GREEN Craftivist

Watching the elegant beauty and admirable resilience of bamboo trees can be so physically relaxing, emotionally inspiring and spiritually uplifting.  Like a ballet dancer pirouetting on stage, their trunk sway gracefully and unbroken with leaves moving fluidly in circular motion when the wind is strong and unrelenting. On calmer days, they stand tall and quietly like a person of honor and integrity, with only the leaves creating a rustling sound in response to the whisper of a gentle breeze. INSPIRED BY THE BAMBOO EXPERT I was first fully oriented about bamboo when my husband and I visited Dr. Bing Caasi-Lit, a scientist and international speaker on bamboo at the UP Los Banos Institute of Plant Breeding.  Known as the Bamboo Lady of Los Banos and whose father is also known as the Father of Bamboo in Davao, she excitedly showed us the different bamboo varieties from ornamental to industrial, endemic to foreign, as well as the growth behavior of each kind.  After this, we w...

What do you think will be the color of Christmas this year? The last nine months have been sad and dreary and people are filled with feelings of anxiety and insecurity over what lies ahead of us with the worldwide pandemic.  Until such time that a vaccine is available, we can ease up the situation by, in addition to wearing masks and face shields, adding color to our surroundings to create a festive and happy atmosphere everyday, especially that Christmas is just around the corner. A New Red Alternative If you are tired of Poinsettia red as a Christmas accent, try Aglaonema Red Siam or Red Lipstick for a change.  It is one of the variegated types of the Aglaonema or Chinese Evergreens, a common and inexpensive houseplant before COVID-19 came along. Its large, waxy and pointed green leaves that are thickly lined with lipstick red on the sides and the rib, with splatters of red all over the greens make it an attractive and colorful alternative to Red Poinsettia.   Unlike po...

If  there is one plant that is very easy to grow even for the inexperienced, it is the Pothos Plant. Commonly known as Money Plant or Water Plant, they come in different varieties but the most common of all is the Golden Pothos. Its green, waxy leaves are heart-shaped with streaks of yellow.  While they grow best under bright and indirect sunlight, they thrive practically anywhere  be it indoors or outdoors, in pots or on the ground with moist soil and hardly any fertilizer needs. When left to grow on the ground, their leaves can grow much bigger and wider and can be invasive to other plants.   In  many published botanical articles, the Pothos has been listed as one of those that effectively remove toxins from indoor air and promote oxygenation more than other plants. This makes it an ideal indoor plant, not to mention its colorful, attractive appearance that lights up any room or corner. Almost always, Pothos is grown as a vine hanging from a pot or in a jar ...

  Don't throw away broken marble pieces. When our house was built some some thirty years ago, I discovered that a lot of broken marble pieces were carelessly dumped by our flooring contractor on the adjacent property. I gathered them all and used some to cover our backyard walkway.  At first, I thought this was a good idea because they were very visible in the dark and looked beautiful on moonlit nights. However, I learned that they can be slippery when wet and unsafe to walk on. A New Look Using Old Stuff Last year, we had to do major house repairs and renovation and needed to dispose of unnecessary items that occupy space. The sentimental junk collector in me prevailed and I had to find a way to make use of these marble cuttings or else they get collected by the garbage truck. At that time, my front yard fence garden needed a fresh, new look which to me should be something that is very easy to manage, with minimal if not zero expense for landscaping, yet unique and different...

Growing up in our ancestral home along Tilik Bay in Lubang Island gave me the rare opportunity to experience  nature on a daily basis - something which children from the city would only see and read in books and magazines or watch on television. What was it like to live and grow up by the sea? The sea was my classroom and playground where different species of marine life like starfishes, sea cucumbers, crustaceans, fishes, sea urchins,sea weeds among others abound.  During high tide, the shore turns into a gigantic swimming pool where I learned to swim using a dry bamboo pole or two dry coconuts tied together for my life saver. At low tide, the sea dries up into a vast expanse of land where we gathered sea shells called ‘ Sihi’  for our dinner soup matched with the slippery sea anemone which we broiled in bamboo sticks.  My best friend and I loved to walk up to Angggan -  the coral reef that marked the boundary between the dry land and the deep, blue sea - to ...

 Hi everyone!    After having worked for more than forty years in both government and corporate sectors, I decided to retire early in the middle of the pandemic to minimize exposure to the Covid19 virus and to spend more time with the family.  Before this and during the lockdown period, gardening - which has been my passion and stress reliever activity ever since - took up most of my un-worked hours and eventually of my new-found freedom. For this reason, I do not consider myself as a “ Plantita ” - a pandemic-born plant grower or enthusiast. I nevertheless became part of that huge population that got carried away with the “ Plantdemic ” surge. I aim to share with you some home-grown gardening tips and ideas, related recycling projects that contribute to greening the environment and waste reduction which I saw from my travels both local and international, art and photography works that support these, as well as relevant life lessons I picked up in my journey as a chi...