Category: Herbs

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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Solace in the Garden

Featured by Healing Present Nature & Wellness Center, posted in Container Garden, Gardening and Landscape Design, Herbs, Raised Beds, Therapeutic Garden

By Michelle Domocol
Back to Inflourish: Cebu Blog

This March I’d like to share some garden designs that served as venues for different therapies. Some would classify this use of greenery and vegetation as horticultural therapy. Maybe these designs can inspire you to use beautiful, natural settings or backyard gardens to nurture your health goals and needs.

Patient Therapy Gardens
Meditation/Prayer Gardens
Gathering Spaces

The therapy gardens in this article focused on supplementing hospital services. I envisioned a network of beautiful gardens designed for patient treatment and recovery. As part of a hospital’s holistic healthcare ministry, the garden-based therapy programs
would support oncology, neuro-psychiatry, physical therapy, and rehabilitation medicine. The new gardens could also complement or serve as more spaces comprehensive counseling and hospice programs. Garden-based activities would facilitate the patient’s personal treatment goals. And depending on their condition, patients receive opportunities to participate in activities to address physical, cognitive, affective, psychomotor, and psychosocial functioning. In my particular project, the hospital’s Therapy Park programs supported novel, individualized treatment options that aimed to improve recovery rates, increase patient satisfaction, and upgrade standard care in the Psychiatric, Physical Therapy, Rehabilitation, Oncology, and Hospice Care departments.

Be Open. Tailor these ideas to less specialized health goals like daily relaxation after work.  Focus on simple landscapes like a medicinal tea garden, backyard prayer space, outdoor meditation nook, or mini exercise patio.

Patient Therapy Garden

In this example, the horticultural therapy garden would be restricted to patients and their medical advisers and therapists. The features are wide wheelchair-accessible paths. Shade trees are behind cushioned seating for patient comfort.

The garden also features wheelchair-accessible activity tables and elevated raised beds. The landscape could be adorned with colorful flowers, culturally–significant plants, beautiful flowering shrubs, and hypoallergenic greenery.

This type of garden could be a venue for a program like:

“Weekly Gardening with Acute Psychiatric Patients” – Patients participate in group horticultural activities while they build coping skills. The goals may be to improve social skills and creative self-expression. Patients may foster self-efficacy, confidence, and self-esteem.

A) Shade trees like talisay, fruit trees like balimbing or hardy, non-allergenic native trees with curved, cushioned seating; B) Circular elevated garden beds with wheelchair accessibility for patient activities like herb-planting, orchid cultivation, or bromeliad care; C) Colourful Native wildflower beds, lantana shrubs, hardy groundcovers with ferns; D) Durable benches with groundcovers, fern varieties, and local lily varieties

Meditation & Prayer Gardens

In this second example, meditation gardens would be outside hospital chapels. This design features an outdoor relaxation room. The area would be equipped with cushioned, recliner furniture while lush greenery and a calming pond elicit a serene ambiance.

This type of garden could be a venue for a program like:
“Restore & Reflect with Cancer Patients” – Oncology patients learn garden-based meditation and relaxation. They practice breathing techniques to manage anxiety, feelings of isolation, and emotional distress. These are common conditions associated with a new cancer diagnosis and cancer therapies.

A) Calming pond with gabi varieties and other hardy semi-aquatic species next to altar and lily groundcover; B) Large ferns and irises with trellised vines like nito, camote, buyo, philodendron, passionfruit, or gabi-gabi; C) Bed of fragrant types like lemongrass and citronella; D) Comfortable recliner benches, ottomans, and outdoor rug

Gathering Spaces in Therapy Park

Other sections of the hospital’s landscape would have open access to the public or patients’ visitors on select days.  When restricted access is required for patients’ therapies, the garden could be closed to the public.  This example features lawns for Physical Therapy activities, wheelchair-accessible raised beds, ergonomic elevated planters, wide paths,  and ramps. 

This type of garden could be a venue for programs like:

• “Garden Exercise for Physical Therapy (PT)” – Patients learn specialized outdoor physical therapy (PT) techniques and gardening skills to support their standard PT program. The customized activities could increase muscle activity, increase joint flexibility, increase exercise frequency, increase strength and stamina, improve motor skills, and increase circulation.

• “Garden Journaling for Talk Therapy/ Group Counseling Patients“- Clients in mental health, substance abuse, grief, and family counseling programs could participate in semi-structured nature journaling activities. During these activities, patients could increase self-expression, decrease stress, and write about coping skills taught in indoor counseling sessions. 

A) Shaded seating with vines and shrubs like calamansi and pandan; B) Walkway with large fragrant and floral gumamela varieties and camelia; C) flat lawn with low-maintenance grass and large shade tree like narra; D) Lounges and cafe tables to meet with family and friends or patient consultations and therapy activities; E) Elongated garden beds for patients’ herb, bulb, or shrub gardening; F) Wheelchair accessible garden beds for inclusive gardening and group activities; G) Slip-resistant flooring for optimal safety.

