Los Banos Flower and Garden Show - April 2016

It's summer (or the start of the hot season). It's vacation time for most students, some schools have closed while others have just recently held their graduation ceremonies. It's start of the summer vacation and you can be sure many would be going to resorts.

To avoid the crowd that troop during the weekends, we opted to attend the first day of the the Los Banos Flower and Garden Show. Traffic on a Friday morning wouldn't be as bad as compared to a Saturday morning.

We were right.

Before proceeding to the Los Banos Flower and Garden show, we went to our favorite source of coco dust, and that's Dulay's. We weren't so lucky though because all their coco dust stocks have been purchased. The remaining inventory at the store is already reserved/sold.

But the owner knows us and agreed to sell us just one sack. This is in spite of the entire lot was already reserved.


Buying Plants in a Garden along the Way

As we were heading back from the gardening supply store, I told DH to keep an eye out for Cape honeysuckle plants (Tecomaria capensis) along the way. There are so many gardens selling plants on both sides of the road that it's so difficult to look for just one kind of plant.

But she's got a sharp eye and managed to see Cape honeysuckle plants. We stopped and inquired if they had the ones with the yellow flower. I've been wanting to grow the yellow-flowered Cape honeysuckle or Tecomaria capensis aurea. "Aurea" is a latin word, meaning "golden". We already have one that has the bright orange flowers.

The helper went at the back and was carrying the yellow-flowered plant. He said they only had one left. I wasn't planning on buying several and so one was enough.

DH, on the other hand, was looking for a plant called Cinamomo or the Chinese Perfume Plant (Aglaia odorata). She's been looking for it for ages.

And guess what? The helper found a way to get one! He disappeared for some 5 minutes and when he returned, he was bringing two Cinamomo plants!

Of course DH just chose the smaller and cheaper one which was priced at Php 35. The Cape honeysuckle was priced at Php 75. DH haggled for the price and we were able to get the two plants for just Php 100. Shown below is the Cinamomo plant (Aglaia odorata).

The Yellow Cape honeysuckle is shown below. This cultivar is called Tecomaria capensis aurea.

With our quest (for the plants we were seeking) satisfied, I wasn't as much excited anymore to go to the Flower and Garden show. But, essentially, since that's what we went there for, we entered the exhibit for a look-see.

Los Banos Flower and Garden Show - 2016

After paying the nominal fee of Php 20, we proceeded to the various booths inside. I was almost sure I wouldn't be buying any garden plants for me. Of course that is unless I saw something a bit familiar, visually spectacular (at least for me) and cheap. We already have many plants at home.

Like before, it was fun being able to identify many of the displayed garden plants at the exhibit, especially if these plants didn't have plant tags, labels or markers.


Adeniums or Desert Rose for Sale

Not surprisingly, DH gravitated towards the booth selling Adeniums (Desert Rose) plants. The seller, Hazel, is the lone adenium seller in the exhibit. I think she first entered the Flower and Garden Show last year where she had plenty of sales.

Today, there weren't as many adenium plants for sale, I suppose it had something to do with today being the first day. It being a weekday and the exhibit's first day, there weren't as much visitors to the garden show as would on a weekend.

Still, DH bought two small plants at Php100 each. She would buy 4 more plants later from Hazel after requesting and reserving the kinds she wanted.

After getting her loot, we proceeded to other parts of the exhibit.

(See Part 2 for the continuation of this article)