Valentine's Day has come and gone. Last year, my husband, ML Charuphant, gave me a single long-stemmed red rose. This year he thought I deserved 10. Was I happy? Call me ungrateful, but what filled my heart with joy were not the flowers but my honey's sweet words, ''I love you, and will love you till the end of time.'' He says that often, and not just on Valentine's Day.
Please don't get me wrong. I love flowers of all colours _ white, red, pink, yellow, yellow-green, orange, purple, and especially blue and violet. But cut flowers don't last long, and after just a few days they die on me. When I was in high school, I was excited to get a rose _ or even ylang-ylang, which I would put between the pages of my textbook _ as I thought it signified a shy admirer's unspoken words of love. But I am now more practical, and instead of flowers that wither in a day or two, I would rather have a potted flowering plant, or dried flowers arranged in a vase or basket.
My preference for a flowering plant these days is adenium or desert rose (chuan chom in Thai), because the new hybrids have flowers resembling roses but they are much easier to grow. Hybridisers have developed countless cultivars, with flowers that come with single or double petals in many different hues and colour combinations, so plant lovers are spoiled as far as choice. More importantly, small ones are inexpensive so even if they die you can always buy replacements.
However, adenium do not die easily. I had a plant whose leaves were eaten by a caterpillar, but soon new leaves grew up again. And if the plants become too tall, all you have to do is cut them down. The cuttings can be rooted in moist sand to increase your collection, or to give away to friends. If your plants are in full sun, get enough nutrients and are given just enough water to make the soil moderately moist and not soggy, you will have flowers in your garden most months of the year.
I grow adenium as part of a new hobby _ ''babysitting'' plants. Over the past two years, I have had visiting relatives and friends from the Philippines who wanted Thailand's new cultivars to add to their collections at home but did not have time to shop for plants. I had a few in pots and let them take what they fancied; I then replaced the ones I had given away with newer and more exciting hybrids. These were later taken away from me, too, so now I grow adenium expressly for visiting friends who might want them.
Babysitting plants has become an enjoyable hobby for me because the place which gets the most sun at home, and therefore the only place where I could grow flowering plants, is my bedroom's small balcony. This means I could grow no more than two dozen potted plants at a time. When plants I have enjoyed for some time are taken away, a space is created for new ones. I buy small ones, and seeing them grow and bloom is always exciting. I am currently babysitting six plants which I've promised to bring a sister when I go home for a visit. They are now in bloom, so while they are with me I can enjoy the beautiful flowers.
Our house is surrounded by greenery and the lack of sunny space for flowering plants was the reason why ML Charuphant opted for the roses. ''After all, Valentine's Day comes only once a year,'' he said, ''so enjoy the flowers while you can.''
In high school I pressed flowers between the pages of a book or notebook so I could enjoy them for a long time, but Valentine's Day roses can be preserved and enjoyed for as long as a year or two if you dry them. Tie the stem of a single flower with a string, or tie the flowers in a bunch if there are several, and hang them upside-down under the shade for two or three days. Hanging the flowers upside-down will make them stiff so that they won't drop their heads when you put them in a vase. The dried flowers won't be as red as the fresh ones and over time they will look like paper roses as they fade into an Earth tone, but they are beautiful just the same. Or you can dry the flowers without their stem and make them into potpourri.
Where drying flowers and making potpourri is concerned, ML Charuphant is an expert. More than 30 years ago he initiated a project to dry leaves and flowers for decoration as part of a scheme under His Majesty the King's Royal Project to wean hill tribes from planting opium poppy by teaching them an alternative source of income. Starting with drying fern leaves with the help of just three people, his cottage industry grew to include many different species of leaves and flowers, and to become the main source of livelihood for a hundred employees in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Kamphaeng Saen in Nakhon Pathom. In addition to hilltribes in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, it provides extra income for several families in Ubon Ratchathani in the Northeast and Chumphon in the South.
For Kasetsart University's horticulture students who wanted to learn all there was to learn from drying leaves and flowers to marketing them, he devised a syllabus for both undergraduate and graduate levels, and taught the subject himself ... but that's a different story.
Email nthongtham@gmail.com.
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Writer: Normita ThongthamPosition: Writer
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