Propagating Mussaenda Philippica var. aurorae

My dear late mother has always wanted to propagate this particular tree planted in the garden. It is a medium-sized tree with white colored bracts surrounding smaller yellow flowers. Her rehab doctor, who just so happened to be our neighbor, had inquired previously how to propagate it when we were regularly going to physiotherapy. My mother tasked me to propagate it, but I had no idea how at the time. The tree looks pretty enough, with the white leaves making it look like it's full of white flowers, when in fact the real flowers are very small yellow ones.

Mussaenda Philippica white bracts and yellow flowers.

After a brief search, I learned that the tree is called Mussaenda Philippica var. aurorae, or nicknamed Doña Aurora after Aurora Quezon, the then-first lady of former President Manuel L. Quezon. It is one of the few ornamentals favored by landscapers that are actually indigenous to the country. There is also a version with rosy pink bracts (var. Doña Luz) which I occasionally see in home gardens.

I will try to propagate from cuttings and via air-layering. I will see whether I have any luck with either method. A quick web search tells me that the most common way of propagation is through cuttings, but air layering can produce a faster-growing clone.

Before I can do any of that, I need to remove a balete (strangler fig) that has somehow attached to the upper part of the tree. My father might have placed it there on purpose since he has been playing a lot with baletes as an easy way to make bonsai. It has taken over most of the branch it has grown on, and since I had to trim the main tree to prepare for a particularly strong typhoon, I am concerned that it will eventually kill the host.

I have a lot of plans for the garden in the coming months, and I am excited to execute those plans gradually. Of course, I will be posting updates when they come.

Mussaenda Philippica var. aurorae seen in a landscaping setting at Iloilo Memorial Park.

Bignay Season

Clusters of bignay fruit.

I vaguely recall my mother once telling me years ago that the tree in our backyard was a bignay tree (Antidesma bunius). I tucked that detail away and forgot about it, until recently, when the tree suddenly bore fruit after decades of silence. By my estimate, it’s more than twenty years old. The only explanation I can think of is that a nearby male bignay finally matured, allowing local pollinators to do their work. Since bignay is dioecious, it needs both male and female trees to reproduce.

Although I don’t encounter bignay often, it isn’t entirely unfamiliar. I could see trees heavy with clusters of red-to-dark purple fruit in my neighborhood in Quezon City, near La Mesa Eco Park. As a designated biodiversity center, the park likely planted bignay deliberately to support wildlife and enrich the watershed.

I harvest the ripe fruits little by little since they do not all ripen at the same time. I keep the ripe fruits in a container and freeze them. That way, I can keep them fresh without getting past their prime.

Now, with my first harvest in hand, I’m not quite sure what to do. Part of me wants to experiment, perhaps a small fermentation trial using wild yeast, or maybe make vinegar out of it. I don't really want to bother picking the fruits that are high up ion the tree since I only have a short ladder and I don't think the branches of the tree are that sturdy. I will just gather whatever I can and make the most of what I have. Hopefully, this will be the start of a yearly tradition of making something from my bignay harvest.

I also plan to try propagating from seed, just to see if I can. It feels like a fitting way to honor a tree that has waited so long to surprise me. Wish me luck.

Ripe bignay fruits (for freezing).

*** Edit: I have learned 2 new names for this fruit from a friend. They are also called Dinog and Inyam. 😋

The Calamansi I Planted from Seed is Finally Flowering

Calamansi flowers.

I planted this calamansi from seed way back in 2022, and after nearly four years of patient waiting, it has finally begun to flower and bear fruit. The sight of tiny buds emerging with the arrival of the rains after this year’s harsh summer filled me with hope. At long last, I’ll have a fruiting calamansi tree right in my garden, ready to provide fresh fruits whenever I need them (assuming they fruit year-round).

Calamansi has such a short shelf-life that buying them from the supermarket often ends in disappointment, as they shrivel and dry up before I can use them all. Having my own tree in the garden means I can simply pick a few straight from the branch, talk about self-sufficiency and convenience! I've always had this dream of growing and using produce from my own garden. Not on a scale to be totally off the grid, but enough that I can proudly say I can partially source what I eat from what I grow. 

I recall planting several seeds at the same time as this one, even experimenting with a hydroponic setup. That setup didn't last very long (I also wasn't able to maintain it over the years), so I needed to transfer the hydroponically grown plants into soil. Sadly, the rest of the batch didn’t survive the transition back to soil.

The sight brings back memories of my grandmother’s orchard, where rows upon rows of calamansi trees thrived. She would sell the fruit in the local market, and with the surplus she made sweetened calamansi concentrate and jams. I don’t have the space to grow an orchard of that scale, but I look forward to my first harvest, however modest.

Immature calamansi fruit. 

Sampaguita Identification

It has been raining a lot lately, and the plants in the garden seem to be enjoying the end of the scorching summer. One of the things that I have noticed over the past couple of days is that whenever I go out to the garden at night to feed the outside cats, I have smelled whiffs of a fragrant scent not unlike that of sampaguitas. The garden is currently overrun with vines from this very aggressively growing weed with fruits resembling miniature cucumbers, so I was not able to notice the flowers. After clearing most of the weeds out, I discovered that the sampaguita (or what I always thought of as sampaguita) was in full bloom with a lot more buds underway.

