A city of pines in the making

Lifestyle property developer, Landco Pacific Corp., inventor of the leisure farming concept, is planting Benguet and Mindoro pines in its 53-hectares property in Silang, Cavite. The choice for planting Benguet and Mindoro pines along main road of the estate is because the trees are grown vertically.

Once completed and the pines become fully grown, Ponderosa Leisure Farms project in Silang will virtually replace Baguio and Mindoro as pine capital of the country.

Pines will definitely grow well in the 53 hectares of rolling terrain with a mean temperature of 25 degrees and an elevation of 458 meters, definitely higher than Tagaytay City, a fully developed high-end enclave.

Landco began planting the pines along the main road of the estate along with 15 lot owners and the media recently. Ponderosa vice president Alfred Xeres-Burgos III said once completed, a total of 1,500 pines will line the main road of the property.

With Baguio now a virtual concreted jungle, Ponderosa Leisure Farms in Silang, Cavite will therefore replace the former pines city. Ponderosa used to be laden with coconuts.

"At Ponderosa, we are making sure that the mistake committed in Baguio will never happen here, which is why we have planned every development detail such as themes of each garden and what kind of trees to plant," the young executive said.

Also, lot owners whose properties contain coconut trees have the option to remove the coconut tree but must pay P1,000 fine so that the money raised from this penalty can be used to replace the area where the coconut tree was removed.

"As much as possible we will not cut the tree but uproot it entirely so that with tree roots intact we can still relocate to another site where its nuts can not do any harm," Xeres-Burgos said.

Landco is developing the garden property owned by high society gardener, Maria Luisa Perez-Rubio, which already contains greenhouses of roses and other flowering plants inside the property.

But lot owners will be given a choice of what flowering plant and other plants to use in their lots to jibe with the development themes set by Landco and Rubio.

Inside the property are greenhouses of roses and other flowering plants and a store that would sell garden tools needed by the lot owners. Landco will also provide lot owners with professional gardeners to maintain their garden during business days in Metro Manila or abroad.

Just like in Leisure Farms I in Lemery, Batangas, Landco is providing Ponderosa lot owners with farm management services for a hassle-free farming, a village store where they can buy garden supplies, seeds and tools from; contract growing arrangements, demo farms and agricultural training to meet one’s farming needs.

Landco started developing the property last January this year and is now 65 percent complete with the road network and water systems. Three-fourths of the property is now sold, explained Xeres-Burgos.

Ponderosa (which is patterned after Mexican-Spanish village) is actually the second hobby farming project of Landco, the first being the 116-hectares Leisure Farms vegetable gardening project in Lemery, Batangas now fully sold.

Lots buyers in Ponderosa are retired professionals working abroad, working professionals, the heirs of moneyed elite of Metro Manila and other parts of the country looking for something new to remove the stresses in their lives such as hobby gardening, Xeres-Burgos said.

"We are the first to introduced flower garden leisure farming as a development concept and we expect others to follow us very soon, like they copied in our vegetable farming project in Leisure Farms I in Lemery," Xeres-Burgos said.

Lots sold in Ponderosa range from 800 to 1,500 square meters costing P2,500 per square meter. When development started, the lots were selling for only P1,800 per square meter. Ten to 15 minutes away is Tagaytay City, where lots cost P11,000 per square meter.