Afternoon delight at Tagaytay

On the way back to Manila from Tagaytay where we spent the Holy Week with the clan, we spotted quite a few gardens selling bonsai plants. Miniature forests and landscapes were virtually strewn along the highway. They would look nice in our newly landscaped patio at home, so we planned to get a few pots. But traffic on the way home on Holy Week, whether it’s on a Black Saturday or Easter Sunday, which is far worse, will never allow such transgressions. Getting back into the mainstream of vehicles will be next to impossible, given the heightened temper of motorists on the way back to Manila after a long holiday. So we resolved instead to go back to Tagaytay on another Sunday, at a more leisurely pace.

Last Sunday was the day. We left Manila at 3 p.m., not a very good time, but there were no pressing commitments back home. It was a very pleasant ride and Tagaytay, scenic as ever, was bustling with activities every which way you looked. At mid-afternoon, cars were coming and going, and though there was no build-up just yet, this sheer volume was going to tell on us much later. Restaurants were kept busy, motorists stopped along the highway to buy fruits and flowering plants. If you opened your car windows, you would have breathed in the real essence of Tagaytay on a Sunday afternoon.

Ming’s Garden had several cars in their driveway but, so sorry, said the lady we chanced upon, they were not selling bonsai in this well-appointed place. The on going fair just across the street had some, they were sure.

Across the street, alas, everyone was packing up because a slight drizzle had doused the fair. Next Sunday again, they promised, so we boarded the car and kept an eye out for a good-sized garden. We almost missed it, but we turned around and parked alongside the sign "MIRANDA GARDEN — We sell Bonsai".

The owner, lanky and bearded Efren Miranda, greeted us and proudly showed off his prized plants. The front porch was verdant with lush greens. It was amazing to walk through miniature trees, choose among the treetops like a giant walking through a forest. One can literally let his imagination run away with him in a bonsai garden. One stone shallow dish had a perfect cone-shaped tree framed by two porous stones in reddish-brown hue. Magnified, it was a veritable giant of a tree with low hills of rich reddish clay nearby. I ended up getting this medium-sized dish, along with a few others. The modest, comfortable house belied the treasures it held, and we were only looking at his personal creations in the patio and front yard! There was a wide assortment of Ficus, Tagaytay Cherry, bougainvillea, etc., with hefty trunks and tiny leaves in perfectly contoured shapes. Ficus Benjamina, as most plant lovers know, is more popularly known as Balete and is a favorite material for bonsai. And so is the common Bougainvillae. Bonsai, the leaves ultimately become smaller, in proportion to the rest of the plant. There was a large-sized dish where Efren had incorporated four kinds of bougainvilleas, and it was amazing to see different flowers of white, red, pink and orange in one tree-like trunk in one dish! I would have loved to get that one as a conversation piece in my patio, but for a non-aficionado like me, I prudently opted for simpler, less ambitious pieces. I also spotted several dishes of bamboo — wow, how did they shrink those giant bamboos?

Then he led us to the backyard, a wide expanse of space so tightly packed with different sizes of bonsai. On the way to the back, we dodged our way gingerly through huge vats and stone warehousing overgrown bonsai, old and majestic, beautiful and serene even for someone as ignorant with plants as I am. The poetry of a perfect bonsai is difficult for a writer to capture; you just had to see it. Of course, one had to pay a stiff price too. One particular beauty was priced at P75,000 and they said they just recently disposed of another large beauty for P150,000 the day before. A General packed his van with bonsai to the tune of over Three hundred thousand pesos, and here we were contented and in awe of the P2,500 and P4,000 variety! Oh well, to each his own measure of contentment.

I was happy with a couple of Ficus and the cherry variety, and my "commander-in-chief" was very appreciative of the flowering bougainvillea that Efren so graciously gave us. In less than 30 minutes, the back of our Trooper was packed with bonsai. All in all we counted about five or six dishes, all presenting different sceneries and, for the fertile imagination, all with their own stories to tell. We thanked Efren Miranda, not only for the wonderful choices, the generous discounts and the gift of one flowering bougainvillea, but mostly for introducing us to the wonders of bonsai. Efren certainly practiced the truth-in-advertising philosophy. Whenever we spotted something that caught our fancy, he would rattle off which plants were ready for the taking and which were not. A mature bonsai does not need a whole lot of care and attention anymore – just a lot of sun, a generous amount of water in the morning, and maybe a little pruning every now and then. Fertilizers are optional too, maybe once a month. For bonsai plants that are not established yet, a lot of re-potting is required, and mere mortals like me do not have the time and energy to go into that. These would certainly look good in our modest patio, around the small falls particularly.

We agreed to make another Sunday trip to Tagaytay for a few more plants from the very accommodating Miranda family. Tending a garden is therapeutic and de-stressing, but making it a profitable venture must be doubly so, and it must have rubbed off on the family. They were a gracious lot.

Our Sunday foray into Tagaytay was not over yet. Since we were here already, we couldn’t possibly miss out on a good meal, but then that’s another story for next week, dear Readers. Watch for it.

Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino.

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