Showing 1 - 6 of 6
Surviving the desert
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 25/09/2016
» In last week's Green Fingers, I mentioned that most plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen during the day but sansevierias do just the opposite: They purify and freshen the air at night while we are asleep. How do they do it?
From small seeds grow fig ideas
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 22/03/2015
» I know I promised I would not write about Chatuchak plant market again in a long while. But when reader Ian Windsor wrote to ask where one could find fig trees in Thailand, I felt obliged to find out.
When your garden goes squirrelly
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 02/03/2014
» In urban gardens, the occasional squirrel or two feeding on the fruit of trees can be a welcome sight. When my children were growing up, my son would not let me pick ripe fruit from a papaya tree that was within reach of his bedroom window so that squirrels would come to feed on them. “We can buy fruit, the squirrels cannot,” he said. Now we have star fruit trees, and the ground under them is littered by young fruit which have fallen after squirrels have eaten their tender seeds. During the mango season, the fluffy-tailed rodents jump to neighbouring trees to merrily nibble at my neighbour’s ripening mangoes, or jackfruit on another neighbour’s tree.
Have no fear when pruning poison plants
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 15/09/2013
» Two or three years ago I received an email telling people to get rid of a certain plant, as it was so poisonous it could kill a child "in less than a minute and an adult in 15 minutes". It added that if the plant is touched, "One should never touch one's eyes; it can cause partial or permanent blindness." The plant was not named, but the message showed a picture of a dieffenbachia.
Raising Cane: Explore the bounty of bamboo
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 27/01/2013
» I had only seen bamboos with round culms, or canes, so when the late Dioscoro Umali, former regional representative for Asia and the Pacific of the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organisation, told me that he had a square bamboo in his collection, I thought he was pulling my leg. "Yes, there is a square bamboo," he said with a laugh when I expressed disbelief. "I got my square bamboo from Bhutan."
Oh sod it: The way to ensure the grass is always greener
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 23/09/2012
» Vikrom Suebsaeng's one-storey house in Muang Ake was submerged in 2.30m of stagnant water for more than six weeks. The flood took almost everything away and repairs have been estimated at about one million baht. About 70% of the trees and plants on his 325 wah (1,300 square metres) of land have died, the soil has hardened and the grass is gone. ''My worry is not with the trees or plants which can be bought and grown again,'' he wrote. ''I want to have my grass back and would like to have your advice on the most economical way of reviving the soil so that I can have beautiful green grass again.''