Letting the Takipan Take Off!

The takipan with an eight month inflorescence  

I have a takipan (Caryota sp. aff. rumphiana), a solitary fishtail palm native to the Philippines.  I have had it since 2011, when I bought it from a weekend market, on a trip to Baler in Aurora. Then, it was only about two feet tall with one opened leaf and another about to emerge. From 2011 to 2016, it was grown in the confines of a twelve inch diameter plastic pot, growing from two feet to about my shoulder height, and adding about a handful of leaf rotations to its developing crown.  When I transferred houses in 2016, I took the potted takipan with me to the new house and out-planted it in soil in the farthest corner of the lot.  

The property I transferred to has a small garden that is about 25 to 30 square meters. It is not much, but when I started to develop it it had an existing kamansi (Artocarpus probably camansi) tree growing at one side. Since 2016 I have already plant a few bantulinao specimens (Diospyros ferrea), a salingbobog tree (Crataeva religiosa), a baraibai (Cerbera manghas), a samuyao (Citrus westeri) and a few other palms alongside the takipan.  

The takipan seemed to have liked its new home. A year after it was out-planted it was already taller than I was in 2017. At about the time of the pandemic, the palm was already competing for canopy space with the kamansi tree casting much shade in my garden.  The heavy arbor has drastically changed the composition of the garden, from the sun loving plants I was collecting - which I transferred from the rooftop garden in the old house - to shade loving plants like aroids, ferns and understory plants. By the time that indoor plants became popular in the pandemic, my garden has lost more of the succulents in favor of the shade tolerant species. 

Towering and nearing the wires

In 2022, the takipan palm has grown taller than my two story apartment structure and towers over the whole of the garden, but its size has presented a new problem - its very huge compound leaves were encroaching over street space and nearly touching the high tension wires adjacent the property wall. I hired a gardener to cut down some of the leaves to temporarily alleviate the problem.  A year after, I came home one day to find the leaves again unceremoniously by the Meralco maintenance crew.  They left the cut leaves still hanging precariously on the tree which I later had removed by hired help. As the palm has become a source of added anxiety, I reflected on cutting down the tree entirely.

In May of 2024 I asked a gardener friend to help me cut down the takipan.  Her crew came to the house one Saturday morning to assess it and how to go about felling the tree.  One gardener climbed up its  crown and discovered that the takipan was starting to bring out flower shoots. I have seen fishtail palms flower in other gardens before.  Their inflorescence is interesting but a long and tedious process. It appears that the palm does not want me to cut it. I could hear it say 'let me be and I will shower you with my flowers'. But seriously I became curious in the prospects of observing a full grown takipan flower in my backyard.  And since the plant is starting to flower, it will concentrate its energy on bringing out the inflorescence and hopefully less on new large leaves. I decided not to cut the takipan and let it display its flowering glory!
    

 I am trying it out if i could recover this blog and it seems I could. Will continue to write in it in the next few days. 

Tree in the Toilet

The Lawton 'Park and Ride' has spaces extended to the sidewalk, eating up tree space but not cutting them down 

 

A big tree inside the male toilet

Big tree while you are making a big pee

Quick Post: I have not gone to the Lawton 'Park and Ride' transport terminal before. It was a surprise to find a large tree present and built around with a toilet. The tree was right smack in the middle of the urinals section.  The space was just enough to allow a person to use the urinals.  But hey at least the designer attempted to save something that is green in a highly urbanized area.  I am not sure though what the tree species is (probably mango or mahogany - which I know is not native) as I was in a hurry to catch my bus. 

There are Bees in the Garden

The bees have more than double in number

The bee hive in one
 corner of the garden

Quick Post: 

I have bees in the garden! I am not sure what kind they are but their number is growing.  A few days ago when I first saw them I could count how many they are peeking from the weep hole in one of the terracotta pots we inverted to serve as stand for the other plants. Now there seem to be many guarding the entrance to their hive.  I wonder how the hive looks like in the inside.  But I will not attempt to even open it.

A week ago, the termite exterminator I hired came by to render his last contract inspection.  I told  him about the bee nest so he carefully sprayed around the garden so as not to disturb them.  But I was still afraid that they might get affect.  But apparently they were not affected as the number of bees guarding the nest more than doubled.   

