Category: Color Combo & Design

Healthy Starts to Homegardens

Featured by Healing Present Nature & Wellness Center, posted in agroforestry, Color Combo & Design, Food Garden, Gardening and Landscape Design, Herbs

By Michelle Domocol
Back to Inflourish: Cebu Blog

Homegarden agroforests are personalized, multi-functional gardens. When you grow your own homegarden, you can harvest from a mix of trees, shrubs, and vegetables that can grow well together and provide you with an affordable source of nutrition. 

You can create the homegarden that plays a multitude of roles: a supply of fresh vegetables, floral bouquets, fresh tea leaves, herbs for your favorite sauces, fruits, wood for construction projects, habitat for local butterflies, or a thick shrub/tree buffer to shield you from noisy neighbors and their loud dogs.

Depending on your design the homegarden can start out as circular groups of plants or linear rows. They can be as simple as two tree species like limonsito and kapayas planted in between your favorite vegetables like camote.

As you learn more about your growing site and try more cultivation techniques, you can add more species and create a more complex food forest. Homegardens can also have multipurpose trees, nut trees, medicinal herbs, groundcovers and fragrant butterfly-attracting shrubs.

A homegarden with popular perennials, annual vegetables, herbs, edible ferns, and fruit trees. Other possible choices are saluyot, kulitis, paliya, upo, okra, and kangkong.

In Healing Present, our homegardens feature perennials (plants that live longer than 2 years) and annual vegetables (several harvests and life cycles within a year). Some of my favorite multipurpose perennials are kamunggay, balimbing, and passionfruit. With balimbing and passionfruit, I add the leaves to my daily meals. When they bear fruit, I freeze them for my desserts. Kamunggay’s edible flowers, leaves, and pods are a treat. If you let them grow tall and mature, the provide shade for nearby plants. Passionfruit vines create a thick barrier of leaves on fences so you can have a visual and sound barrier from roads and neighbors.

To maintain the Healing Present’s trees, the talented staff gardeners apply coconut husk fertilizer the soil surrounding the fruits and shrubs. They also prune the fruit trees during certain times of the year to keep them productive. They also regularly add leaf and woodchip mulch around young seedlings. There are other daily and monthly practices to maintain the homegardens but Fertilizing, Pruning, and Mulching are key.

Adding Coconut Husk -based (Bunot) Fertilizer around Fruits and shrubs
Pruning Fruit Trees
Mulching around young trees, vegetables and shrubs

Interested in starting your own homegarden? Here are some tips to get you designing your personal food forest:

  1. Plan & Learn. Ask yourself what plants you find useful or interesting. Plants can fulfill many uses like food, beauty, fragrance, floral decor, songbird attraction, privacy hedge, windbreaks, and more. Brainstorm a garden design with potential vegetables or fruit trees that are easy to grow in your site. Or if you already have some plant knowledge, focus on crops you may know how to grow. Visit plant nurseries and purchase seedlings or tree saplings so you don’t have to start every plant from seed. Be inquisitive. Learn from local farmers, plant nursery staff, local garden clubs, city agriculture programs, university horticultural departments, local plant workshops, online gardening communities, garden design magazines, or online courses. Feel free to explore the following articles or click on the links below this article for more ideas: Terrific AgroforesTrees, A for Agroforestry, Kamunggay, March’s Featured Crop, March: Food x Flower Gardens
  2. Perennial progress. Ask a local nursery or farmer about perennial vegetables, mushrooms, fruits, and herbs that require a low amount of inputs (like fertilizer and pesticide). This means they are long-living, well-adapted, and less likely to give you pest or slow growth problems. It will be even better if you find these perennials fit your needs and preferences.
  3. Groundcovers and mulching. Learn what groundcovers and mulch options are available to you. Growing groundcovers (like mani-mani or ferns) and/or placing mulch (from rice hulls, fallen leaves, or fallen branches) around your young plants reduce the amount of space for weeds to take over your new garden. Over time, as your garden matures, the trees’ roots and overhanging leaves will shade out spaces in garden and reduce weed growth.
  4. Start Small. Don’t be overwhelmed by designing a large space. If possible start by converting a small space. Then, as your skills improve, venture outward and expand the homegarden with simple or more complex combinations of plants.

