The Discovery Garden

While we’re traveling or even surfing the net, I’m always on the look out for rare and exotic plants, trees and shrubs to add to my growing collection in our budding permaculture food forest.

On a recent trip to Sri Lanka we fell in love with cinnamon trees and now have four growing very nicely. More recently, I stumbled upon cocoa trees (chocolate) at the Khao Saming Orchid Festival. I ended up buying eight and planting them in various places throughout the garden to see where they grow best. Who knows, one day we may be producing our very own Thinglish Chocolate!

I’m relatively new to gardening and farming in Thailand and although I learn a lot from reading and watching Youtube videos, there really is no substitute to getting your hands dirty and experimenting in the garden.

Screw Pines

We were staying at The Royal Cliff Hotel in Pattaya a few months ago and I noticed a beautiful and robust tree while eating lunch at Breezeo restaurant by the beach. I photographed it and later identified it as a Screw Pine (Pandanus tectorius). To my surprise, I found a dealer online, also in Pattaya.

Discovery Garden

The Discovery Garden looks to be a passion project of a retired gentleman by the name of Hans. We we attending the Bill Bailey Live show last weekend at the Royal Cliff and arrange a private tour of his gardens. I must say, I had tree envy!

Walking through his 7 rai, he introduced us to his plant collection that has a large emphasis on trees from South America, along with baobab trees, cashew nuts, tiesa, cocoa and Mexican guava.

He also has iguanas, parakeets and around 70 geese that keep the grass nice and trim,

At the end of the tour we purchased the screw pine that first led me to the Discovery Garden along with the following trees:

• 1 x root sock Guabilla tree (Inga marginata)
• 2 x Air layered Forastero cocoa (one I’m gifting to a friend)
• 1 x Air layered Trinitario cocoa
• 1 x Strawberry Guava (Psidium cattleyanum)
• 1 x Gac fruit vine (Momordica cochinchinensis)
• 1 x Egg fruit tree (Pouteria campechiana)
• 1 x Red Lipstick tree (bixa orellana)

To arrange a tour of the Discovery Gardens in Pattaya or Nong Khai, contact Hans and tell him Thinglish Lifestyle sent you; )

We will also be opening our garden for complimentary tours for customers of our Thai cooking classes. You can find out more about the Thinglish Cooking Experience and schedule classes here.

The Discovery Garden