The Pili/pili Name According to Zip

The edible part of the pili nut once the hard shell is removed 

The pili is a nice tree with
 glossy leaves

Sorry if the follow up answer on the Pili-pili dilemma is late.  I will try to catch up on posting some of the new blogs. With regards to Zip's assignment on how the town was named, her boss told her that Pili the town was not named after the pili tree but rather on the fact it was the chosen (Filipino word for 'chosen' is pili too).  Honestly I was disappointed when I learned this as I was gunning for the tree connection.  

The pili tree has a nice profile

Goyi Solis, who was one of our coordinators, was also curious about the town's name so she googled to get to the bottom of it.  She said it came out that the naming of Pili town is already obscure, that the 2 theories, about the tree and the fact it was chosen, stand accepted. In any case it could  not be discounted that the pili tree is associated with the existence of this loved town in Cam Sur that whether it was named after the tree or not, the ubiquitous presence of the fruit (and hopefully the tree itself) would help in promoting a cultural character for Pili.

They make all kinds of treats from pili and they sell everywhere in Naga which is nearby

The Pili-pili Dilemma

The iconographic staple in most tourist attractions is to have the place name blown up as a selfie stop and CWC has one in its main attraction  

The Naga airport is actually in Pili town

I was invited to talk about native trees in Camarines Sur.  It was my first time in the province.  When I arrived with the other speakers from Manila, I learned that we were to be billeted in the municipality of Pili.  Knowing pili is also the name of a local endemic tree (Canarium ovatum and some relatives) and that Cam Sur is in Bicol, which is pili country, I was curious to ask our welcoming party why the town was actually named Pili. I was not able to get a straight answer.  I further asked if there are still pili trees around in the town and before I could get a reply, I a grown pili tree came into view around the corner.  

I then rephrased my question to whether the Pili town is known for pili trees or is there a pili industry locally.  The answer given to me was that pili is more known to be grown in Sorsogon which was two provinces away.  So I wondered, if Pili town was named as such but is not anymore known for the pili tree, what actually defines Pili as a town.  This time I got an answer in form of a question: CWC? - which stands for CamSur Watersports Complex. I just left my curiosity hanging for the meantime.

The main watersports pool has the more experienced, especially foreigners, doing acrobatic turns and moves in the water.

An hour or so later we met our hosts from The Trees That Bind Inc., an NGO with an advocacy on native trees (I have not yet explored the actual goals of the said NGO so I would reserve in another entry explaining about it).  I met with Goyi Solis, who extended the invitation for the talk, and Zip, from the local government unit.  I asked them about my Pili-pili  dilemma, which Zip vowed to make her assignment from me.

The newer lodging facilities in the CamSur Watersports Complex 

We arrived in CamSur late in the afternoon (our flight was delayed) so we only got the chance to walk around CWC grounds - which appears to be exciting.  Our companion, Dr. Ephraim Cercado (from the Native Tree Enthusiasts Group) could not help himself to try wakeboarding.  It seemed to be a fun thing to experience but I did not have the courage to try myself.  So far with what I have heard, it is CWC that is the main attraction of Pili as a town. Let us wait for what Zip has to say about it.      

Kapok Season in a Few Days

The bagras trees were planted onto the amphitheater steps

The amphitheater out the classroom window

Quick Post: I was having class yesterday in Building 1.  It was a drawing studio class so when my students were doing their drawing plates, I noticed that the natural light was nice in the college's amphitheater.  The bagras (Eucalyptus deglupta) trees the faculty planted several years ago are reaching about 8 meters in height or more.  But still towering over them is the sole kapok tree (Ceiba pentandra) which is about to wreak its fruiting havoc in a few days.  The heavily fruit-burdened branches will release the snow like fibers attached to the wannabe-airborne kapok seeds.  It is like snow,  a spectacle to see - but will be quite detrimental to ones having asthma.  Soon the whole college floor will be teeming with the fluffy kapok fibers. Time to bring out my again fashionable face mask. 

The impending asthma danger that is the kapok fruits

Marketing at Munoz Market

A sort of telescope or cone shell which I was surprised was edible, but I was not adventurous 

Seaweeds, sometimes called
 lato or ararusip  

Alamang, looks like we will be
our own  bagoong

Ever since I transferred houses, it has been quite a while since I visited Munoz Market.  I love going there just to buy a few fish and seafood items as our new neighborhood talipapa has limited fare.  Today a Wednesday, it looks like seafood abound despite being the middle of the week. I found some unusual shellfish but was afraid to try, so we stuck it out with the usual suspects, tulingan, squid and tahong.

