Tag: pollinators

April & May, Explore & Play

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

By Michelle Domocol @inflourish_

Back to Inflourish: Cebu

April and May are wonderful months to plan fun garden activities for upcoming school breaks. If you have summer school students, children, nieces and/or nephews, plan a garden. Or arrange a fieldtrip to child-friendly gardens, parks and/or playgrounds. These landscapes are excellent venues for playtime, nature exploration, and family bonding. Here are some fun ideas to inspire some fun kid-centric adventures in a garden, park, or playground.

  1. SENSORY GARDENS: Build a sensory garden or add sensory plants to an existing gardens. Sensory gardens feature plants that stimulate children’s observation skills and imagination. Together, you can choose plants that possess leaves with vibrant colors or leaves with unique shapes. Greenery with notable textures, amazing aromas, delicious fruits, and/or extreme sizes. To stimulate a garden visitor’s auditory senses, choose plants that attract local songbirds or chirping geckos. Some examples are these sensory-stimulating flora are multi-colored San Francisco, 30-meter tall Tipo trees with their unique, lobed leaf shapes, or Ilang-Ilang with fruity fragrance that travels throughout the afternoon. Other examples are native sensory marvels are trees like Bangkal (Nauclea orientalis), Katmon (Dillenia philippinensis), and Almaciga (Agathis philippinensis). For more kid-centric plant combinations and sensory garden design suggestions, check out:
The sensory garden design above features plants like colorful ornamental gingers, duwaw, trellised passionfruit vines, potted native berries, and potted ilang-ilang.

2. EDIBLE APRIL & MAY: With your enthusiastic students and youth gardeners, you can plant herbs, berries and vegetables. They can use my planting calendar to choose what seeds to plant and add to the garden. If you want to learn more about April berries to plant, check out April’s Dessert Garden. During these hot and dry months, be sure to smart water conservation techniques like mulching, drip irrigation, and if you saved water during the rainy season, it’s time to use your rainwater storage tanks. You can also check out your local children’s gardening events through facebook groups, churches, or barangay hall events.

>>>>Download planting calendar
>>>>Download cebu pollinator plants

3. COOL, STARRY NIGHT GARDENS: Plan a garden that you and the kids can enjoy at night. Sometimes summer days can be too hot. Evenings in the garden, under the stars, are much more enjoyable. Add fragrant, night-blooming water lilies, vines and shrubs to your garden. Choose shrubs that emit strong evening fragrances. Night fragrant orchids, cacao flowers and Dama de Noche jasmine are excellent examples. Or plant a raised bed with night-blooming cacti and flowers that attract the often-overlooked nocturnal pollinators. Flowers like night-blooming phlox, angel’s trumpet, Queen of the Night cactus, honeysuckle, and evening primrose invite amazing local bats and moths. These nighttime gardens are great spots for children to run around and explore. They are also beautiful venues for outdoor parties with the whole family.

Enjoy the rest of April and hope you have a blooming start to May!

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Year-Round Zesty Citrus Garden

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

In a previous articles like, Bees and Belonging and Starter Citrus Garden, I’ve offered delicious fruit garden designs and fruit-growing instructions for your own manageable and convenient supply of juicy fruit.

In this post, I’ll present a new citrus design, from my ebook, Inflourish Cebu Kitchen Garden Designs, you can start in April. I’ll also share coconut husk fertilizer and vermicompost techniques we practice in the farm. They help us maintain citrus trees with minimal non-chemical fertilizer.

Zesty Citrus Garden. The Zesty Citrus Garden is full of beautiful, blooming citrus flavors for your favorite dishes, salads, desserts, dips sauces, and marinades. Buongon Salad, fresh Limonsito juice, and CocoLemon Yogurt are some of my favorite citrus treats. Fruit juice and zest from limonsito, biasong lemon, kumquat and pomelo also flavor party juices, teas, and tasty cocktails. For these recipes, check out the ebook or our other recipe books.

In the Zesty Citrus Garden, you’ll have a beautiful collection dwarf citrus trees –both native and naturalized species. These tasty trees not only flavor your meals, they also nurture essential pollinators like stingless bees and native butterflies.

