Laiban Garden Project

Last year (March, 2023) I made a decision to “buy” a parcel of land on the Mayton River on the western slopes of the southern Sierra Madre Mountains. Even though it’s only 80 km. east of Pasig City it can take more than 3 hours to drive. The trip is in three sectors. Traffic from Pasig through the outskirts of Antipolo is usually a long and painful part of the journey. The longest stretch involves climbing into the mountains along the Marcos Highway that changes names to the Marikina-Infanta Hwy. At a point high up in the mountains you turn onto a “country road” that descends along an often precarious path to the Mayton riverbed. Along the way your vehicle must cross streams 8 times to finally arrive in the village of about 3-400 people. My piece of land is another 500 meters after the village.

Plants, bees and butterflies have always been important focal points for me – all three as photographic subjects, with growing plants as a way of understanding nature while nurturing beauty. As I see it, plants like everything else in the world, are mostly just exploited. Outside of certain botanical gardens, few ever reach full maturity. Here in the Philippines people seem to be a bit more sensitive to the beauty of plants, but for the most part they are taken for granted and receive almost no care. I tend to be fascinated by every plant and enjoy growing them from seeds or cuttings and taking care of them gives me a certain pleasure observing their growth and eventual flowering, but also from those with interesting smells (most of which are better than any perfume). In addition there’s the added pleasure of seeing their pollinators working to drink nectar and gather pollen. As well as the plants people buy for their gardens I am interested to cultivate native plants that are favorites for butterfly and moth larvae as well as bees, wasps and flies.

It’s hard to say exactly how this project will evolve. So far a fence has been built around the property lines and a 20 x 4 meter canopied structure has been built along the river for a succulent and cactus garden. Presently work is proceeding building a small elevated one room cabin like structure I can live in – instead of a tent that I have been staying in.

Several photo galleries are in the process of being worked on. I will post a few under this heading so viewers can get an idea of the environment and what I’m trying to create.