I hope you find some workable ideas for your personal health-focused garden. Who knows? Maybe connections to nature and greenery may support your holistic health journey.

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

If you need more inspiration, here are more examples of gardens focused on health and medicinal plants:

Medicinal and Therapeutic Gardens

Towering Pergolas in Children’s Gardens

A for Agroforestry

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click here to download free garden guides!

Planting Utan Bisaya in May

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

By Michelle Domocol

Back to Inflourish: Cebu

Happy May! It’s truly a month of PLANTiful bounty.  In May you can sow seeds or transplant seedlings of marvelous leafy greens, legumes, gourds, vining veggies and herbs. The vegetables planted in May eventually produce essential ingredients for our favorite soups, adobos, and sinigangs.

Photo 1. The colorful and textural mix of Utan Bisaya ingredients

Many of the veggies planted in May are the ingredients for a delectable soup called Utan Bisaya (Photo 1).  Friends from other Visayan regions call this delicious, hearty vegetable soup Law-uy and Laswa. What did you call it growing up? 

The soil and weather in May are warm enough to support Utan Bisaya ingredients like:

  • Taong (Eggplant)
  • Okra 
  • Kalabasa (Squash)
  • Atsal (Bell Pepper)
  • Sikwa (Luffa Gourd)
  • Sitaw (Yard Long Beans)
  • Kamatis (Tomato)
  • Alugbati (Malabar Spinach) 
  • Luy-a (Ginger)

For a complete list of May plants to cultivate in Cebu, download your planting calendar here. 

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Binignit Garden

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Can’t Contain my Joy

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

By Michelle Domocol

Inflourish: Cebu Blog

I can never contain my joy for a radiant and flourishing container garden. Container gardens are one of the foundational landscaping techniques used in Healing Present. Container gardening is the technique behind our beautiful azotea greenery, sunken gardens (Photo 1), vertical walls and gate plantings (Photo 3 & 4).

Photo 1. Container gardens in our sunken garden (top) and azotea areas (bottom).

In previous articles, we’ve focused on container gardens like raised beds. We’d like to share inspiration and more possibilities you can apply with container gardening techniques.

Below is a potted sanseveria plant Ariel (one of the gifted farm staff) prepared. In this particular project, he adorned the pot with dried fern fronds from the farm. Staghorn ferns are common epiphytes that self-propagate around the farm and forest. Dried jackfruit, taro, and breadfruit leaves are also wonderful options we have at Healing Present. When their leaves drop and naturally dry, they become gorgeous material to decorate furnishings and garden pots.

Photo 2. Ariel planting a sanseveria in a plastic pot decorated with dried fern fronds.

Here are seven lessons Ariel and the rest of Healing Present crew learned from our container planting adventures:

1) Suitable Soil Level. Make sure your container is large enough to provide room for soils and roots. Make sure the soil is at least 1 inch from the top of the container. Don’t fill a container all the way to the top of the container.

2) Well-Drained Soil. Does you container have drainage holes at the bottom? When you water your containerized plants, you want excess water to drain out of the soil. If not, the plant roots can rot from too much stagnant moisture.

3) Strong Containers. At Healing Present, the containers chosen for the garden are planned. They are suited to the environmental conditions and style we want. We use a range of containers, but we ensure they are strong. For us, durable containers can withstand our site’s level of rain, wind, humidity, pests and other factors that can degrade or break down a container. What are the specific site conditions in your backyard or balcony that may affect the durability of an outdoor container?

If you have a sheltered patio garden with little wind, maybe your containers can be ceramic pots & gorgeous glass terrariums. At Healing Present, we’ve used coconut shells in our gate gardens (Photo 3). And we’ve reused thick plastic water bottles for our wall gardens (Photo 4). In other parts of the farm, we’ve used terra cotta, stone, and plastic composite.

Photo 3. Vertical pots adorn our farm gates. Containers are coconut husks and decorated plastic pots in various sizes and shapes.
Photo 4. In our vertical gardens, we used thick plastic Evian bottles and green netting to hold soil and roots.

4) Stylish designs. To achieve a certain style, sometimes we use plastic pots and then insert them in a larger decorative reed or fiberglass container. Sometimes, we embellish an ordinary pot with dried leaves or other natural materials from the farm (Photo 5). Since we have weather that ranges from high humidity, torrential rain, and blasting dry heat, we don’t choose heat-conducting aluminum or brass containers. Over the years, we also learned hungry termites occupy our site. So we don’t use containers made of untreated wood.

Photo 5. A common black plastic pot is decorated with a reed shell to match the decor.

