Local parklands in Cebu and Southeast Asia are cradles of botanic inspiration. Often, well-designedparks use regionally native or locally endemic trees and shrubs. Depending on the availability of their seedlings in public nurseries, you could use a few of these same trees or shrubs in your garden. They can be a spectacular eye-catching feature or hedge in your own gardens. Regionally native, indigenous, or locally endemic refers to a plant’s genetic origin and natural geographic distribution. In the scientific community, these terms have slight technical differences. Among some foresters, park managers, and horticulturists, these terms can be interchangeable. Native or Endemic can mean a plant originally grew in the coasts, forests, riverbanks, or other ecological niches in Cebu. Or maybe the plant was originally found throughout the mangroves or rainforests of the Philippines. Local, Native, or Endemic can also mean the plant naturally grows in Maritime Southeast Asian countries like Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
REMEMBER: make sure you have the time, water, and soil type to help your native plant thrive. For instance, you can buy the most locally native vine from Cebu’s uplands. But if it’s neglected and left unwatered on your concrete patio, the stressed vine may shrivel and die.
Be curious and inspired. Visit the lush splendor of local parks in Cebu and venture to the rest of Southeast Asia.
In general, choosing locally or regionally native trees and shrubs creates a strong, adaptable landscape. A combination of native plants function well with local climate and rain availability. As a result, they need less growing assistance from additional fertilizers or pesticides. When the trees or shrubs are well-established, local birds, bees, butterflies and beneficial pollinators can use these plants as a source of nectar and shelter. Often, the fallen leaves and roots of regionally endemic plants naturally mulch and enrich the soil’s health. Depending on the particularly adaptive species, they can have additional qualities like drought-resistance and wind-resilience. With a bit of research and a fun search through local parks, you can find extremely gifted trees and shrubs.
The examples below are popular regionally and locally endemic species suited to Cebu’s climate. They are best planted in the rainy season so they start out with a moderate amount of water and sun. Plants in this list also flourish in other islands of the Philippines and Southeast Asian countries.
Ginger is commonly known as a popular spice in delicious dishes like Kinilaw and drinks like Salabat. But for gardeners, landscape designers, and tropical plant enthusiasts, gingers encompass diverse plants from botanical families like Zingiberaceae and Costaceae. Gingers and their relatives can be striking features in Cebu’s potted gardens and footpath borders. You can grow gingers in lush, dense groups along a path. Gingers can grow from 3 to 6 feet. Depending on how you prune them, the swaying stems and plump green leaves can shade walkways and soften garden edges.
Gingers’ foliage are bejeweled with stunning floral displays. Their multi-colored blossoms resemble painted pine cones, graceful orchids, butterfly wings, bromeliad spikes, and many more marvelous configurations. In the image below, you’ll see a gorgeous sample of native and naturalized ginger flowers found in Philippine’s forests and gardens.
The flowers above belong to: A) a spiral ginger called Insulin plant (Helliana speciosa); B) Adelmeria alpina; C) Vanoverberghia rubrobracteata; D) Etlingera fimbriobractea ; E) Alpinia haenkei ; F) Zingiber zerumbet; G) Adelmeria gigantifolia; and H) Turmeric (Curcuma longa).
Growing Gingers. Gingers can be planted from small pieces of their roots. These pieces or rhizome segments must have buds to successfully grow. In Healing Present, we usually plant them during the rainy season. You can start them in individual pots or raised beds. Once the seedlings have strong stems, you can transfer them to different parts of your garden. Some gardeners, without many pests, press the ginger pieces directly into the soil. The pieces are planted about 3 inches deep and at least 7 inches apart. I like to grow them in dense clumps so they make a bold visual impact when they grow taller. In general, gingers prefer Cebu’s humidity, partial shade and indirect light. For the best results, grow them in soil that drains well.
Below are different locations we planted ginger. Some gingers are in a shaded balcony or thriving under the canopy of a native cinnamon tree. Others are next to a garden wall that blocks direct sunlight. Other ginger relatives are in pots next to ponds. All these locations receive frequent rain or irrigation. They also block constant heat and direct sun exposure.
