Bignây

One tree with fruit right now is bignây (Antidesma bunius), not a very popular fruit but a very attractive tree: it bears clusters of small berry-like fruits that simultaneously are in varying degrees of ripeness, so the colors in one cluster can vary from pale green to pink to bright red and black.


Apparently, it's not just me who's attracted to it but birds as well! Among the first fruit trees we planted in the gardens was this and this year, it has borne fruit, just on its third year (the photos though, are from trees that have been around much longer). Alongside arátiles, talisay, and various figs, the bignây trees hopefully contribute in making the farm a bird sanctuary.


I've read that it is widespread throughout Southeast Asia as far west as India, and that the Malay name is berunâi, which must have been the source of the name of the Sultanate of Brunei and perhaps even the island to which it is in: Borneo.

Corn

Anyone up for some corn? We have loads! We tried planting some a couple of weeks back and didn't realize it will yield this much! If you leave a whole ear on the stalk to its full maturity, the kernel itself (the one neatly on rows) will become the seed (Tag. binhî). On prepared, cultivated beds, we put up to three kernels on a small hole on the ground and in just a few weeks, they've become stalks and stalks (and even more stalks!) of corn. And some stalks have multiple ears, fantastic!

Weekend

Photo by Anna Silos

Today I don't feel like doing anything

I just wanna lay in my bed

Don't feel like picking up my phone

So leave a message at the tone

'Cause today I swear I'm not doing anything

Photo by Anna Silos

No, I ain't gonna comb my hair

"Cause I ain't goin' anywhere

No no no no no no no no oh

Photo by Anna Silos

Nothing at all, nothing at all...

(Lyrics from Bruno Mars' The Lazy Song, 2011)

Bromeliads

Through time, I have collected a sizable variety of bromeliads and now, they have all started to propagate! I did not begin taking care of these tropical beauties until recently; in fact I was not even keen about bromeliads in the beginning. But friends would give me one or two and I found them so interesting to maintain and take care of. Now I'm hooked!

The Bromeliad family has a wide range of types, predominantly epiphytic but some terrestrials too, and are endemic in environments as diverse as rainforests to deserts. When Christopher Columbus sailed to the "New World" in the late 1400s, he was given a fruit of a bromeliad plant which he liked so much and found so refreshing; he called it a "pine apple." Now how in the world that fruit be like an apple from a pine tree baffles me too. I guess it goes to show how startlingly "new" the discoveries were then.

There is always an appropriate bromeliad for any landscape design, be it under the sun or in the shade. Just like most plants, given the right environment, they do not require much attention and care, requires no pollination, and flourishes fairly fast.


In the gardens, some of them are mixed alongside other tropical plants but some I also put together in groups where they contrast and highlight each other's inherent beauty. 

White

Three fragrant flowers, lately in bloom: above left, gardenia (rosál, Gardenia jasminoides); above right, white ginger (cámia, Hedychium coronarium); and below, orange jasmine (kamuníng, Murraya paniculata).