Gardens in the wilderness

Visualize this lush clump of Freycinetia in your garden or a botanical garden. This photo was taken from Mt. Palali on Nueva Vizcaya.

Anyone who loves both mountaineering and gardening surely would have been stopped in his tracks by scenes that are just so perfect that transporting that very same setting on one's garden seems to be the only way to achieve that look that resides in every gardener's heads- but so difficult to recreate, let alone elucidate.

Forests are not a wild tangle of an impenetrable jungle as one would be inclined to think. Amidst that diversity where one plant competes against another for space and light is an often invisible master plan that dictates where a plant or a rock should be- a structured chaos if you will. And if you just keep still for a while and look intently around you, you may see hints of that grand design. 


"I grew up in a forest. It's like a room. It's protected. Like a cathedral... it is a place between heaven and earth."

Anselm Kiefer

Mossy forest formation on Lake Janagdan, Leyte, at about 900 m altitude. A virtual Missa Solemnis of trees, ferns, epiphytes, and mist.

"But I'll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you'll come to understand that you're connected with everything."

Alan Watts

A chasm on the summit of Mt. Tapu'lao shelters an entire ecosystem in its recesses, dominated by a tree fern.

The same chasm, on a different vantage point. Just add a seat and a table and everything is all set.

A colony of Dipteris conjugata. Mt. Palali, Nueva Vizcaya.

A mossy wall supports the orchid Pholidota ventricosa and several of its offsprings. Mt. Palali, Nueva Vizcaya.

"Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a  garden to know it."

Rumi

Bonsai forest at the summit of Mt. Tapu'lao. Elevation: 2.037 m above sea level. Vaccinium and other high altitude shrubs provide color with their new leaf flushes.

"It is one thing to hear about the forest and the river, but an entirely other experience to go there, to see the environment, and to appreciate the natural riches there first-hand."

Chris Kilham

Exploration of Mt. Palemlem on Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte, The summit altitude is said to be at 1,271 m above sea level. The vegetation was so dense that a traverse proved futile. We had to turn back. But it had one of the lushest natural gardens I have ever seen.

Many collectors nurture what they call an 'epiphyte branch' and fill it with lots of epiphytic plants- in fact way too many plants that it eventually looks too hectic. Behold this branch overhanging a river in the island of Samar. Just a few orchids, a small Huperzia on the left, a draping, small-leaved Dischidia, and mats of mosses. Very tasteful.

The spectacularly colored Strongylodon caeruleus blooms on a forest fringe on the island of Leyte.



A flower cluster of Hoya ilagiorum, photographed in Laguna, rages against the dying of the light.

"That was what it felt like- as if one had always been in that place and never been bored although nothing had ever happened."

C.S. Lewis

Imugan, Nueva Vizcaya. Note the large Begonia macgregorii on the left. 

Bukal Falls in Majayjay, Laguna.

On the way to Kabigan Falls, Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte, a stately tree adds a sculptural element to the surrounding greenery.

Limestone spires thrust their jagged blades skywards in the town of Atimonan in Quezon. In some of my cacti pots, I have tried to recreate the effect by placing jutting rocks around each of the plants.

"There's nothing more frightening - and exciting - than getting lost in a forest. There is a journey towards the light, and you've got to go through the dark to get to the light. That's what the forest is all about."

David Farr

The forest around Lake Janagdan, Leyte. 

The sun begins to set on the vast savannahs of Mt. Pundaquit in Zambales.

"The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness."

John Muir

This has to be one of my favorite shots, and one I usually call 'Eden'. It is difficult to put into words, but there is a grand design here- from the placement of the boulders and the tall grasses fringing the ravine, to the sinewy trees and tree fern and the misty slopes further up. A gardener can only recreate this on a much lesser scale and depth. We are but poor imitators. 


"A garden must combine the poetic and the mysterious with a feeling of serenity and joy."

Luis Barragan

The afternoon sun lends an ember glow on a field of pine trees on Mt. Tapu'lao's pine forests, at an elevation of around 1,900 m. This is a mountain I have been to alone, twice. In both visits, I stayed for three days and two nights and had the mountain for myself. But a return trip in search of solitude will likely never happen again. The mountain has fallen to commercialization. Very soon structures will be built and people from all walks of life will arrive in droves, obliterating all traces of solemnity the mountain once had.