Panagbenga postscript: perennials keeping Baguio’s status as flower city

BENCHWARMER

Ramon Dacawi

(First of two parts)

Perennials the likes of  bougainvillea, hibiscus and African tulip are keeping afloat  Baguio’s endangered - if not former -  status as the country’s flower city. The annuals, they that go from seed to bloom and back to seed in one growing season or cycle in Baguio’s temperate climate,   - snapdragon, zinnia, peas, marigold and others - are vanishing with the gardens they used to grow  in.

This is the reality on the ground, notwithstanding the call for year-round blossoming that  the annual Baguio Flower Festival has accented on for 20 years now.

It’s all for convenience. Coaxing an  annual, say petunia, to sprout and bloom, requires tender human loving care for  months, as my unlettered old man repeatedly did, year in and year out for years until his retirement from the city old city nursery that is no longer. The dwindling water supply, the rising cost of labor and of Baguio lots and open spaces   now too precious to waste on annuals, further diminish our status as the country’s flower garden city.

There’s also that growing lament that flowers have given way to plasticity, to the commercialization of this blossoming that “Panagbenga”, is supposed to celebrate.

Even the  Pacdal Forest Nursery that , over the years, shifted to tree seedling production – perhaps also for labor convenience - , is no more.  It’s  giving way to a centralized infrastructure to house all  the various regional offices of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

We find solace from the roadside  view  of perennials  which began exploding with blooms before or with the onset of summer.  Suddenly prominent in February is  the jacaranda, the sight of which you can still catch,  as it sheds  its blue, bell-like flowers along Kisad Road and in front of the community environment and natural resources office at Pacdal.

Native to Central and South America, jacaranda lines up the streets of Pretoria in South Africa where legend has it that if a flower drops on  a student’s head, he or she will pass the final exams at the University of Pretoria.

 All the while I’d presumed jacaranda came from  where  the African tulip did.  Also known as fountain tree, the tulip is so named for its orange-red tulip-shaped blooms that spread  out to its branches in older trees and jut out first on its upper crown in younger ones. Represented by a single species, it’s scientifically called Spathodea campanulata for its spathe-like calyx and campanulate or bell-shaped flowers, mostly red-orange.

As annually experienced by the Baguio media who set up their summer program parachute at the picnic grove of the Burnham Park, African tulip is fast growing, its wood soft and brittle.

Topping the riot of colors  from perennials this summer about to begin  is the bougainvillea. It  blooms in red, pink, orange, yellow, although there may be other shades to be found exposing themselves out of residential gates, fences and hedges in one’s jeepney, taxi or private car ride around. 

Erroneously presuming it came from Spain, I misspelled it as “bougainvilla”. Like Jacaranda,  it originated in South America where it’s known as Napoleon in Honduras, trinitaria in Colombia, Cuba and Puerto Rico, Santa Rita in Argentina, Bolivia and Uruguay.  It’s called papelillo in northern Peru because of its paper-like bracts, its special, brightly  colored leaves which we mistake for the flower because they grow from the stem from which the actual flower develops.

As observed by Wikipedia, the probability of hybrids can be almost endless: Currently, there are over 300 varieties of bougainvillea around the world. Because many of the hybrids have been crossed over several generations, it is difficult to identify their respective origins. Natural mutations seem to occur spontaneously throughout the world.”

The vine’s English and scientific name was in honor of  French Navy admiral and explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville, the first Frenchman to circumnavigate the globe, courtesy of Philipbert Commercon, his botanist on his voyage to South America.

The explosion of  bracts, in clusters of three in  some species and six in others, were what inspired then city mayor Braulio Yaranon to urge residents to plant the vine as a move towards restoring Baguio’s historical link to flowers, perhaps  even without any aim whatsoever  of restoring  the title “Flower Garden City”. (to be continued. e-mailmondaxbench@yahoo.com for comments.)