How Long it Took to Clear and Save Mom's Plants

Every plant on the frontage of my childhood home was planted by my Mom. It changes every few years. Everytime I visited she was doing some gardening. She was still gardening the day before she passed away. I knew it her plants are very important to her, so we've been doing the herculean task of saving what we could.

I tried to bargain with the contractor if we could leave the frontage plants alone. They explained that they had to construct a new front wall and it would affect the structure if they're not able to clear the area. I've been propagating some of the plants the past few months as back-up. Luckily, our gardener was finally available last week and helped set-up plants to propagate. 

It took three full days to clear the front lawn. My Mom packed in a lot of plants and some had poked the front wall already. We bought several large pots and soil and prioritized what plants to keep. The gardeners helped pot the plants and we hope they'll grow this rainy season. The back-up plants I propagated the past few months have rooted and are growing nicely. I just need to make sure they are watered regularly, so we can transplant them eventually. 

My current small garden is now full of Mom's plants. The gardeners said we look like we're selling plants (haha). I know it's just a small fraction of what Mom had in her garden. I'm just grateful we're able to save her hardwork. She loved her plants dearly and she'll be happy to know we have a starter set we can bring back when we move back home. 

#BeKind #StaySafe

Saving Mom's Plants

We've been trying to save as much of my Mom's plants the past 3 years. It's now time to sunset her plants on the front of the house. I checked old photos and the front lawn has changed how it looks so many times. I remember we even had a prolific santol tree before. There used to be palm trees on it before and santan plants for a time. 

My Mom gave so much of her time tending her garden. There were times we felt it was more important to her than us. She wouldn't pick up the phone during her gardening time and would always worry whenever we'd have her travel. I knew it was impossible to do it by myself. 

We were finally able to get Manong Henry's team to help save the plants. We got lucky because he assigned his son and an expert gardener. I just told them I wanted to save Mom's bougainvillea, snake plants and other flowering plants. I also proposed to make some plants into bonsai.

I'm so glad Christian and George love being gardeners. They have been happily working on saving the plants and Christian loved the challenge to turn some of the plants into bonsai. It's going to be messy in the next few days, but I'm happy we'll be able to save some of Mom's plants. 

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Front Lawn Landscaping 3 Months After

Three months ago we had our jungle-like front lawn cleaned up and landscaped. I told the landscaper we wanted something easy to maintain and some flowers.

The end result was a simple frontage. I was worried that it was a bit thin? Manong Henry reassured me it would grow and need pruning.

The last time the plants were pruned was in early December. We got busy, so we havent had time to let Manong Henry come over. I've been giving the plants complete fertilizer every six weeks and I spray it with neem oil sometimes.

Sweetie waters the plants everyday (I take care of everything inside) and he told me a lot of new plants have been growing. I fed the plants some complete fertilizer yesterday and was surprised to see a lot of new birds of paradise. The bushes also grew double from the time they were planted. 

We've also been asked several times about the pink flowers. They just keep blooming. They're called Panama rose and have been very easy to maintain. The white one is called pinwheel flower or Tabernaemontana. The birds of paradise have gone crazy. We will try to remove the ones growing in between the bushes...

Happy weekend everyone!

#BeKind #StaySafe