The spa in my garden

I have always dreamed of having a garden that looked like the one that the villainess Poison Ivy had in the 1997 "Batman and Robin" film. She threw a few seeds and in less than a minute, they grew into giant man-eating plants. I thought that the scene was inspired by the magic beans that grew overnight in the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk."

I sort of got what I wished for when I noticed that the Asian oregano with variegated leaves that I planted months ago had twisted itself around my window grills. My friend, who is a landscape architect, said that this plant is ideal for ground cover but that its flavor was not strong enough for cooking. I don't have a lot of ground to cover. This meant that the oregano had ended up crawling over the rest of my plants.

It had been a long while since I puttered around my little garden. I have difficulty waking up early and I'm always rushing to where I need to go in the mornings. This weekend, I was jolted when I noticed that the oregano was about to go inside the main door. I want a wild look for my garden but I do not want vines crawling in my living room. Not for my current one, anyway.

I trimmed and pruned the oregano plants gently. They now look like grade school students who are about to undergo a haircut inspection. In the process, I found that the tarragon I planted with them had managed to seek sunlight and grow fat. I harvested enough to make tea and to use for cooking should I find a recipe that calls for this herb before they wilt in the crisper.

I also found that a stalk of lavender I had planted survived my lack of care and thrived in the shade of a pandan growing in a shallow pot. Lavender is supposedly good for calming frazzled nerves so I made a note to smell their leaves more often.

The peppermint looked tired and scraggly and needed to be replanted. My lemon mint disappeared. My rosemary is green again after spell of being brown from over-watering. A laurel plant I bought over a year ago now has seven leaves from the original two. My milflores managed to give me a few flowers even if I stopped using fertilizers. They had regal flowers as big as baby's head when I got them from a bazaar outside a trial court.

I collected Filipino herbs with the intention of learning their medicinal uses. I've lost the pamphlets that came with them and have forgotten their names and uses. I keep them around because they are lush and pretty. I am also waiting for someone to teach me how to use them in the future.

I had bought a small plant with white and violet flowers from a roadside stall in Pangasinan. The vendor said that the plant's name was "lion's head." The plant multiplied and then wilted after a few months. I forgot about them until they reappeared and bloomed profusely. They do that regularly and I still get happily surprised each time.

I found a lot of weeds and some ferns that I do not recall planting. I kept some of the weeds after I read somewhere that weeds are herbs whose uses we do not know yet. One had maroon leaves and grew very tall and had flowers that looked like a toothbrush.

I felt like a mother being reunited with her children after a long absence. It was a joy to see that my plants had managed to thrive without any attention from me. The two hours I spent pruning and tilling left me feeling more relaxed than any spa visit had ever made me feel. I don't think I will be going to one anytime soon.

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