gardening

Plant Indigenous

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Plant Indigenous

by Angela Hijjas

With the accelerated loss of forest habitats gardeners can try to make a difference to the survival of birds and other small creatures by selecting indigenous species to enrich urban habitats. Most Malaysians only have small gardens or make do with a few pots on a balcony, so making the planting choice is critical, plants should be an appropriate size and be ‘interesting’ to human and animal alike.

The joy of gardening is not merely ‘growing’ plants and savoring their flowers. Living with plants is about seeing the wider world as birds catch pollinating insects and collect fruit, or butterflies and moths feed on nectar, as well as the shade, perfume, colour and texture of plants that we particularly enjoy. Sharing a garden with other species gives us a real sense of our place on earth.

Malaysia has some of the greatest biodiversity of species known anywhere in the world, but we are in danger of losing much of it before we even know about it. The easiest way to learn something of this richness is to live with some of these plants, read about them and observe. Enriching the soil with kitchen waste and watering when necessary give us an active role, but humanity is part of a much larger scheme that we appreciate better as we share our space with other species.

The plant offered for sale to raise funds for MNS on World Environment Day ‘98 is Murraya paniculata (above), kemuning or Mock Orange. This single example provides lessons in Malaysia’s culture, history and the diversity of life. It is a shrub or small tree, of the same family as the curry leaf plant, that is occasionally seen wild in the drier parts of the north and on the east coast, or on limestone hills. Because of the fragrance of its flowers it is often planted in kampong gardens. The dense erect leaves resemble citrus, and the yellow root wood is favoured for making kris handles because of its beautiful figuring. The name apparently is derived from this yellow colouring, kemuning from kuning or yellow.

Kemuning has medicinal uses as well. An infusion of the leaves is included in a tonic for ‘young women’s irregularities’, or a decoction of the leaves may be used for toothache. The flowers used to be sold in the markets to perfume women’s hair, much as jasmine is sold today. Their fragrance, particularly in the evening, is magnificent and attracts pollinating insects. The red berries are relished by birds and bats.

As a garden species, kemuning makes an excellent single or hedged specimen for screening that can be heavily pruned with no ill effects. It quickly generates new growth and a flush of flowers if there is generous watering and composting after the cut-back. It is not attacked by munching insects, never needs chemical intervention and possibly protects tender species planted nearby.

By learning about Malaysia’s own plants we learn to recognise the individuals and families that make up the primary and secondary forests. Unique plants help us develop a sense of place which will be all important in the coming age of globalisation when standardisation will diminish the particular for the sake of world wide uniformity. To understand our own place in the universe means to appreciate the uniqueness of this particular land and have a strong sense of belonging here.

It is mainly an awareness of plants and landscape that ensure this continuity. The hillside kampongs shaded by tall fruit trees interspersed by riverine padi fields, much of which is already lost, the miles of rubber and oil palm estates and the forested hills as a backdrop, are a landscape made of the geography of plants. Place names in Malaysia are generally named after plants or characteristic geographic features. Street names follow this tradition, but rarely today is the named tree included in the landscaping. With the rush for foreign/exotic species such as traveler’s palms (from Madagascar), and heliconia (from central America) it is easy to forget the plants and landscape that have shaped Malaysia’s culture and traditions. When we learn how to name the trees we will know who and where we are, an important rediscovery with globalisation upon us.

For a wealth of information on all things related to Malaysia’s indigenous species, two excellent reference books on the importance of Malaysia’s plants should be included in every home library. Professor E.J.H. Corner’s Wayside Trees of Malaya and I.H. Burkill’s Dictionary of the Economic Products of the Malay Peninsula have been reprinted by the Malaysian Nature Society and the Government Printer respectively and give rare insight into forests, plants and Malaysian economic history.

Join the Malaysian Nature Society and take advantage of members’ discounts to buy these heritage titles.

Gardening’s Current Affairs

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Gardening’s Current Affairs

by Angela Hijjas

from The Malaysian Naturalist, vol. 52 no. 1, March 1998

After six years, parts of my garden are beginning to fulfill imagined promises: a wider variety of birds and insects come part and parcel with more species of plants and the growing trees stretch the canopy to greater heights, enlarging the mass and volume of the garden enormously. Fourteen acres of stunted orchard is evolving into the forest I imagine, but it will remain the human domain as long as I continue to plant and transplant, nurture and prune, select and reject; the process of gardening is very much a current affair. Shown’s article in the last issue about pruning and ‘surgery’ highlighted this role of the interventionist gardener, but so much, at least for me, is more a matter of chance rather than choice.