In this design, the numbers represent the following fruitful plants: 1-Passionfruit; 2-Dwarf Tacunan Lubi; 3-Buongon; 4-Limonsito; 5-Biasong; 6-Lemon; 7-Makrut Lime, 8-Kumquat; 9-Dayap Lime; 10-Cabuyao

The outdoor bar and background mirror are framed with Passionfruit and Dwarf Tacunan Lubi. These two plants attract essential pollinators and help the other trees produce fruit. In-ground and potted Buongon, Limonsito, and Biasong form a fragrant citrus island backing a circular cushioned chair and ottoman. Behind a parallel set comfy outdoor seats is a gorgeous raised bed of more citrus trees like Lemon, Makrut Lime, Kumquat, Dayap Lime, and Cabuyao. Thankfully some of these citrus trees have grafted or dwarf varieties that can stay short and compact for convenient harvesting and smaller garden dimensions. Just look for plant nurseries that carry compact varieties if you have a cozy garden space.

Coconut Husk Fertilizer. Every few months, we check if our fruit trees need non-chemical fertilizer to help them grow fruits. If they do, after we’ve watered their soil, we add a 1/2 cup of liquid fertilizer. The coconut husk fertilizer is just a mix of coconut husk pieces and water. It sits and ferments for a few days before pouring it onto the fruit tree’s soil.

Vermicompost. We also have the option to add vermicompost and vermicompost tea to the soil. This could be added to the top of the soil or to the potting mix before a plant is placed in the ground or container. Browse through this slideshow of photos and excerpts of our farmer’s instruction manual to remind them of the DOs and DON’Ts for vermicomposting:

  • Vermicompost Earthworm 3-level apartment
  • Reminders in farmers’ manual
  • Foods for Vermi Worms
  • More Reminders to keep the Special earthworms thriving
  • Special vermicompost worms
  • Chopped Bani (Banana stem) for earthworm food
  • Comfy Dried leaves and torn cardboard for vermicompost bedding
  • Bedding and food added to the bottom of the Earth worm Apartment

Vermicompost comes from special earthworms that eat certain types of food. After they eat, they produce a beneficial manure that is nutritious for plants and non-toxic to humans. There are many different systems to house vermicompost worms. Our earthworm gardeners live in mini 3-level worm apartment made of 3 storage bins. This apartment keeps the earthworms alive & thriving, holds their food, and helps us extract beneficial manure and compost tea from the earthworms.

I hope this design and fruit production tips inspire to start your sweet, tangy citrus garden journey. Have a fruitful April.

Related Articles and book with Citrus Trees

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Garden Journaling & Planning Tools

Featured by Healing Present Nature & Wellness Center, posted in agroforestry, Container Garden, Food Garden, Gardening and Landscape Design, Green Roofs, Outdoor Classrooms, School Gardens

By Michelle Domocol
Back to Inflourish: Cebu Blog

This month is a great time to start using planting calendars, garden journals, and other garden planning documents to explore/ study your garden’s progress. Below are my record-keeping, garden planning sheets, and fun gardening activities to track & improve your garden. They may inspire you to create your own custom documents.

And in 2023, check out our online store. I will launch my collection of garden journals, planting calendars, and gardening education books.

order new garden design Books & Cookbooks today!

download free garden guides below!

Gardening journal

>>>> Download

Planting Calendar

>>>> Download

garden planning sheets

Pollinator Planning & Garden Motif Planning

>>>>Download
>>>> Download

Garden Education Activities

>>>>Download
>>>>Download

Tropical, Tactile Gardens for Children

Featured by Healing Present Nature & Wellness Center, posted in Gardening and Landscape Design, Outdoor Classrooms, School Gardens

By Michelle Domocol
Back to Inflourish Cebu

In previous posts, I’ve introduced ways to initiate a children’s garden. Whether you’re a teacher, caregiver, or designer, you can find numerous ways promote plant appreciation in young gardeners. Trust me, it’s all worth the effort. There’s nothing like seeing younger gardeners cultivate their curiosity for the Earth.

The trick is engaging children’s sensory powers. We can build:

And what’s left? What other senses can we amplify with a magical garden? How about our human tactile powers…our sense of Touch?

Luckily, we live in the tropics. In our tropical humidity, we can grow a spectacular range of plants with prickly, feathery, furry, sticky and other peculiar textures.

