Showing 51 - 60 of 236
Nature’s air conditioners
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 10/01/2016
» While I was writing this, extreme weather was wreaking havoc in many parts of the world. In South America, vast areas in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay were hit in what was said to be the “worst flooding in 50 years”. Deadly tornadoes, snowstorms and floods brought winter woes to Texas, Missouri, Illinois, Oklahoma, Arkansas and several other states in the US Midwest and South, and record-breaking rains brought floods that devastated parts of northern England and Scotland.
Branch out and keep your cool
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 17/01/2016
» We were in the grounds of the seaside Marriott hotel in Rayong during a family holiday recently. I was walking towards the beach, with my husband, ML Charuphant, following several steps behind, when he called out.
Grow your own grub
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 22/11/2015
» Readers must have heard of His Majesty the King’s por piang (self-sufficiency) economy for farmers. Based on the assumption that a farmer owns 15 rai of land, it advises the land be divided four ways: 30%, or 4.5 rai, for a pond or water reservoir, 30% for a rice field, 30% for vegetable and fruit orchards, and 10%, or 1.5 rai, for a residential area.
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.”
Getting cross about pollination
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 06/12/2015
» I was standing in the back yard when I noticed bees and other insects hovering over the flowers on my coconut tree. This part of my yard is cemented and the coconut tree was planted in a big, woven plastic container and placed in one corner to provide shade. After many years the plastic disintegrated and as the coconut had grown very big, we could not transplant it to another container.
I heard it through the grapevine
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 13/12/2015
» When I was in grade school, my father tried to germinate seeds of grapes imported from California at our home in the rice growing region of Central Luzon in the Philippines. He did not expect the seeds to germinate, as he knew the fruit was grown in a climate so different from ours.
The tree of life
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 08/11/2015
» I received an invitation to a symposium recently. Well, I thought that was what it was, for the invitation and the programme were in Vietnamese and there were only three words that I understood: Hanoi and Morinda citrifolia.
A landscape on the rocks
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 15/11/2015
» Frederik Majoor and his wife, Patraporn, live in a tropical paradise just a seven-minute walk from Surin beach in Phuket. They own three villas that boast a lush, beautifully landscaped garden, complete with a waterfall and a large pond designed like a stream and populated by 99 colourful Japanese carp, or koi.
A prune with a view
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 04/10/2015
» A friend of mine has a roadside tree in front of his house. It had become so dense that he could not see through it from his second-floor window. Last month he had it trimmed.
More than their rare share
B Magazine, Normita Thongtham, Published on 11/10/2015
» The early bird gets the worm, so serious collectors do not visit Chatuchak plant market on Wednesdays and Thursdays. They go on Tuesdays, in order to be the first to get their hands on rare or newly introduced plants. The market does not really get busy until 6pm, when office people have returned from work, but many stalls are ready for business as early as 3pm.