Pruning can have dramatic effects on tropical plants that are otherwise only affected by subtle climatic change that human minders do not detect. In anticipation of the festive season, we pruned our kemuning (Murraya panniculata) hedge at the beginning of puasa, the fasting month, hoping to revitalise its formal shape while giving it time for more leaf growth to conceal any exposed woody stems, but a fortnight later (combined with a lot of rain) the hedge flowered profusely and also sprouted new growth. Next year the time to prune would appear to be in the middle of the fasting month, so that the magnificent fragrance can be a feature of our open house; but then again the season will be a few weeks earlier and the rhythm may be different.

Part of the chance element of gardening can be reduced if one keeps records. It is essential to observe carefully a plant’s habits, how it performs in different conditions. Otherwise it is so easy to forget. This was my New Year’s resolution; keep records and update them diligently.

A plan of the garden has to be made before the records can mean much, especially if you intend to plant vegetables and follow a proper rotation of ‘crops’. The PC can be an invaluable tool in updating and referring to old records. When was the bed composted last? What was planted before? What’s the record of pests and problems? A rain gauge is a good idea, and daily records can be graphed and compared in the PC; and in no time you will have a full-time hobby, perfect for the economic downturn!

Observing, recording and remembering have developed our gardening and agricultural expertise over the millennia, but in the tropics where there are few seasonal variations, it is critical to continue recording and interpreting, especially as so little is really known about our unique conditions. Temperate gardens with their seasonal changes and preparations are more predictable, daffodils flower in spring and roses in summer and autumn is the ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’.

Perhaps Malay folk lore could give valuable insight into the habits of plants, but much traditional knowledge has already been lost with the changes in the kampung environment. It is barely viable to maintain the family plot when the younger generation is working in the factories that have sprung up all over the peninsula while the older generation looks after the children. A cash economy has replaced the need to depend on the products of small-scale agricultural labour, but the present crisis may re-introduce many of us to the rewards and delights of growing our won produce as we are being urged by politicians and the media.

Hydroponics seems a popular solution, possibly because of the marketing angle involved in selling all the paraphernalia that is required to get a simple crop of kangkung, but I am more concerned about the requirement for unnecessary chemical additives when most of what is needed is just outside the back door or on a piece of neighbouring wasteland that can be co-opted for vegetables. Instead of buying packaged additives for hydroponics, start a compost heap and get some exercise with the cangkul.

A single family generates a lot of vegetable refuse that can be recycled. You can use a large covered garbage bin with holes melted in the sides for ventilation. It will not be smelly as long as no animal products are thrown in, and a few shovels of soil to cover anything you suspect may attract flies will keep down the vermin. Cover the pile to prevent tropical rain from leaching out nutrients, but ensure it is just damp enough to allow the enrichment of rot. When the heap is finished, keep it for a few weeks and turn it to aerate and ensure it all decomposes evenly. Pile, cover and keep again until it is a rich black organic mass that bears no resemblance to the original material. Additives like dry chicken dung will greatly enrich the brew.

Making compost is much more satisfying that buying a produce to do the same thing, and there is nothing quite as pretty as a garden bed of vegetables rather than growing them in a plastic container. Perhaps my main complaint about hydroponics is influenced by its aesthetics just as much as by the commercialisation of something that can be a totally natural experience.

For anyone interested in growing vegetables organically, I can recommend an invaluable booklet that has been prepared by Siew of Cetdem, the Centre for the Environment, Technology and Development in Malaysia; send $5 and a stamped, self-addressed A4 envelope, for an excellent guide to growing vegetables organically in Malaysia. Siew previously ran an organic farm in Sungai Buloh and will be conducting courses in my garden later this year. In the meantime, study the leaflet, start the compost, set aside some garden space for produce and enjoy the results, which you will, of course, observe, record, assess and quantify. Good luck.

Cetdem’s address is P.O. Box 382, 46740 Petaling Jaya.

Taman Sari

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Taman Sari

by Angela Hijjas

for The Malaysian Naturalist, vol. 51 no. 2, December 1997.

The name ‘Taman Sari’ evokes the fragrance and grace of a lush Javanese garden, with bees probing for nectar in masses of flowers. The first Sultan of Jogjakarta, Mangkubumi, the ‘guardian of the earth,’ chose the name for the walled pleasure garden adjoining his kraton in the mid-eighteenth century. He spared no expense on walls, tunnels and waterworks, while the Dutch complained that he placed more priority on this self-indulgence than on their fortifications. If only all kings were so wise!

The intricate irrigation channels of the original Taman Sari flowed through a series of pools and courtyards, complete with a fountain of youth, the Umbul Binangan. Spice, vegetable and fruit gardens, terraces, staircases and pavilions made up what must have been a wonder of its time. But the beauty of any garden is transitory; earthquakes and neglect reduced this garden to ruin by the end of the century and today all that remains are walls and a labyrinth of sunken passages.

