Saturday, June 20, 2020

Too Close For Comfort

MY INDOOR DENIZENS are foregoing social distancing just to bask in the sun on this backyard beach--er, nursery. It's quite a sight while I do horticulture work and polish repurposing the garage, while The Lettermen croon "A Summer Place" on my wife's radio. Are we really back?

The structure was retired from its original service as a garage, fenced off from the driveway, a private door cut on its side wall, and its window widened to convert it into a writing shed, still in progress under the watchful eye of a fragrant linden tree.

Group shot, clockwise from the rear: (1) the first F. philippinensis (jaundiced from having been indoors since last fall), (2) the latest F. philippinensis with an aerial root being trained soilward using an orange drinking straw, (3) the aged and pricey F. microcarpa with a branch being converted into an aerial root using a water bottle filled with soaked sphagnum moss, (4) the popular F. microcarpa ginseng (also called "mallsai"--go figure), and (5) the young tiger bark F. retusa, in training and experimental restyle. Joining the gang are two other Mindoro denizens in welcome company: (6) sampalok (Tamarindus indica) and (7) kalimumogtsaang gubat or Fukien tea tree (Ehretia microphylla), both newly repotted.

The young tiger bark F. retusa out of the box.
The trunk was made horizontal by digging up and exposing the main root and propping it on a rock.
Wired and styled with new exposed roots.

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