Showing 1 - 10 of 15
Exploring the world garden
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 05/06/2016
» During my visit to the Philippines two months ago, a good friend of mine gave me a bag of pistachio nuts which her sister, Pin, had sent her from the US. Pin and her family live in Delano, California, and she regularly sends food packages that includes pistachio nuts, almonds, dates and raisins to her sister in the Philippines.
Raising a peep
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 29/11/2015
» Grant Howlett is an Australian expatriate with a reasonable knowledge of things botanical in his home country. But when it comes to Asian plant life, “alas, I have lots to learn”, he wrote. “I did reside for many years in the tropics of northern Australia, and many plants there are also here, like the foxtail palm which is originally from Australia but now prolific here in Thailand, but when it comes to trees I am lost.”
Chasing waterfalls
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 23/08/2015
» It was only 3.30pm but with rain threatening to fall at any time, darkness descended fast on Lam Nam Kok National Park in Doi Hang, Chiang Rai province. It had rained the night before and parts of the trail were slippery. One false move could easily send someone rolling down the steep mountainside to the point of no return.
High and dry
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 26/07/2015
» Where have all the flowers gone? Last time I was on our farm six months ago, the flowering plants and shrubs were blooming in all their glory. But during a visit two weeks ago, there were very few flowers, and even the bougainvilleas, which bloom nearly all year round, were missing.
Leisurely look at nature
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 27/04/2014
» My family has made it a tradition to travel together, either to our country home near Loei or to my daughter Nalinee’s workplace in Phuket, at least once a year. It is our way of spending quality time together. Even when we are driving to her place, Nalinee flies into Bangkok to join us for the trip. Driving 900km to Cape Panwa in Phuket is not everybody’s idea of fun, but it was not as bad as it sounds as we made stops along the way when we went there during the long Songkran holiday recently.
Fruitful search for elusive trees
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 30/03/2014
» I had two people in mind when I went to Kasetsart University at the start of the annual agricultural fair, better known as Kaset Fair, last Saturday. Ken Banks had written to say that in his 11 years of visiting Thailand and finally living in Khon Kaen, where he moved from beautiful Hawaii, he had never seen a breadfruit tree until recently, when he spotted two trees on a street across from the Khon Kaen train station. “They look a lot like the Hawaiian variety, based on the leaf color, shape and luster,” he wrote. “This is a delicious, unseeded cultivar that I would dearly love to have.”
Too big for your roots
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 17/11/2013
» Reader Alan Platt, whose letter last month triggered a two-part article on bamboo, sent me another email to say that I was right about his plants being too big for their containers. "For their continued good health, I know I should put them in bigger pots," he wrote, "but I have a problem. I don't want them to grow any bigger, which will happen if I repot them.
Roots run deep for tree enthusiasts
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 22/09/2013
» It is common knowledge that the Chatuchak Weekend Market takes on another identity as a plant market every Wednesday and Thursday. What most people do not know is that they can go shopping for plants as early as Tuesday afternoon, when the plants arrive at Chatuchak. The place starts to get busy at 2pm as six-wheel trucks and pick-ups arrive from suburban nurseries and the provinces to unload their cargo. By 5pm many stalls are ready for business.
Stop the madness _ let roadside trees reach their full glory
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 14/07/2013
» I was travelling along Rama IV Road last week when I saw that some of the Pterocarpus indicus, known in Thai as pradoo, trees on the roadside had flowers. Pradoo usually flower in April and it is now July, so these were late bloomers. Especially spectacular was a tree across the streets from Chamchuri Square. It was small but it completely shrouded by flowers, which was unusual as pradoo shed their leaves two or three months after the end of the rainy season and develop new ones before or during blooming time in the summer, so the golden flowers are always accompanied by lush green leaves.
National tree's great white hope revealed at last
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 05/05/2013
» I don't remember now if I read or heard from someone many years ago that Cassia fistula, known in Thai as ratchapruek, has a mutant strain with white flowers. Cassia fistula is the Thai national tree and produces the national flower and is a familiar sight along Bangkok's streets and provincial roads, as well as in public parks and private gardens throughout the country. However despite how ubiquitous the tree, is until recently I had never seen one with white flowers. Once, passing through Lop Buri while travelling to Phetchabun, I saw a tree whose flowers were a few shades lighter than most, but they were still yellow, not white.