Two centuries later, inspired by the romance of Javanese palaces, I adopted the name Taman Sari for my herb garden. Like the Sultan, I wanted the garden to be an integral part of our home, while developing a strong sense of its place within Malaysia. The most promising site for it lay behind the house, an area of about half an acre.

The so-called ‘hard landscaping’ elements, the paths, furniture and sculpture, are an essential part of any garden, particularly a herb garden, and their added detail helps to compensate for the predominant lack of colour in Southeast Asian species. As the herb garden is a meld of East and West, the landscape design laid out the paths and beds in the European style, with crossed paths dividing the area into four quarters. Bali supplied the stone sculptures of winged lions for the entrance and a garuda to animate the garden, providing an aesthetic and spiritual link to the animist past. The pathways themselves are pure KL, the indispensable interlocking concrete pavers: cheap, durable and practical.

My criteria for selecting plants were that they either be Southeast Asian in origin, or of some culinary or medicinal significance in the region. Flowers with characteristic Asian fragrances are another feature. Half the garden was to be for useful plants, and the other for more sensual pleasure. Inevitably, this separation has become very blurred, especially since we started companion planting in the vegetable garden, using the pungency of the herbs to protect vulnerable vegetables from insect attack.

I resisted the urge to fill the space with trees as most vegetables need full sun, but some shade is provided by the garden’s main ‘structural’ trees and this creates a variety of habitats. A single tamarind tree is as the centre of the vegetable garden, while the main path is protected by rows of nutmeg and meninjau trees. The entrance is shaded by pinang palms whose narrow canopies do not block too much sun. Another row cinkeh, cloves, has been more difficult to establish and only one tree has done well, but it is backed by a hedge of kemuning, with its periodic flushes of fragrant blossoms. A row of Borassus flabiliffer, the lontar palm, will ultimately provide a source for the toddy of my old age, assuming there is someone around who can still tap by the year 2020. A row of cinnamon trees separates the garden from the old durian orchard and completes the structural framework, leaving plenty of space for the herbs, vegetables, fragrant flowers and medicinal plants that I am still collecting.

While the major plants anchor the structural design of the garden, the smaller ones provide detail and interest which can be manipulated in many way. With the larger trees providing shade, different layers can be planted through and underneath. Vanilla orchids, pepper and sireh climb the trunks, shrubby ground cover is provided by shade-tolerant pandanusi, gingers or costus, while kadok and pegaga are strong covers for shade and sun respectively.

As our land has been a coffee plantation for many years before we acquired it, and because I am interested in the continuity of landscapes, I planted some coffee as a hedge outside Taman Sari before I discovered that coffee flowers have perhaps the most beautiful of all fragrances. The blooming lasts for just a few days ever few months, but the perfume is unforgettable. Other perfumes come from the kenanga, jasmines and gingers, and the many varieties of leaves that have to be crushed to release their fragrant oils. To add to the confusion, occasionally different plants have similar smells: my plot of pandanus (whose smell is only released in cooking) is overhung by kerak nasi, whose perfume is just like pandanus. Many visitors, smelling kerak nasi mistake it for the better-known culinary ingredient.

Some foreign plants, like aloe vera, have become essential medicinal ingredients; they can tolerate full sun and a dry position. But I have given up trying to grow European herbs like rosemary and thyme, as the rain devastates them; they would probably do better in pots. Lemon balm is a useful exception. Other foreign plants that are widely used for herbal preparations, like elderberry (Sambucus nigra) have local equivalents: the entire plant of Sambucus javanica can be used for similar medicinal preparations as the European variety.

Apart from a few simple cold remedies, I haven’t made use of my plants and have collected them purely for the pleasure of seeing them all growing together, appreciating their histories (the tales about nutmeg alone fill volumes), and enjoying the delight of sharing them with others. An evening wander around the paths, interrupted by tastes and smells, is fun and enlightening, particularly for city children, and there is nothing like perfume or flavour to transport you to another part of the world. ‘My Mum uses this’ and ‘my grandfather grew that’ are frequent comments, and even I, from Australia, instantly recall the hot summer nights at my grandparents’ home every time I break a stalk of serai wangi, the citronella that was widely used as an insect repellent in the Fifties and is now in demand again with the organic revival.

We have plenty of kitchen herbs: chilli, serai (lemon grass), limau purut, kasturi and nipis, kunyit (turmeric), curry leaf, lengkuas (galingal), ketumbar (coriander) and mint all do well. Little can substitute for the pleasure of a pungent tom yam made with home-grown ingredients. If the kitchen is the heart of the home, the Taman Sari is the heart of my garden. What better occupation could God have intended for Sultan or commoner?