Enjoy the rest of March! See you in April with dessert recipes, simple fertilizer recipes, and more.

Feel free to contact ask.inflourish@gmail.com for design or gardening questions.

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Sinulog Reunions

Featured by Healing Present Nature & Wellness Center, posted in Color Combo & Design, Container Garden, Food Garden, Gardening and Landscape Design, Raised Beds

By Michelle Domocol @inflourish_
Back to Inflourish: Cebu Blog

It’s Sinulog! January in Cebu is bursting with joyous music, dance, history, and cultural celebration. The vibrant parades, unforgettable costumes, the sea of people, and the food inspire jubilant garden designs. When I was younger and based in the US, I looked forward to flying to Cebu during Sinulog. My mom and other family friends working overseas were giddy when they returned home to Cebu. Every meal, outdoor concert, and dance competition we attended was a spirited reunion, a homecoming  As I munched on new delicacies, the adults around the table regaled each other with their childhood memories of beloved desserts. They giggled and gleefully recalled the home cooks and barangays known for the best bingka, puto, and budbud. While I was mesmerized by the Sinulog dance competitions, my mom’s friends graciously shared Cebuano specialties like budbud kabog, linusak, masi, bingka dawa, and torta. Now that I’m much older I’m lucky enough to live in Cebu. I no longer need a 24-hour plane ride to enjoy Sinulog and Cebu’s delicacies.

Let’s bring a bit of Sinulog’s kaleidoscope of community, color, and tradition into fun garden inspiration:

Sinulog Design Activity:  Think about your favorite meals, dishes, or desserts you eat or prepare during Sinulog. Think about your friends and family’s favorites.  Now write down some of the common or major ingredients. I bet some of those ingredients can be planted in your backyard garden or personal farm. Next, think about your favorite activities during Sinulog. Is it the cooking, dancing, communal karaoke, spending time with grandchildren, watching concerts, or celebrating with your religious community? Whatever your preference, how can you incorporate it into the garden or farm? In my first garden design example, I use plants mainly for decoration, beauty, and some snacking.  If you want your garden to produce a large harvest for your future meals, you’ll add more plants.

Now that you have a good list of plant and outdoor furniture preferences, think or ask an expert landscaper what is feasible for you. Think about your existing sunlight exposure, soil conditions, water availability, site dimensions, and other qualities of your space.

Example 1: The Sinulog Dessert Garden

In my first example, I use a small backyard garden space. It’s planted with native and decorative shrubs and trees. It features kabog (millet), saba banana, mangga (mango), and mani (peanut) plants as a reference to a few of my favorite Sinulog dessert ingredients. I also added outdoor lounges, seating, and a wooden platform as a reminder of Sinulog dance parties and family get-togethers.  The seats can be easily moved to add dance space.

Here are some elements I incorporated: 1) a circular raised bed, attached seating and cute plot of kabog (millet); 2) a dwarf variety of Saba banana like Saging Mondo that grows to 2.5 meters; 3) a grafted dwarf mango in circular container;
4) dwarf coconut trees with decorative yellow flowered-shrubs like cannas and peace lilies as a groundcover;
5) a circular raised with plot of peanut seedlings

Example 2: Sinulog Versatile Outdoor Room

In this second example, I incorporated a central multi-purpose space for people who want the flexibility to convert their garden into a venue for religious services, karaoke parties, or outdoor grilling. The featured plants feature red tapay-tapay flowers (celosia) and yellow dahlias to reflect the motif of Sinulog dancers, posters, and decor. In the other garden beds, I added durable plants with colorful complementary floral/foliage like gumamela (hibiscus), mayana (coleus), and San francisco (croton). You can also add a low-maintenance, native edible fig tree like lagnub (Ficus septica var. salicifolia) for shade and beauty.