With pruning, gingers are pretty low-maintenance. Just remove any dead or damaged stems during they year. Those dead brown canes or stems make great additions to your compost. Here are a few more design tips to help you integrate an abundance of gingers in your garden:
A stairway in Healing Present’s farm lined with a variety of ginger relatives like insulin plants, turmeric, and ginger lilies. The parallel islands of ginger are complemented with ferns and Saging-saging (canna lilies). Complement your ginger islands with moisture-loving accents like ferns, lilies, and ornamental bananas.
Don’t add a thin line or skinny row of plants along your walkway. Add wide bands or clusters of gingers. With regular, moist conditions gingers can grow to 4 feet or more in width. So it won’t take long to grow a wealth of ginger. Wider groups of gingers add verdant impact and visual harmony.
Since gingers love partial shade, consider adding them to a shaded path. In Healing Present’s farm, we frequently decorate a path with a passionfruit pergola overhead. Then, we plant gingers on both sides of the the stepping stones.
Hope this inspires you to beautify your garden paths with some gorgeous ginger additions!
First image of ginger flowers courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and Co’s Digital Flora of the Philippines.
Last June I took a break from posting an article and dedicated more time to managing new projects for Healing Present. The in-house construction and plant nursery staff are working hard to grow tree saplings and upgrade fences around our established forests and budding new agroforestry gardens.
I’d love to share some brainstorms for plant combinations for our upcoming forestry and garden plots. It’s incredibly essential to focus on Healing Present’s private reforestation but Cebu’s fragile environment needs the broader protection and resource enhancement of Mananga-Kotkot-Lusaran watershed forest reserves and public green spaces like CCPL (Central Cebu Protected Landscape).
Beyond Healing Presents current projects, I want to also share my personal aspirations for community-led watershed forest restoration through CCPL (Central Cebu Protected Landscape):
Support Existing Watershed Forests. On Healing Present’s existing forests’ creeks and natural pools by increasing biodiverse native canopy cover and understory. We will use techniques like assisted natural native plant regeneration, medium diversity planting, tree island nucleation, and coverage rows to increase cover in degraded riparian buffer areas. We would plant climate-adapted, typhoon-resistant canopy species (eg., Anisoptera thurifera, Parashorea malaanonan, Shorea malibato, Petersianthus quadrialatus), deep-rooted windbreaks and erosion control species (eg., Calophyllum inophyllum and Diospyros blancoi). If possible, we’d like to echo this action on a broader community-connected scale. In the future we’d like to join other organizations’ efforts to provide vegetation and technical support to local watershed forest reserves in the nearby CCPL. Increased canopy cover improves our watershed’s functionality and ecological services such as wildlife connectivity, riverbank stabilization, and freshwater recharge. Any effort to truly increase biodiverse the watersheds’ native canopy cover between forest fragments and other degraded areas of the watershed forest reserves would benefit the province and city of Cebu.
Support Existing Watershed Agroforestry training and implementation. In Healing Present, we promote and plant multistrata agroforesty designs for native forest restoration, our own consumption and health benefits. In the future, we’d like to provide support for existing agroforesty initiatives that are more around our nearby watershed. We’d also like to help existing reforestation projects plan crop cultivation schedules that ultimately lead to phases of forest restoration. Some combinations we’ve recommended around Balamban and properties include species that are :
high-value timber (e.g., Anacardiaceae and Caesalpiniaceae, Verbenaceae);
cash crop nut trees (e.g., Canarium ovatum);
high-demand fruit trees (e.g., Citrus spp.Mangifera altissima, Chrysophyllum cainito);
perennial culinary and decorative (eg., Zingiberaceae).
We’d also like to join organizations in their efforts to provide training and resources for locally accessible agroforestry interventions and sustainable enterprises. CCPL, for example, would benefit from a strong and continued Successional Agroforestry Training Program. Trainees would learn suit market demands, community preferences, biophysical conditions, labor availability, affordability, and infrastructure. Options would be compatible with regionally practiced agroecological methods, low tillage, and climate-smart agricultural techniques. The multi-strata agroforests permitted in CCPL could be intercropped with native nitrogen-fixing vegetation, fast-growing nitrogen-fixing groundcovers, fodder species, and perennial crops in multiple-use zones, depending on the trainees’ site conditions and management goals.
