Big Gardening Ideas for Small Urban Areas

The gardening ideas of colorful flowers welcome guests to the garden of Thanawat Suwinai Phreusabenja of Inmindhamlet community on Soi Ari 3. Located inside is the gardening shop Mc&Ami, where people love to look into the glass-partitioned display area at where butterflies are attracted to the scents of flowers. The Living ASEAN team itself became interested and came to investigate.

/// Thailand ///

Story :Panchat Changchan /// Photos : Chaiyapruk Podang /// Landscape :Thanawat Suwinai Phreusabenja

*The table décor creates a bright, lively party atmosphere.*

*The dining table creates an intimate and uniquely festive atmosphere as surrounding garden ornaments and “showroom” shelves serve as a backdrop.*

We arrived at twilight, as Thanawat was setting up the dining table in the garden to welcome us, amid vibrant colors of flowers in the garden and on the table. Asked about the decor, he said,

*Combination flower planters beautify the entrance. Thanawat got the inspiration from seeing flower vases set at different levels, tall leafy plants at the top descending down to small flowers.*

“I got the idea from a respected teacher;she gave me a book about Claude Monet’s garden. She expressed her wish that I could find that sort of happiness in the rest of my own life. Thinking about that made me try to set my garden in Monet’s natural and beautiful style, and what you see here comes from that.”

*Thanawat Suwinai Phreusabenja, gardener and distributor of Mc & Ami gardening equipment, also the owner of Inmindhamlet Community Mall.*

After dinner, we walked around the garden, which is overflowing with decorative ideas. Thanawat himself designed the creative little cement doll family of pigs,lion statues using Spanish moss for a mane and ducks carrying egg sacks in their mouths. With unique choices and placement both flowers and decorative plants are mixed in with tropical rainforest varieties. Inclusions exotics and unusual kitchen vegetables which are all in vigorous growth.

*A pair of decorative lion sculptures: one displays an imaginative use of Spanish moss as the lion’s mane.*

“My concept is to just sow seeds and let the plants grow by themselves as best they can. The beauty is in non-native plants trying to make their way and naturally adapt in a strange place, with a different kind of beauty than before, in leaves, branches, and colors. But when planting we do have to consider whether a plant can coexist with the others. Is it shade-tolerant? Can it survive with a vine growing over it?”

*Entryway post with a faucet for watering flowers. Functional and attractive, too.*

Another minor miracle is that all this grows in what used to be a parking lot, which Thanawat covered in topsoil and gradually planted over.

*Small shrubs with flowering plants below. Rising above is a mix of leafy plants, broad and point-formed, creating a filled-out appearance.*

“The fun is in the challenge. We have a hard concrete yard. You would think that we cannot plant. Think again. Just have a concept and a passion, and a garden is created from Shallow root systems, a single level of soil, good for bamboo, ferns, flowering plants, bushes, and kitchen vegetables. We found added benefits from things we can plant and grow slowly, and that will flower for a long time, so we aren’t constantly cutting things back.”

*A gate through the iron fence into the garden, where a white gravel path contrasts nicely with greenery and ornamentation.*

We also have odd blossoming schedules and odd shapes that grow and nourish beauty. Adapt and don’t accept failure because the hard cement doesn’t fight back, but this is still a formula for success.

*Besides flowers, there are kitchen spices like basil and pandanus palm that add color and beauty.*

*Small steel planter boxes trap rainwater. Semanggi and star grass add a chic look.*

link: https://www.facebook.com/Inmindhamlet-soi-aree-1458360097813741/?fref=ts

Big Gardening Ideas for Small Urban Areas