5) De-stress Roots & Repot. Repotting means transferring your containerized plant into a larger container with new fertilized soil. Not all of our container gardens are repotted. We only do this when we notice roots are expanding outside the container. Or sometimes the roots are wrapping around the inside of the pot. Sometimes we repot when the plant’s soil is drying out faster than usual. We also try to repot when the container is no longer half the height of the container.

For instance, one time we neglected a ginger plant that grew 3 times taller than the height of the pot! It was hidden with a group of other container plants, so we didn’t notice it at first. The roots were stressed and needed more room to expand. Instead, the roots were cracking the sides of the terra cotta pot. So it really needed a larger pot and new soil to thrive. Make sure your new pot is at least 2 inches larger in diameter than the current pot. It should also be at least half the height of the current plant.

6) Organically fertilize. With our container plants, we use a soil mix that is mostly made of vermicast. This is a great fertilizer and helps nourish the new roots before and after repotting.

7) Weed Control. Monitor your container plants on a daily or weekly basis. For many, this is a meditative and relaxing exercise. Observe your plants’ growth. If you notice any weeds in your potted plant, pull them out. Don’t let them mature and grow large roots. Get them when they’re young. Weeds can steal water, sun, and nutrients from the plant you want to cultivate. If you have a larger container with a lot of exposed soil, you can add a groundcover plant to suppress any weed growth (Photo 6).

Photo 6. Low growing groudcovers & trailing vines are planted to suppress weeds and create visual interest.

In an upcoming article, I’ll share techniques for creating new container gardens through a technique plant division. See you then.

If you need ideas for plant combinations for your container garden, check out these articles from last month:

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March: Food x Flower Gardens

Featured by Healing Present Nature & Wellness Center, posted in Food Garden, Gardening and Landscape Design, Herbs, Raised Beds, School Gardens

By Michelle Domocol

Back to Inflourish: Cebu Blog

In Cebu, March is a great time to start or expand your Food x Flower gardens. These seeds or young plants can be arranged in containers or beautiful borders around a walkway. Photo 1 (top) shows a welcoming border garden in Healing Present. In March, you can start planting gotu kola, heliconia, basil varieties, and celosia. Photo 1 (bottom) shows what these colorful additions look like when they bloom and mature.

Photo 1. (top) Healing Present’s border garden; (bottom Right to Left) Gotu Kola, Heliconia, Basil Varieties, Celosia

When we held workshops and retreats in Healing Present, we had many visitors, supporters and retreat participants from Bohol. To celebrate their Healing Present advocacy, I want to feature some vegetables and groundcovers you can plant in Bohol. Some of these featured vegetables are

  • eggplant,
  • ampalaya,
  • lettuce,
  • tomato,
  • bok choy,
  • mani-mani (peanut grass groundcover)

Below is a garden design that includes the featured vegetables. Photo 2 shows a planting map with raised beds. Each raised bed has vegetables, flowers, or groundcovers that are grouped by their similar nutrient needs. For instance, eggplants and tomatoes absorb lots of nitrogen and similar micronutrients from the soil so they are placed in the same raised bed. These groups in Photo 2 are designed for crop rotation.

Photo 2. Planting Map and Crop Rotation Diagram of Raised Beds with featured vegetables

The arrows in Photo 2 show each group will be planted in a new raised bed each season.  This diagram shows how  planting design changes from one season to the next. So in Season 1 Tomatoes and Eggplants are grown in the Top Left raised bed.  The next growing season they are planted in the Top Right raised bed.

Crop rotation is a method to ensure your soil provides the nutrients your vegetables need to grow well. When gardeners and farmers plant the same vegetables in the same place every season, the soil loses its minerals and nutrients. They have been absorbed by plants that were previously planted and harvested.  Instead of depleting the soil quality, you can rotate crops.  After you harvest your vegetables in one area, the soil can sustain a second group of plants with its a different unique set of nutrient needs. 

But how do we know what plants have similar nutrient needs? This is only a brief introduction to crop rotation. More details and examples will be highlighted in upcoming articles and downloadable info sheets.

There are nuanced techniques in crop rotation.  For example, after two seasons of rotating crops, some gardeners let a raised bed or farm plot rest. They add layers of vermicompost to the resting plot.  They may also plant green manure or leguminous groundcovers like mani-mani into the resting plot. These plants do not heavily absorb nutrients. They can actually add nitrogen into the soil. 

Crop rotation one of the many organic methods to manage soil quality.  Rotated crops can ensure tomatoes have a vital supply of calcium and manganese from their soil. As a result, we get luscious and disease-free tomatoes. Nutrient-rich soil also produces large, green leaves in bokchoy and lettuce. In short, better soil quality means thriving plants and a nutritious harvest.

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