Here are some elements in the 2nd example: 1) Sinulog red celosias and yellow dahlias under a fig tree in garden borders; 2) the central flooring can serve as a religious ceremonial space; 3) outdoor tv for group karaoke or movie parties;
4) portable bbq grill

I hope my design suggestions inspire some festive brainstorms. Enjoy the rest of January and savor the rest of Sinulog with friends and family!

Feel free to contact ask.inflourish@gmail.com for design or gardening questions.

If you need more inspiration, here are more examples on colorful celebrations and dessert gardens, click below:

Binignit Garden

April’s Dessert Garden

Atis: Ice Cream Growing on Trees

Popping with Color

(Title banner image by G. Amorim)

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click here to download free garden guides!

Uphill Garden Solutions

Featured by Healing Present Nature & Wellness Center, posted in Color Combo & Design, Container Garden, Food Garden, Gardening and Landscape Design, Raised Beds

By Michelle Domocol

Back to Inflourish: Cebu

When you drive through Healing Present’s farm gate, you’ll immediately notice sets of stone stairways and terraced gardens (Photo 1). A lush mix of vines, fruit trees, ferns, kitchen gardens and other tropical vegetation grow on these multi-level gardens. The mosaic and terrazzo stone steps lead to a payag and guest houses (Photo 2). Each house door opens to a terrace with greenery, lounges and café tables (Photo 3).

Today’s terraced garden is a far cry from its original landscape. Before the outdoor lounging areas, stairs and gardens, the area was rough, steep terrain. The hill was originally embedded with large boulders, some ferns, and weeds.

Photo 1. Multi-level terraced garden in Healing Present with series of vegetable gardens, fruit trees, ferns and stone wall edging.
Photo 2. High stone retaining walls and mosaic tile stairways in Healimg Present.

The hillside was completely transformed with retaining walls, stairs and terraces. The terrace edging and steps were constructed were stones and soil directly from the property (Photo 2 & 3). This reduced costs and the volume of raw materials transported into the farm.

Photo 3. Comfortable lounging & play areas in flat areas of Healing Present’s terraces.

In general, terraced gardening is an effective way to transform a steep, eroding hillside. With terraces, the steep angle can become an easy-to-maintain garden with multiple levels of flat spaces. Then, you don’t need to worry about falling debris, mini landslides, or tripping down a dangerous slope.

If you have a slope or hilly area you’re trying to transform, here are some encouraging reminders:

1. Retaining walls can be customizable, affordable and made of local materials. In my travels, I’ve seen creative retaining walls made from locally sourced materials like:

  • limestone,
  • recycled plastic bottle bricks,
  • concrete,
  • quartz,
  • pruned tree trunks,
  • scrap lumber,
  • adobe clay,
  • old tires, and
  • bamboo

Make sure you use durable materials that suit your site conditions. In Healing Present, we are prone to termite infestations, so we don’t use wood for our retaining walls.

2. Always consult an engineer to determine the slope of your hill. They will help you determine how much material you need to form the steps, garden beds, retaining walls and edging for your terraces.

3. Your sloped garden is unique to the characteristics of your hillside. Consider your soil type, water drainage, and hill angles.

4. You will also have to determine how much weight your terrace to hold. This will help determine your construction materials and stairway style. This will also help you identify the appropriate depth, width and height of your terraces.

5. Make sure your terraces suit you and your visitors. If you have elderly visitors or children, create stairs with railings and other safeguards. Add features that appeal to you and your visitors. When you create more flat areas and multiple levels in your terraced garden, you can plant more themed decorative gardens vegetable beds, play areas or even water features.

Below are 3 different terrace garden concepts I made for you (Photo 4 to 6). They have different features to inspire you.

Photo 4. Vibrant, edible fragrant garden beds wth multiple stairways & a central landing.
Photo 5. A limited variety of plants for a calmer, unified aesthetic with two main terrace levels connected by small set of stairs. Bottom level has seating built into terrace edging.
Photo 6. A formal, low-maintenance decorative border garden with central, open terraces.


