Tuesday, January 27, 2009

The Very First Tree Lecture



I got invited to lecture in this year's Philippine Horticultural Show over at Q.C. Circle. I have conducted lectures before but usually the topics are Hoyas (which I was passionate about since 2001) and water plants (a hobby which took a backside since I went back to school). The organizers asked me to lecture on landscape practices. I felt I would not be a good resource person for that and referred a few persons from UP-Arch. But they insisted I do it but choose a topic I would be comfortable with. I chose to tackle - what else but - Philippine trees with landscape value.



In the lecture, I encouraged listeners to butt-in so that we could readily exchange informations on certain tree species. I always learn a lot from my audience, I would like tov think I learn more than what they learn from me. I prepared a slide show with close to a hundred Philippine trees suitable for landscape use, but only got to discuss about 20 species (Q.C. circle busted an electrical transformer thus a brown-out and my laptop battery went empty). But we got a good round of information exchange for certain important species like kamagong (Diospyros blancoi), molave (Vitex parviflora), katmon (Dillenia philippinensis), dita (Alstonia scolaris), kamuning (Murraya paniculata), lipote (Syzygium polycephalum), kahoy dalaga (Mussaenda philippica), paho (Mangifera altissima), antipolo (Artocarpus blancoi), buri (Corypha elata) and a few more trees. I hoped to discuss all 100 trees but circumstances intervened and reserved the other trees for another day. Maybe I could arrange my own inquest for this plants and invite participants for an exchange of plant information.



Incidentally the horti show had a good exhibit and retail area despite the controversies that surrounded the organization. But the current trend of plant collectibles has led to cycads and agaves priced in the thousands of pesos ( would you buy a cycad for 100 thousand pesos?). A few years back i could buy agaves for a few measly hundred pesos but now everything seems to be selling not lees than a thousand. I pity the young generation who get to start the hobby in this time.

6 comments:

kickin' it said...

kuya nanood kami nun! sayang may lighting pa kami ng 4, di namin natapos. pwedeng magpaconsult sa yo for thesis? hehe.

Drifter said...

hi! i just want to ask what native tree would be best to put up on buffer areas in a low cost subdivision, may design problem kasi kami sa plate namin, the site is assumed to be located at puerto princesa, as much as possible we want to see more greens/landscaping even if its low cost housing project..thank you so much!

metscaper said...

email me at metscaper@yahoo.com. you could consult when i am around in the College of Architecture. we could schedule it.

Romher Jude Quilantang said...

Hey Patrick, nice blog! Naka bookmark na sa firefox ko ito blog mo so keep blogging! I'm looking foreard to learning more. - Romher

metscaper said...

hi rohmer. hehehe. thesis ko kc to kaya at least for the next year i am doing my blogging.

Unknown said...

Thank you for that lecture. Many enjoyed it! It was very interesting. There are so many things for the Filipino to be proud of including our trees. It was a pity that there was a brownout and rains, and loss of battery charge of your laptop that your visuals were not all shown. Maybe we can invite you to lecture again to members.