Perennials keeping afloat Baguio’s Flower City status

BENCHWARMER

 (2^nd of two parts)

Driving around - from Burnham Park to Campo Sioco, to Military Cut-off, to  Country Club Road and down to Leonard Wood Rd -, one finds valid the advocacy of former city mayor BraulioYaranon for the propagation of bougainvilla here.  The vine is sturdy, hardly needing water and care, so unlike sensitive and fleeting annuals,  even while  some tend to grow slowly and may take years to bear bracts and flowers.

   

While in that personal search for bougainvillas, I  began  to take notice of the coral tree, the ubiquitous hibiscus and even the red bottle brush that my old man, thanks to his superiors, learned to identify by its scientific name:  callistemon.

The coral tree, together with the golden bush, is a more recent introduction here. Preceding both were the African tulip, the eraser tree, together with  the several species of now towering eucalyptus that then mayor Alfonso Tabora had lined up around the Burnham Park. While producing whitish-red flowers that dangle like earrings in succession,the coral  tree got its name from its furrowed bark resembling corals. The golden bush, now meekly producing tiny blue flowers and yellow fruits, was named for its bright greenish-yellow leaves.

Perhaps the only native perennial  in bloom  year-round, the tough morning glory vine  sheds lavender, bell-like flowers now dotting the fences of untended lawns of vacation homes  along South Drive until Ilusorio Drive, towards Pacdal Circle and Outlook Drive.

A bane to young trees and shrubs choked by its tentacles, the vine  has merited several tips on “How to Kill A Morning Glory Vine” on the internet. One proclaims the effectiveness  of pouring hot water into its roots. The vine  had survived many wars among Baguio boys of old who, long before the entry of “ transformers” pulverizing each other  on line, would chop the vine into pieces as projectiles for their weapon of choice that the late Baguio boy and journalist Peppot Ilagan called PAL-S-11-T, otherwise known as slingshot.

The summer explosion of perennials will linger until we prepare to send our kids and grandkids back to school.  The  quiet, and therefore sometimes unnoticed display, is also  harmless compared to the instant, fleeting,  expensive and polluting evening fireworks display that  caps the annual Baguio Flower Festival.

There’s still time to see the remaining lavender jacaranda bells clinging to the trees. Perhaps their sight can evoke a higher meaning similar to what spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle observed to open his book, “A New Earth”:

“Earth, 114 million years ago, one morning just after sunrise: The first flower ever to appea on the planet opens up to receive the rays of the sun. Prior to this momentous event that heralds an evolutionary transformation in the life of plants, the planet had already been covered in vegetation for millions of years. The first flower probably did not survive for long, and flowers must have remained rare and isolated phenomena, since conditions were most likely not yet favorable for a widespread flowering to occur. One day, however, a critical threshold was reached, and suddenly there would have been an explosion of color and scent all over the planet – if a perceiving consciousness had been there to witness it.”

 Tolle’s perspective must have been the same view that  inspired the flowering of the “Panagbenga” festival.  (e-mail: mondaxbench@yahoo.com for comments) .