For this initial introduction into plant textures, I’ll share a garden path design with smooth exteriors. This garden walkway is designed with touchable, tropical plants.

After the garden is built, you and your young investigators can learn how these smooth, durable plants get nutrients. This garden design features shiny, smooth Bromeliads, Succulents, and Philodendrons (Photo 1). They all possess specific ways of storing water and collecting nutrients. Luckily, these plants aren’t fragile and can withstand the tactile pressure of curious explorers.

Photo 1. Garden paths (Right) and planted stairways (Left) with tactile tropical plants can be fun outdoor learning spaces

Here’s a sample activity to help you how you and younger generation explore tropical plant textures. Remember you can adjust this activity to suit your specific budget, timeline, students’ learning preferences, and resources. You can always start with a small garden and then expand later when more resources are available.

Puzzling Paths with Tropical Touchables (Photo 1)

  • Choose a humid, sunny spot in your garden with space for a walkway. You can also adapt this project for stairs as well. The garden site can be in your home, at school, or in a community space. This will be the site of your tactile garden, the Puzzling Path with Tropical Touchables.
  • Tell your students about your special Puzzling Path project.
  • With your students or children, introduce each other to plant textures with selection of bromeliads, philodendrons, and succulents. You can explore outside in a park, at a plant nursery, or do a group internet search. You can gauge their level of involvement. For instance, 2nd graders may want to lead the plant research and design process.
  • If possible, let them choose bromeliads, philodendrons and succulents that are commonly available. Allow them to choose varieties that spark enthusiasm. Maybe they are attracted to the plants with the brightest colors, coolest shapes, and/or the plumpest appearance.
  • When you are planning your path, make sure you have gaps around each stepping stone. The gaps will be planting space for the small succulents. You can have additional planting space by adding a row of planting space on both sides of the stone walkway. See illustration below for a sample design (Photo 2).
Photo 2. (Left to Right): An illustrated closeup of a Puzzling Path; My suggested layout for the Puzzling Path design.
  • The path should be wide enough for you and the children. I suggest you make the path wide enough for at least 2 children to pass through comfortably (Photo 2). You and the children can also determine the space between each stepping stone. Mark the path outline with flags or strings. You and your youthful garden crew can customize the design.
  • Once you’ve determined the dimensions and layout of your walkway, choose a set of stepping stones. You can go to a rockery or hardware store to choose limestone, plastic, concrete, brick or other low-cost flat stones (Photo 3). I recommend choosing stepping stones with a 3-inch thickness. You can add a few medium boulders on the outer border, next to your bromeliads. This adds more textures and height (Photo 3).
  • With the help of a professional construction crew or landscaping professionals, dig out a flat path that is 5 inches deep. You will excavate the existing terrain to install the paving stones and plants. Make sure the construction crew uses layers of landscape fabric or plastic to suppress weeds. They should also add a layer of sand and soil to ensure the stepping stones are level and sitting at the same height.
  • Go to a plant nursery or farm and pick young, small plants to fill the space around your stepping stones. Choose locally available bromeliads, succulents and low-maintenance philodendrons. These young plants will grow bigger after you’ve inserted them into your garden path design (Photo 3). As they grow, the will fill in the gaps in your garden path.
  • Here’s a sample plant list for your puzzling path (Photo 3):
    • Bromeliads like Neoregelia spp.
    • Jade plant groundcovers from Crassula spp.
    • Small, clumping Echeveria spp.
    • Philodendron cordatum
    • Aloe vera
Photo 3. In my illustration, I feature jade plants and echeverias around limestone stepping stones. Purslane and hardy sedum succulents are also included.
  • Now for the botanical magic. You and the children can now plant and insert the succulents in between the stepping stones. The planting space beside the walkway is reserved for the larger bromeliads, philodendrons and succulents.
  • Make sure all your plants’ roots are covered by soil. Supervise your beginner gardeners to make sure each plant is not damaged while planting. Water the plants after the intial planting. Monitor the plants weekly. If you or your young explorers notice dry soil, water your Puzzling Path. In general, these tropical touchables are hardy and don’t need frequent watering.

I hope you enjoyed my ideas for engaging sensory gardens. I look forward to sharing more outdoor learning inspiration. Happy exploring!

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Terrific AgroforesTrees

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

By Michelle Domocol

Inflourish: Cebu Blog

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.

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