Identity crisis?

I showed the flower to a friend, and he confidently stated that the flowers are in fact not sampaguita (Jasminum sambac) but a Philippine rosal (Gardenia jasminoides) or a gardenia, just based on the appearance. After doing a bit of research and looking at various YouTube clips, I have come to the conclusion that the flowers outside are sampaguitas after all. Specifically, they are of the variety called Grand Duke of Tuscany or Kampupot locally. They are double-petaled, rosette-like form of the sampaguita, which resembles miniature white roses. Thanks to this particular rabbit hole, I now know what petioles are and how to identify petiolate and sessile leaflets. 

My Chili Pepper Garden (repost)

 

Siling labuyo. Jep | Flickr

Siling pansigang.siling haba. Jep | Flickr

I've been expanding the varieties in my pepper plant garden. So far, I have the following in my garden.

• Siling labuyo (Capsicum frutescens) 
• Siling pansigang or siling haba, as it is locally called (Capsicum annuum var. longum)
• Purple chili pepper (also belonging to Capsicum annuum)
• Bird's eye chili peppers (Capsicum frutescens) 
• Bell peppers (Capsicum annuum, specifically the Grossum Group cultivar)

My goal is to try to grow varieties belonging to Capsicum chinense (Habanero, Scotch bonnet, ghost pepper, Carolina Reaper), although I have no idea if they can be successfully grown in this climate.

I'm also looking at experimenting with hydroponic systems and see if I can get more yield that way. 

Mulberries and Mayhem: A Wasp Attack (repost)

Earlier today, my peaceful mulberry foraging in the backyard took an unexpected turn. I was happily gathering ripe fruits when I felt a sharp pain, then another, and another, on my hand. A faint buzzing sound, which I initially mistook for bees, filled my ears. Panic set in, and I bolted towards the safety of my house. It must have been quite a sight: wide-eyed, clutching my hand, which, coincidentally, was stained red-purple from the mulberries, and running like my life depended on it. It must have looked like I was in some horrific accident from another perspective.

Mulbery juice stained fingers. Photos by Flickr/Jep.

The sting areas quickly swelled, so I applied some Katinko. Thankfully, the swelling subsided after about four hours. 

One of the wasp stings was starting to swell. Photos by Flickr/Jep.

It wasn't until I warily ventured back out to inspect the scene that I realized my attackers weren't bees at all, but wasps. It turns out there were a few wasp nests on a nearby plant, and I likely brushed against one as I was collecting fruit. I suppose that's the price you pay for roaming around the garden. You're bound to encounter something, whether it's wasps, bees, itchy caterpillars, or even those feisty tree ants.

The mulberry tree was also home to these big red ants. Photos by Flickr/Jep.

Mulberries in the Summer: A Journey Through Memory Lane (repost)

A mulberry fruit. Photos by Flickr/Jep.

It's the height of summer, and the mulberry tree at the back of our house is filling up with succulent morsels of deep purple goodness. Every morning, I try to harvest all of the ripe ones within arm's reach and leave the ones I can't reach to the birds and to the annoying neighbor's chicken (or should that be the neighbor's annoying chicken - think I am just going to feign ignorance) when they drop to the ground.

My fingers are stained purple as mulberries tend to bruise easily when ripe, and you need to pick them carefully. This brings me back to another mulberry tree in a different place at a different time. I remember this mulberry tree in a parking lot where we were housed by my former employer. My colleague was ranting that he could not chance upon a ripe mulberry. He suspects that the grass cutters that maintain the grounds feast on the ripe ones every chance they can. It's a good thing my fingertips weren't stained purple when I plucked most of the ripe ones just that morning.

Another mulberry tree, another place, and further back in my childhood. There was a huge mulberry tree in my grandmother's place. My grandmother would make mulberry jams when they were in season. I didn't dare try to pick ripe mulberries, though. The tree will sometimes be populated by these worms that are suspended on almost invisible threads. A local species of silkworm, perhaps? We would sometimes visit our grandmother on her farm during summer school breaks. I remember the chicken coop where the eggs are gathered every morning. It was still her old house made of bamboo, coco lumber, and nipa leaves for the roof. There was no electricity, and kerosene lamps were the main illumination source at night. I remember sleeping on the bamboo-slatted floor with a banig (a Filipino handwoven reed mat) for an additional layer. The entire house is propped up on stilts and will shift with your weight. The crawlspace below the house is filled with these conical depressions in the sand, which I later learned are antlion sand pit traps (did you know that you can "fish" for antlions with a piece of string?). The highlight of our vacation would be a partial harvest of the fish from my grandmother's fishpond. She would have the water level reduced in one of the ponds to about waist level, and farm workers would drive most of the fish to one side using nets. And we would "help" with the harvest by trying to catch the fish by hand (I'm sure that is not how fish are actually harvested, and my grandmother would simply do that to entertain her city-dweller grandkids).