The instant gardener

I used to think I had a green thumb. As a child, my friends and I would make mini-gardens on patches of earth outside my house. We got cuttings of mayana (coleus) from yards around the neighborhood. A few weeks after, we would have lush, multi-colored leaves in our tiny plots.

In my freshman year in high school, our Home Economics class had a gardening contest. My group found cosmos saplings and replanted them around the perimeter of our designated area. Soon after, we had dramatic golden flowers ringing our space. We trounced the competition.

Years later, I became more ambitious in my choice of plants. A friend had gifted me with hybrid denrobiums with yellow and magenta blooms. I expected them to die in a few days because I thought orchids needed shade, a lot of fertilizers, constant watering, more attention than I could afford to give them. To my surprise, they did not.

The denrobiums kept producing blooms. They added splashes of color to a drab townhouse facade. I decided to buy more. I was lucky to get them on the last day of an orchid show. At one hundred pesos for three fully-grown plants, the vendor was practically giving them away.

My window ledge hosted a profusion of blossoms for the next few months. I felt like such an orchid expert. Until this year. From fat and happy, my orchids became haggard-looking and tired. An acquaintance, who is a member of an orchid society, theorized that the lack of moisture caused them to wilt. Pick something easy to grow, he suggested.

With this in mind, I resolved to have a new garden compatible with my level of gardening skills. I pored through my gardening books and researched on the Internet. I considered sanseveria and other succulents but decided against them because I wanted flowering plants. I thought about getting euphorbia but I worried that my two-year-old neighbor might injure herself with their thorns.

My plant box now has seven kinds of mayana with leaves of various colors, shapes and sizes. Impatiens and ornamental pepper plants stay where my orchids used to be.

On the pavement, I have pots of cosmos with orange and yellow flowers. Beside them are pots of milflores with blue flowers. I have a lollipop plant where my Superstar gumamela used to be. I also have beach sunflower beside it. An old Chinese bamboo and more milflores sit on the steps leading to the door. Boston ferns from my husband''s grandmother stay beside them. I fill the rest of the space with small pots of pink lion''s head (at least that''s what the saleslady called them).

A gardening book says that hanging baskets provide additional planting space and a vertical element to a small, narrow spaces. I hang four wire baskets of wax begonia with pink flowers beside two baskets of lipstick plants. On a plant box outside my bedroom window, I put false myrtle with purple flowers.

I did all these in a few hours. Picking plants from roadside stalls took an hour. Choosing clay pots and garden soil took another hour. Transferring the plants and re-potting old ones took half a day. I had my helper, her friend, and an agriculture graduate moonlighting as a gardener pitching in.

I still have a few orchids valiantly trying to survive the heat and the arid air. I have not lost hope that they will bloom again soon. Maybe they will be healthier when the rains come in May. I have the same hopes for the trees nailed with campaign posters. I will certainly not vote for candidates whose faces are plastered on them. It is dangerous to elect government officials who show utter disregard for laws as simple as putting posters only in designated areas and not harming trees.