Fare in the veggie section e in the veggie section

The worm-like alukon

Alukon in pinakbet

On the other side of the seafood section was the vegetables area.  In the sea of common produce I found some kadios and alukon.  I do not remember anymore what month alukon usually comes out, as alukon is the male flowers of the himbabao tree or Broussonetia luzonica, and it has a flowering season.  What I could remember though is how closely it resembles cauliflower in taste.  When I first tasted alukon, it was cooked in the austere-reputed  dish  diningding (did I say that right, Ilocanos?).  

I missed eating baked tahong!

We cooked alukon tonight before it dries up or wilt completely. We also prepared the tahong two ways, in curry and baked with a little butter.   I would also have to find a good recipe without pork to cook the kadios in the next few days. Any suggestions? I would have liked it the Negrosense way with pork in soy sauce but would have to stick to the healthy diet.  

Yakal in the Outdoors

Kopsia flowers on  30 year aged yakal wood

Newer pieces that are about 2 to 5 years in age 

Quick Post: I was told that for outdoor use, the wood of choice would either be yakal, guijo or molave.  I have seen molave wood a lot of times before having that yellow tinge. But it would also sport knots which give it character. I have not seen either yakal or guijo before. 

Recently I was sent file pictures of how yakal would look like when used as decking material.  It is harder to find  new yakal wood nowadays so the pictures sent were of lumber from an old house that was reworked into a 7 year old deck. But a few were said to be replaced recently with newer pieces showing us how a 20 or so year old yakal wood compare to a 5 year old one. 

Picture of new and old yakal wood juxtaposed with each other

Chi's Birthday Lunch in a Farm

Fresh sweet tuba

Our 'healthy' lunch 

It has been long since I saw my architect friend Chi Victorino.  Last weekend I joined her to visit a private farm in Cavite (near Tagaytay) - which was sort of her birthday lunch.  The owners, which were her friends, hosted us and prepared a sumptuous semi-healthy meal for us which memorably included a gracious serving of fresh tuba.  I am not sure if the pork and the vegetables served were produced in the farm.  But what I heard from our hosts is that the tuba came from coconuts growing within the premises.  The tuba was extracted the day before and was sweeter than any I have tasted. Our lunch was capped off with a surprise birthday cake for Chi, which had a single lit candle (not hinting how old Chi was).  Chi was all in smiles while trying to blow the sole cake candle. 

The newly born native pigs are quite adorable

The piglets wanted the attention

After lunch our hosts, Sir Eric and Mam Des, toured me around their farm as it was my first time there (Chi had been there several times before). They showed us the native pigs growing in their well built pens - which I found adorable (the numerous small piglets were quite cute and endearing).  Mam Des was telling me that the native pigs were not as smelly to keep compared to the domesticated pink-colored kind we see commercially.  They amazingly deposit their 'poop' into one corner of the pen. They also were quite easy to feed as they are 'vegetarians', eating mostly produce and discards - which are harvested around the farm. 

The straight mahogany path

An old fruiting kapa-kapa or Medinilla magnifica 

What was nice to discover is that the farm approximated a forest look.  Yes there were mahogany trees and norfolk pine all over, which was planted more than 10 years ago (before the owners knew about native trees). But in corners where they had existing native trees like tibig, bangkal and pagsahingan, they planted these areas with more natives like kayumanis, lipote, batwan, tabon-tabon and  a whole lot more.

Jade vine is quite at home to bloom

I seem to be rusty taking tree pictures. When I reached home, I found out that instead of taking pics of the farm and the native trees, I snapped at pics of the mahogany tree path and flowers. But at least I got to take shots of a few natives in bloom which were protected when they built the structures. Hopefully when I make my succeeding blog posts I could get into the groove of taking nicer native tree photos.   

    

10th year?...

Last week I gave a lecture on Philippine native trees for urban landscaping.   I was introduced as architect, assistant professor, gardener and blogger.  When I heard it I realized that I have not been doing at least one of these things I was referred to as. Blogger resonated the most as I have been absent doing this blog for a year.

