Gardening for pleasure

I  live in the penthouse of an old building in Makati. To reach it I must take a rickety 30-year-old elevator that undergoes service quite often. When it is not I press eight and hope it doesn’t stop on the way up. Then I get off and climb another flight of stairs to the ninth floor. My unit is there. In this building, most are two-bedroom apartments, except for the first floor — all offices, and the top floor — all one-bedroom units.

But here in the penthouse, even if you have only one bedroom, you have a lovely terrace. It also has four very high walls but no ceiling. It doesn’t connect to the little back porch that overlooks the street. But your bedroom window looks out on the terrace. I remember three years ago when I saw this unit, I immediately fell in love with it. I could see the terrace abloom with flowers and me sitting happily in it.

As if that would happen by magic. Actually at that time the terrace was bare. There were four high walls, no ceiling and plenty of nothing in between. Add to that the fact that I was moving in about a year-and-a-half after my stroke, so I was still pretty dumb. But never mind. I went to the Salcedo market every Saturday then and there made friends with the orchid lady. I bought vandas and other orchids from her. They were blooming when I bought them and that was the last time I saw them bloom. I have no luck with orchids.

The terrace held plants I inherited from my eldest daughter — green, non-flowering plants that trimmed her old apartment, which was sold. Then one of my old friends gave me an ilang-ilang tree. I planted that and watered it faithfully so now it is about 10 feet tall in a corner.   No blooms yet. I have an anahaw palm, now bordering on seven feet in the other corner, growing lush and proud. In between these two big trees there are lattices that climb up the walls and flowering vines that climb and bloom on them.

First a vine with yellow flowers like inverted cones. I don’t know what it’s called but it flowers constantly. Then a passionflower vine from my house in Calamba with beautiful red and black flowers. Then I have those lovely vines in Serendra that have lavender and white flowers. Off in another corner, climbing high so I can’t reach them, are what look like blue roses that are edible flowers. I know. I saw them used as trim on Ugu Bigyan’s lunch repast the last time I ate there. In between these I have bougainvilleas and a vine that bears orange flowers, like little Mexican hats, but it hasn’t flowered too well since it moved into my home. Oh, and how could I forget my climbing roses in fuchsia?

The flowers don’t all bloom at the same time so I am always eager for more and more flowers. Well over the past two months I have gone to Tagaytay thrice with three different groups of friends and have come home with more flowering vines. The first time I came back from Tagaytay was when I gave a travel-writing seminar. Then I bought a pot of pink ginger flowers. Then I saw a lovely vine with maroon and yellow flowers. “What is it called?” I asked. 

“Japanese lantern,” the lady said.

 “How much?” I asked

 “P750,” she said.

“Too expensive,” I said, but of course I could not forget it.

Next time I went we stopped to buy perennial morning glories, lovely big blue flowers in the morning. As noon approaches, the flowers turn magenta before they close at noon. Then the next morning they are vivid indigo again. We bought two of those and lovely little pink and purple flowers. You notice, I select flowers and quickly forget their names? But never mind. The flowers remain beautiful and lift my spirits in the morning. This time I saw the Japanese lantern vine again. “How much?” I asked. “P450,” I was told. At least the price had gone down by P300. Of course, it wasn’t the same seller.

Finally last weekend I returned with enough money to buy me the Japanese lantern vine and another vine called Christmas Lights. Why I remember that one I will never know. I got the Japanese lantern for P350. Now, if anyone out there buys it for less, please don’t tell me. I am very happy to have it in my terrace.

Now I can hardly wait for summer, when I will be suffering from the extreme heat but reeling from the colors in my terrace full of flowering vines. It is such a surprise to climb up to the penthouse of an old building, open the door and be greeted by the riotous colors of the flowers from my flowering vines. They make gardening such a genuine pleasure.

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