by Telly Gonzaga-Ocampo
Mahogany and my scented garden
Our garden has become my avocation. A garden is something I cannot live without. A structured garden is far from my mind. I did not get rid of the trees and shrubs that grow naturally. We have tipo, tugas, dita, tuwad, ipilipil, an an. Through the years, there have been additions but first and foremost we just scattered cosmos, now called marigold, to provide soil cover. In the earlier years we just scattered the leaves of the trees surrounding the area, except, the leaves of the mahogany.
Early morning and late afternoon are my time slots allotted to my garden. And I have not seen a single bird perching on our two mahogany trees. But I see some creating their nests among the boughs and leaves of our
Molave tree and the ternate vine. The chirping of birds wake me up in the early morning everyday.
I have this fondness for planting flowers we used to have in my mother’s garden and in the garden of my Oyang Tiva. I have kalachuchi, ilang-ilang, banaba and jasmine tree and camias.
In the beginning of my love to plant, white camias grew near our dirty kitched just beside the hugasan. Why did I plant the camias in this area? It is because camias are water absorbers just like kangkong. I sourced the salmon camia from Tacloban when we visited the place after the Yolanda wrath.
Since September this year, the flowers have been blooming. That was especially after the first heavy rain during that month.
The fruit trees, nangka, bananas, calamansi, lubi, cacao are “showing off” their bounty. The coffee plants bloom but I could not find their fruits. Unhan mi sa mga langgam.
In our place, birds are chirping all day long and the jasmine tree is almost covered by the yellow flowers. We are now surrounded by the sweet scent of jasmine, camia and ilang-ilang – the natural perfume in the garden.
The mahogany trees also stand tall and majestic, but they are toxic. The leaves of the mahogany is not a good source of top soil because there will be no secondary growth after. So, it becomes barren. The macapuno tree next to it refused to bear fruits, too. And the soil is barren.
For us human beings, I say, that like the plants, there are also those who are toxic.They may look majestic in their high-end cars and branded bags and mansions, but please beware!!!
Happy gardening everyone.
