Orchids in my mother's garden

She must have always nurtured this wish for a garden, my mother. When we were still in Iloilo City, my father opened Elite Studio, a photo studio on Guanco Street, at the heart of the then commercial district. We occupied the second story of a concrete building, including the studio where we also lived.

There was simply no place for a garden, so my mother, who loved plants, contented herself with potted bougainvillea and roses, and the garlic vine that grew outside our windows with its white flowers, clinging to a chicken wire fence.

When the family finally transferred to a townhouse in Mandaluyong and both she and my father retired, my mother got her heart’s wish: her own garden. Not a big one, but large enough for her to indulge her green thumb. We asked help from Rubing, a gardener from Negros, hence a kasimanwa (townmate) who spoke Hiligaynon like her.

He covered the small plot with Korean grass, said to be more resistant to rot than Bermuda. Double-petalled gumamelas in dark red (this one from my father, who asked for a branch from a friend), peach, and golden yellow lined the front. San Francisco hedges with their yellow green leaves and varied hues of orange and red grew lush below the latticed windows.

Mother finally had a garden, and pride and joy were her orchids

But her pride and joy were her orchids. They were initially brought by Rubing as small plants in hanging pots, which bloomed into white dendrobiums and yellow oncidiums (“dancing ladies”).

My father planted a loquat seed on one shady side of the plot and we were so surprised that it germinated and grew, never mind if the loquat seed was from a packet of preserved, sugared fruit from China, and supposedly previously boiled in syrup. That seed grew into a strong, sturdy loquat tree, giving us shade, although it never bore fruit. On its branches my mother hung the orchid plants, their leaves safe from the hot overhead sun because of the leafy loquat shade.  

Every flowering orchid bloom then was always an occasion for celebration. When I called her every afternoon, one of the first thing she would tell me would be a new bud on one stem of an orchid plant, or the final flowering of another.

But her prized possession were the orchids we bought in Baclaran. My mother and I were fond of going to Baclaran for their flea markets on Sunday, especially those beside the basilica of our Lady of Perpetual Help. We would scour the kiosks for her favorite colorful housedresses (“dusters”) and spend time discussing the merits of this and that attire.

Mother at 62 years of age

As the years went by, I noticed that she went from large sizes to the smaller ones, until she had difficulty finding “dusters” that were not too voluminous. With a pang, I realized too, that where before she could outpace me with her brisk walk, later I had to slow down considerably so that she would not feel that she was slowing us down.

One time we got caught up in a frenzy of the Baclaran sidewalk vendors running and screaming “pulis! Pulis!” and pushing their wheeled carts away from the streets, dashing here and there to avoid the raiding policemen. We had to run for cover to avoid the panicky vendors, keeping ourselves and our feet from being slammed by the carts, and be hit by vendors with their wares on their arms.

We finally found refuge beside a concrete post, hiding ourselves from the pandemonium. Before we knew it we were laughing hysterically together, probably out of relief that nobody got hurt, and how absurd we looked, our faces sweaty and hot.  

One of her favorites were the vandas we bought one Sunday at the Baclaran plant vendors beside Max’s Restaurant. That small alley looked nondescript from the corner, but as one walked in, hundreds of beautiful flowering plants could be discovered, and my mother always loved walking through that small street.

One Sunday, she was riveted by a large flowering white and lilac cattleya with a gold-tinged center, and the vendor, sensing a possible sale, rushed over. How much was it, my mother asked. The vendor said it was one thousand seven hundred pesos, seeing that it was already in full bloom, and oh so beautiful! My mother and I, both innately thrifty, of course cringed at the price. The vendor sensed this too, and smiled.

Red Vandas

How about these, ‘Nay, she offered my mother. She showed us three small, two-inch long green shoots tied into a bundle. These are vandas, she said, one is yellow, the others are orange and red. Only a hundred pesos for the three! I sidled up to my mother and nonchalantly placed my arm on her back and poked her several times with my fingers, signaling a warning.

I cynically felt it was too much to ask, especially the colorful descriptions of the would-be vandas. My mother bought them anyway, telling me (and herself) that the one hundred peso “investment” was a good one. Since then, from time to time I would ask after our trio, and she said they were growing larger, but only the green leaves were seen.

After five years, when we had almost forgotten about them, the first vandas budded, and after a week, beautiful yellow blooms started to delight us, with brown speckles. In its wake, one after another, yellow flowers in its other branches also came out to surprise us, and my mother was so delighted. ‘Sus, after five years, ‘Day, she exclaimed.

Two years later, the orange ones bloomed as well, in three branches, giving the garden a bright spot among the other flowering plants. My mother’s joy knew no bounds.

The orange vandas that bloomed two years after mother bought them.

Every morning she would get up early and water her plants, counting the new blooms, and the buds. Finally one year after the orange ones came out, the red vandas appeared. That was about eight years after we bought the shoots. The flowers were large and pinkish-red, and everyone in the subdivision would stop by my mother’s garden and comment on the flowers. Even the little children would come by and say hello to Lola and the red vandas. From then on, the orchids gave forth colorful flowers, sometimes at the same time, at times one after another.

My mother is gone now, after a fatal head injury, incurred after a fall one early morning, a day after Mother’s Day. She was three months shy of her 90th birthday. Wherever she is, I’m sure she is still watching over her garden, especially the orchids that never tire of blooming, their colors resplendent, giving joy to everyone who passed by. In this way, we always feel that she has never really left us, after all. — LA, GMA News