Today i’ve signed up with Darren Rowse of @problogger -http://www.problogger.com/31days/ and this is our first exercise – “Creating an Elevator Pitch” – a short pitch to convince you readers out there to come visit my site. I know it ain’t much yet but with the help of twitter & online gurus like @robangeles http://www.socialmediaphilippines.com i will hopefully get you curious to come back for more.

Mr. Chan from Tainan, Taiwan showing off his hybrids in 2005

In January 2005, I got the chance to visit a fellow gardener in Kaohshiung, and was privileged to be taken around Taiwan’s private collectors & breeders. During this trip, I felt the Taiwanese were under rated in the field of adeniums. A few varieties were already coming out in Jatujak market in Bangkok but nothing compared to these varieties shown in this page. This was truly awesome that year 2005!-I felt like I stumbled into a goldmine! And I did. I brought home all these varieties I fancied. While the Thais was reasonably priced already at this time around BHT1,000-5,000.00 – I could not have been any happier I got them for a really great price about NT30-150.00 only while the new ones with less production ranged at NT2,000-NT5,000.00 for a 5inch cutting which was still reasonable I believe.

Here are more photos of the different varieties I encountered in different towns in Taiwan. I know you think they all look alike – but some have a really slight difference while some is more obvious or I may not have given justice to how big some flowers are.

Next to Taiwan breeders, I hear there’s a lot of interesting hybrids from India as well, unfortunately I did not get that chance to get that far – but if you stumbled upon this site and you know anyone there I would appreciate if you can redirect me to their site if any. Enjoy.

I grew up in the modest town of Rizal, an only child of a famous RM Awardee for journalism (1974) and an enterprising mother. Growing up my father wrote an agriculture column for local broadsheets & magazines while my mother handled my father’s garden store. I held summer jobs in the store, selling & micro managing the operation while learning hands on taxonomy of different species and genre of plants around me like cycads, palms, bromeliads, aroids, anthuriums & aglaonemas. But I took that for granted, and went on to make a career on advertising for myself. This career went on for 15yrs until I experienced a major burn out that I decided to leave the industry for good.

With nothing else to do – I started to notice the garden again. I literally stopped to smell the roses – OMG! Where have I been all this time? I actually started appreciating the most mundane things – the leaf form on the aglaonemas, the spores on the ferns were interesting, the bee on top of  the pollens became fascinating & the hoya flowers became beautiful. Now am hooked! – My passion has been stirred. And this is how my journey begins.