less important: most creatures are adapted to inhabit either the canopy (monkeys, birds) or the forest floor (deer, shrews, snakes).
Green Thoughts: Monsieur de Bougainville’s brilliant bounty
Green Thoughts: Monsieur de Bougainville’s brilliant bounty
For flower power alone, the bougainvillea would come high up any list of plants to include in your tropical garden. Of all the ornamental shrubs available to gardeners in Phuket, the bougainvillea is deservedly one of the most popular.
Green Thoughts: What’s in a name?
Green Thoughts: What’s in a name?
Most tongue-twisting Latin names of plants are associated with so-called “discoveries” by Western botanist or explorers: the Bougainvillea is named after Monsieur Bougainville; the golden trumpet or Allamanda after Switzerland’s Frederich Allamanda.