Other suitable site designs, affordable crop management, buyer negotiations, product marketing, and commercialization would benefit the existing and new farmers in CCPL. Featured management techniques could include selecting multipurpose trees/shrubs that enrich soil and crop productivity (e.g., Leucaena spp.), contour vegetation strips, floral insectary hedgerows, living fences, windbreaks, and multistrata homegarden designs. The program will facilitate farmer-to-farmer exchange with existing homegarden and medium-scale systems. Some examples would focus on ginger-based agroforestry models, diverse taro systems combined with native shade trees (e.g., Dipterocarpaceae), climate-adapted crop varieties, and improved grafted varieties.
The targets on agroforestry and improved watershed management in CCPL enhance community-led engagement in watershed protection. Agroforestry-based production presents economically viable methods to simultaneously implement watershed restoration and generate income for communities of growers.
Support Native Bat Habitat. In Healing Present’s forests and CCPL I want to refine the focus on stabilizing resident keystone bat populations (e.g., Golden-capped Flying Fox, Large Flying-fox, and Little-Golden Mantled Flying Fox). Strong bat habitats supports the restoration of the watershed’s multiple ecosystems and their indigenous flora and faunal communities. The protection of bat populations also sustains their role in watershed forest regeneration, commercial fruit pollination, and agricultural pest control through Cebu. If reforestation is successful, the aim is to increase native bat forested habitat connectivity between fragments of closed canopy, open canopy and other tropical rainforest patches
In Healing Present, we want to increase the amount of food and habitat trees preferred by Golden-capped Flying Fox, Large Flying-fox, and Little-Golden mantled flying fox (e.g., Ficus aurantiaca, F. variegata, F. crassiramea, Nauclea orientalis). In CCPL, if more bat habitat projects move forward, the sites for bat corridors and applied nucleation can connect areas of wooded grassland, shrubland, closed canopy forest, highly fragmented primary and secondary tropical rainforest patches, riparian forests, and ravine dipterocarp forest patches.
I’m excited Healing Present continues to increase the vegetation in our forest fragments but they will weaken if nearby greenspaces and watersheds outside our private properties are unprotected, bulldozed, and covered in concrete. Hopefully effective community efforts can battle the unmitigated commercial development, sand and gravel extraction, solid waste pollution, agrichemical pollution, and unsustainable charcoal production on our precious Mananga-Kotkot-Lusaran watershed forest reserves in CCPL.
In today’s post, I’m celebrating landscapes–large and small–flourishing with native trees, shrubs, ferns, flowers, and grasses. Gardens that showcase the Philippines’ endemic and indigenous flora instill pride. I recently saw a presentation that emphasized Philippines has over 3000+ indigenous trees while all of Europe has only 454 native species. And boy do some European countries campaign for the protection and widespread use of their small pool of local trees. In Cebu, our own government buildings are adorned by the same typical palette of non-native foliage planted around local hotel chains.
The culture of undervaluing native species originates from a host of historical and economic reasons. One cause stems from a commercial plant industry that isn’t equipped to propagate many types of native species. Plus customers are unfamiliar (or assumed to be inexperienced) with native species’ maintenance needs and aesthetic.
But those trends can change. I hope we eventually invest in a horticultural industry and culture that celebrates, researches, and proliferates the protection and integration of endemic and indigenous flora in our personal gardens, commercial spaces, and public parks.
Here’s a fun design to inspire new garden combinations that feature endemic and indigenous flora.
In this design, the numbers represent the following types of plants: 1-Ficus species; 2-Nauclea orientalis; 3-Native and naturalized Bamboo species; 4, 5, 6, 8, 10- Groups of Native Shrubs; 7, 9, 11- Native Ferns
1- Ficus species. You can use local fig species like Ficus nota, Ficus variegata, and Ficus ulmifolia. These species are fast growing, attract beautiful birds, and fruit all year. Ficus nota and Ficus ulmifolia grow to 3 to 5 meters and shade smaller gardens during hot, sunny days. While Ficus variegata grows in full sun and rises to 25 meters.
2-Nauclea orientalis. Locally referred to as Hambabaw or Bangkal, these trees sprout distinctive spherical fruit. They are fast-growing, tolerate waterlogged soils, heavy winds, and produce beautiful blooms in full sun. They can reach 15 meters and their outstretched leafy branches offer cool air (like natural air-conditioning) and excellent shade.
