When I built a villa in Rawai some 18 years ago, it occupied a plot of two-thirds of a rai. And apart from one mature specimen, a yellow-flowering acacia, which I asked the builders to spare, it was a vacant plot totally devoid of trees. So there was a pressing need to plant new ones ‒ in the certain knowledge that they would provide pockets of shade for newly installed shrubs and smaller flowering plants.
I went first for rapid growers such as bananas and papayas, conscious they could be easily removed once other plants had become established. Bananas (musa) have always been planted in Thailand on fallow land: in part because they are considered lucky (inhabited by a female spirit called nang tani), but also because they are extremely fast growing – over a metre a day in ideal conditions.
Of course they have the additional virtue of producing a massive bunch of a hundred or more edible fruits within a couple of years. Just remember to choose a Cavendish strain – some native varieties contain seeds and are virtually inedible. The downside is that banana plants ‒ which can reach four metres tall in next to no time ‒ just as quickly become scruffy, their sail-like fronds battered by wind and turning yellow and then brown as they age. Nowadays, I have none in my garden; they have been relegated to the orchard next door.
So too papayas (carica). Just as useful initially because of their rapid rise and pleasant appearance, they are short-lived and best removed after cropping. The luscious fruits, which grow amid a spiral of attractive leaves at the top of straight stems, appear within three years of planting. In the context of providing shade, the papaya is less useful than the banana in that it is sparsely leafed and branched. And although it is very hardy and easily grown from seedlings, it hates soggy soil and will die a quick death in standing water.
A very different tree that was cultivated to create pockets of shade, and to attract bees and butterflies, was the citharexylum. Not an easy tree to find, the fast-growing fiddlewood has a narrow shape and thin, woody branches. Its chief merit is its tiny white flowers which hang down in terminal racemes and possess a glorious scent.
Another utility tree that featured early was the avocado (persea). Though the climate in Thailand is perfect for avocados, they are cultivated here with varying success, partly because pollination is complex. The trees possess flowers categorised as type A or B which produce pollen at different times. So fruiting can be a hazardous business. But growth is not a problem. My solitary avocado grew with such vigour that it soon reached the roof of my three-storey house. Its dense foliage provided abundant shade and plenty of leaf-drop, but nary a single fruit…
Most of these trees no longer exist in my patch. Why? What we tend, as ‘farangs’, to underestimate is the sheer vitality of tropical vegetation. Trees here are riotous growers, up and away before you can say ‘Jack Robinson’. And as they mature, they not only tend to deprive flowering plants of sunlight, but possess elaborate root systems that can undermine the foundations of retaining walls and even house foundations. So then comes the melancholy – and often costly ‒ business of cutting them down.
If you want trees that are attractive, possess smaller roots and whose foliage will not become unmanageable, you might plump for palms. Initially, I planted yellow cane palms (dypsis lutescens) around my pristine swimming pool. Clump palms, they are a bit leggy now, but still there. Flanking the garden wall, the traveller palms (ravenela) lasted for a dozen years or so and looked most attractive with their fan-shaped outline, but eventually became gnarled and mis-shapen. The Bismarck palm (bismarckia) with its huge glaucous leaves is utterly spectacular, but will outgrow the average plot. Mine certainly did.
Probably the best palm for a medium-sized garden is the foxtail (wodyetia), which has a classical palm silhouette with 10 neat feather-leaved fronds, crowning a straight, smooth trunk. Understandably, it is a favourite of city planners and, like most palms, can handle dry conditions. Go for it… And don’t worry about the consequences.
Patrick Campbell’s book ‘The Tropic Gardener’, described in one Bangkok review as the best book on Thai gardening for 50 years, is available for B500 (half price) to personal callers from 59/84 Soi Saiyuan 13 in Rawai (Tel: 076-613227 or 085-7827551).