In the Philippine Native Tree Enthusiast page over at Facebook, someone mentioned about pioneer bloggers writing about native trees.  I was tagged in the post and the comment stated that my blog was third to write about Philippine trees, after Rey Sioson and Tristan Asuncion.  Tristan however pointed out that my blog came first before Rey's and his, which made me check how many years I have been blogging about plants in general.  I checked my logs here in this site.

I have been blogging about plants in multiply.com for the longest.  But it was in 2008 that I transferred writing here at www.pinoytrees.blogspot.com.  I regret that I lost my numerous posts in multiply as the site has already shut down.  I did not get the chance to retrieve them.  But pondering on what I have here on blogspot I have nearing 500 posts about trees and some other stuff about Philippine culture.  What I also realized is that on my 10th year on blogspot, I stopped doing the blogging.  Sadly even Rey Sioson and Tristan Asuncion did so too.

I left 2018, my supposedly10th year in blogging about Philippine native trees with no posts, no celebrated milestones. I have actually left writing about anything completely.  This I regret as I remembered enjoying saying things about a lot of things, and honestly I still feel I have a lot of things to tell.

So officially I am rekindling my love to write and I am signifying another chapter in blogging about trees in this site.  I hope that you would stick around reading my musings.  I promise that if you do there will be more stuff about Philippine flora to come.

The Return of my 80's Robot Toys

Daimos is one of the more popular robots in our time

Some time ago I was looking through Facebook when one of the online posts caught my attention. It was an old robot for sale which looked very familiar to me, a child of the 1980's.  It was Gaiking. Though the robot never got any local airtime in the 1980's, most of us Gen X'ers would be familiar to it as toys were available in select shops in Manila. 

I myself remember getting a shogun warrior version of Gaiking in the old Anding's toy store in Tabora Street in Divisoria and everytime I would go to Central Market, Cartimar and Zurvaran I would swoon over the toy displays of Voltes V, Mazinger Z, UFO Grendizer and Getter Robot (which I thought was named Geta Robot).  My mother, who was very frugal, only got to buy me a handful of this.  I remember getting the first series of the Shogun Warriors including Getter Dragon, Grendizer, Getter Poseidon, Gaiking and Combattler (which I thought was named Combatra 5). I got each one of them on different occasions through my childhood years.  I wanted to get the very nice 'voltable' Voltes V. but of course I figured my mom will not part with the whopping 500 pesos for all 5 Voltes V vehicles (100 pesos each in Cartimar circa 1981). 

The shogun warriors were sold cheap at 25 pesos each, that is why it was more reasonable for me to ask for all five of them. I wore those die-cast toys out till the plastic joints broke off.  I even asked our maid to drive nails onto the plastic parts to replace the broken joints just to make them look whole again. I recalled also getting a larger die-cast Getter Leiger for one birthday, a plastic Macross-Gerwalk and a plastic doll knock-off of Getter One (similar to the vinyl versions of the robot) made in China. Then my obsession for them was abandoned in favor of Lego and Playmobil.  

I remember I had the shogun warrior versions of this robot trio 

When I saw the Facebook post, I clicked on the details and next thing I knew I purchased the Gaiking. That was months ago.  Today I am looking at my new Gaiking, I have it on a shelf in my bedroom. And it is already alongside a few more robots of my childhood like Mazinger Z, Getter and Daimos.  I still could not afford Voltes V though (which is now far more expensive than its original 500 pesos price).  I myself got the robots at a much higher price than the 25 pesos they were in my childhood. But these ones will be there for me to appreciate visually and would not be probably worn out by play.  I know my childhood toys were much worth the price they were paid for but I would have to contend myself looking at these ones to remind me of my childhood robot memories.

Gaiking on the far end is now in company with my Mazinger Z collection.

Cariton Caravan

Saw this cariton caravan along Visayas Avenue

The caravan fare of native household items

Quick Post: I have not seen a buffalo caravan for quite sometime.  When I started my masteral degree back in 2005 I still notice a few of them parking near UP on Commonwealth Avenue.  The caravan leaders were letting the buffalos graze on the grass growing on roadside.  Now I don't see them anymore.

A few days ago I saw this cariton caravan on Visayas Avenue.  Are the buffalo caravans  completely a thing of the past? I sure hope not, though these cariton caravans seem to carry all the items sold by the original animal caravan, with some new additions of course.