When you find the best solution for difficult terrain like a steep slope, it’s incredibly rewarding. Make sure you take the time to plan your sloped landscape. Hasty decisions can make wasteful results like worsened soil erosion. So enjoy the uphill planning process to your hillside solutions.

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Grow your own Party Decor

Featured by Healing Present Nature & Wellness Center, posted in Color Combo & Design, Container Garden, Gardening and Landscape Design

By Michelle Domocol

Back to Inflourish: Cebu Blog

Nowadays, many event designers, party planners and hosts want to incorporate “sustainable” floral bouquets and “sustainable” floral décor to make their party gorgeous and delightful. The request for more sustainability has increased as people realize the negative effects of corporate floristry practices.

In short, standard flowers require lots of agricultural chemicals, fossil fuel-sourced transportation, and energy-intensive refrigeration. Many choose sustainable floral options to avoid flowers grown in this industrial way. One very fun way to get your own sustainable Bouquets and Floral Decor is growing a Party garden.

Photo 1. A collage of flowers, grasses and herbs for a Party Garden.

Below are 10 ideas for your own Party Garden:

  1. Party Gardeners might like to grow in a group of medium-sized pots or raised beds. This may be more manageable and easier to re-arrange when necessary.
  2. Plants with similar water, soil and sun requirements should be grouped together.
  3. If you have a spare garden space, then go ahead and plant the Party Garden florals directly in the ground. Just make sure your garden is well-contained with a fence so the decorative flowers don’t invade natural areas that may be near your garden.
  4. Choose flowers that are easy to cultivate repeatedly bloom in your area. Depending on your region’s climate, this may be zinnias, coreopsis, begonias, marigolds or dahlias. You may also want to choose varieties that have long stems (Photo 1).
  5. Grow plants with elegant foliage like coleus, local ferns, lilies, and irises.
  6. Select some bouquet fillers. Grow some grasses, vines, or long-stem herbs to add volume to your boquets. This can be amaranth, thai basil, pea vines, or passionfruit vines. You can also choose local field grasses (Photo 1).
  7. Make sure you incorporate wide paths or enough space around your plants. Always make it comfortable for you to cut and harvest your flowers and foliage.
  8. Have buckets of water or baskets ready when you cut and harvest your living decorations.
  9. Mulch with dried leaves, rice hulls, or coco coir. Mulch around your flowers so the weeds are supressed. Then they won’t consume your beautiful party garden plants.
  10. If you notice your flowers or foliage is dying or looking diseased, replace the weak plant with new seeds or seedlings and fresh compost.

And here’s some inspiration for using your Party Garden plants:

Once you have a successful garden, there are so many was to use your harvested decor. You can create fresh bouquets, floating flower designs, dried bouquets, framed dried flower collages, garlands that wrap around arches, and more.

For a simple & fresh bouquet, remember to:

  1. Cut the stems at an angle and remove the lower leaves before you place them in a container of water. It can be a vase, flower frog or other receptacle.
  2. Remove any lower leaves or petals submerged under water. Submerged foliage invites unwanted bacteria. This might infect your lovely bouquet.
  3. Make an arrangement you want. Generally, I add a graceful spiral of filler and foliage plants. Then add a few featured flowers. But you can have themed bouquets based on edible plants. Or add a combination of large foliage and long-stemmed tropical flowers like gingers and heliconias. Experiment with Party Gardens and have fun!
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Popping with Color (Part 2)

Featured by Healing Present Nature & Wellness Center, posted in Color Combo & Design, Gardening and Landscape Design

This week I’d like to offer a free mini booklet that may inspire you to build your own color/colour palettes. In the booklet, I offer free color combinations and textural collages to inspire your designs. Enjoy!

If you’d like to learn how to integrate color into your outdoor designs, check out, “Popping with Color”.

COLOUR PALETTE Booklet!Download