3- Bamboo species. Native bamboo species from the Cyrtochloa, Dinochloa, Schizostachyum genera are great choices. When planted in groups they create natural screens and privacy from neighbors.
4, 5, 6, 8, 10- Shrubs. Borders with alternating sections of shrubs create bold accents. For example, grow 5 local blueberry shrubs in a group. Then next to that group grow a cluster of 5 Cratoxylum shrubs. Alternating clusters make more visual impact than a single row of different individual shrubs. Other shrubs you can plant are bignay species, lemongrass, and pay-at (Clerodendrum macrostegium, Clerodendrum brachyanthum, or Clerodendrum intermedium).
7, 9, 11- Native Ferns. Diplazium esculentum (edible fern) and Lygodium species (nito) are wonderful, hardy choices for combining groups of ferns.
I hope this design encourages you to discover more native flora in your local forests and plant nurseries. And if you already know about local indigenous and endemic flora, I hope you’re inspired to garden with native species and teach others about your knowledge of local trees, shrubs, and flowers. The above photos of plant features are from Co’s Digital Flora and Wikimedia commons. I highly recommend Co’s Digital Flora if you’d like to learn more and marvel at the abundance and diversity of native species around the Philippines.
In previous articles, I described the environmental recovery and reforestation techniques practiced at Healing Present. In this post, I’d like to continue our chat about agroforestry and forest restoration.
We select a variety of indigenous trees that will survive the current conditions of Healing Present’s site. We also choose them for the ecological benefits. Generally, all of the species chosen for reforestation enrich the land by:
increasing soil fertility,
supporting native wildlife,
feeding food pollinators like bees and butterflies, and
controlling soil erosion
Photo 1. Healing Present crew grow, plant, and monitor the health of the native agroforest trees.
Healing Present’s crew cultivates hundreds of tree species (Photo 1). Many of these species are already established or waiting to be planted. The current rainy season and typhoon repairs delay our progress sometimes. But I want to highlight 5 indigenous trees and the important roles they play in our restoration:
1. Toog (Petersianthus quadrialatus)
When respected and left alone, this towering giant can grow to 65 meters. As part of an agroforest and restoration site, Toog has the ability to repel pests like destructive woodboring beetles. Toog are homes to important wildlife and mitigate the loss of tropical forest biodiversity.
2. Dakit (Ficus benjamina)
On a sunny day, you’d want rest against a Dakit’s trunk and under its canopy. On average, its leaves and branches spread to a 21-meter crown. The canopy provides the best shade for people, shade-loving plants, and animals. Thankfully, the shade also suppresses sun-loving weeds. On top of that, Dakit attracts vital seed-spreading wildlife like birds and bats. It can endure degraded soil and quickly occupy abandoned areas that need reforestation.
3. Kapok (Bombax ceiba)
Traditionally, Kapok’s seeds and pink blossoms were used for food and medicine. In Healing Present, kapok is primarily planted for its ecological functions. Like Dakit, it can quickly occupy barren woodland. Its fragrant flowers also attract key pollinators like bees and birds. In addition, a 25-meter tall Kapok tree can serve as a boundary marker. A group of Kapok can also form a living fence.
4. Banaba (Lagerstroemia speciosa)
Banaba (Photo 1) is more than the gorgeous purple flowers. Agroforesters treasure banabas and their ability repair unstable soils, control erosion, and add nutrients to formerly degraded forests. Beyond those incredible qualities, banaba can be pruned. The pruned leaves, fruit, and branches can be food for livestock and medicine.
5. Kamagong (Diospyrus blancoi)
Finally, we arrived at the beloved Kamagong. With its reddish, velvety mabolo fruit, Kamagong has so much more to offer than furniture timber. Kamagong in restoration projects are amazing partners in soil erosion control and wind-resistance. Wind-breaks and wind-resistant trees are like environmental guardians in a country so vulnerable to typhoons.
There you have it…5 rockstars in Healing Present’s growing reforestation project. I hope you get inspired to learn more about our precious environmental heritage and the various ways to protect it.