That Little Black Alocasia

A very nice robust specimen of Alocasia scalprum

I love the deep patterns on the glossy thick black leaves 

Quick Post: I love this black Alocasia, botanically named A. scalprum. It has been a while since I have seen a good specimen of this. About 10 years ago, this was a hot item in garden shows but then it disappeared from the shelves.  I feared that the plant got over-collected as its price tag was quite exorbitant then. Specimens also prove to be quite difficult to grow as they pop in and out with the leaves, sometimes going into very long dormancy periods (which makes collectors afraid whether the plant would have enough energy to bring out a new leaf growth).  I was glad to see it again resurface in the last show giving the probability that some nurseries may have been successful in cultivating it. 😊

Out with the Old and In with the New...Garden That is!

This is my old roof top garden

Succulents in old garden has now been transferred to the new

I think I have been over-explaining myself for not regularly blogging in the last number of years. This last hiatus is because I transferred houses. Yes my old garden is expected to seize existence in the next few months.  But I have started transferring some of my plants into the new house, especially my prized succulents and of course some of my seed-grown natives which I have cared for in the last decade or so. The new house is quite far from the old so transferring the plants is a tedious task, which requires time and effort and I would have to of course squeeze it in with my work load. But the garden has to be given the time too, or else I might lose my precious plants - the ones that have been shocked in the transfer and even the others left in the old house, under the care of our house-sitter. 

Challenge is to fit the bigger plants into the smaller space

As with any garden, I did start from scratch in the new location. Yes I have the plants, but the space is considerably smaller than the old one. The new space was literally bare soil and a breadfruit tree when I arrived. But at least this one had the soil to plant some of my trees and shrubs in, not like the old where it was all concrete of the roofdeck. The soil however is noticeably mixed in with much garbage bits like broken glass shards, candy wrappers, plastic bottles, discarded concrete, etc.   It was a tough palette to attack but I am already deep into taking the challenge, garbage and all.

The new site is much smaller but had bare soil ground

Pavers were introduced as stepping surface to minimize muddy areas

I asked my friend Susan Topacio of Jardin Isabel to help me in setting up the new garden. First thing we did was to top the old soil with new stock garden medium to cover the garbage.  Then we laid out paving stone so that when it rains, the area would not be muddy and it would be easier to step on. Then we planted the bigger plants into the soil.

I started this about 4 months ago. I will post the other progress pictures some other time.  But so far the garden is shaping up quite well, but I still have to see how the plants will react to their new location.  Just keeping my fingers crossed!

More than half of my plants are still in my roof garden.  I have to empty the roof top so probably all of it will not get to be transferred to the new site though.  I would have to get them new homes.

Fat-bottomed Plants

A small unknown specimen

A hybrid of E. rossi

I have been saying this over and over, I am a gardener aside from other stuff that I do. I have been keeping plants and it makes me centered especially when all other things in my life are becoming stressful. Aside from growing the natives which I occassionally talk about here in this blog, I keep succulent plants. I fancy the non-cacti species in the genera of Agave, Sansevieria, Dyckia, Aloe and a lot more, but the plump branching specimens of Euphorbia have a soft spot in my heart.  I have been collecting since probably the year 2000 ever since I picked up my very first specimen of Euphorbia millii. And I have not stopped since then. I probably have jumped collecting several succulent genera but my fascination for Euphorbias has never waned.

Euphorbia enopla

Euphorbia tortirama

Last year there was a resurgence of the succulent collecting hobby especially when local hobbyists put up various fora in Facebook.   The prices of locally sold succulents especially the cactus varieties escalated from the usual 3 for 100 pesos value in the Cubao stalls. They are now much higher in price. But because of the interest, a lot of new Euphorbias and other succulents became available in the local scene. But even with the emergence of new succulent plants I still am very much sticking it out with the Euphorbia species especially the ones with succulent branches and thick base caudex. They are very nice to pot though some may prove to be quite delicate and sensitive.  But when you get the hang of how they are grown you are rewarded with a display that in my opinion is out of this world.

E. stellata

Euphorbia decaryi ssp. decaryi 

Here are some of the Euphorbia plants which I have seen sold locally and some I have the privilege to keep in my garden.  I bet that seeing them makes you understand why I am crazy-gaga over these fat-bottomed plants!

Euphorbia squarrosa