Green Goa
Tree architecture and ‘instant’ trees, even in pots
The advantages and joy of growing fruit trees and flowering plants in pots
MIGUEL BRAGANZA
A
lmost everyone would have seen huge trees that have emerged from the support poles of the Indian Tulip, Thespesia populnea, used on the beachfront in Goa to stake coconut trees on windy seashores, but they may have not noticed what exactly had happened. As its Konkani name Bhenddi tree
suggests, it is related to the Ladyfinger or Bhenddo plant. Both belong to the Hibiscus family, Malvaceae. The Indian Tulip tree produces large yellow flowers that turn pink in a day or two, with both colours adding beauty to its canopy of lustrous green leaves. Its trunk yields good quality timber and is used for making furniture. Unlike the coconut tree, that can sway like a ballerina and still not miss its footing, or the Rain Tree that closes its leaves during gloomy weather like the prudent shopkeepers who down their shutters in anticipation of riots, most other trees get knocked out by the cyclone. The cyclone Tauktae literally drove home the message of tree architecture. Residents of the coastal belt had precious fruit trees in their compounds uprooted and dropped on the ground like a sack of
Pole tree cross section
Pole Tree Indian Tulip Pole Tree Indian Tulip
Potted Star Fruit
42 | My Goa | July 2021
potatoes. Unbalanced branching and dense canopy of a tree make it an easy target for the cyclonic winds. A large number of mango trees came down in May, not for a vacation but flat out on the ground. I am still guiding people how to balance their precious Malcurada, Manga Hilario or mango trees bearing their family name. Like a good bonsai artist, one must prune and train a mango tree to let the storm blow through it. With decreasing areas of housing plots, one has to decrease the height of the trees that are otherwise likely to fall on one’s own or neighbour’s house. One has to train the trees like one trains their children: when they are young. When the seedling or graft is about one metre in height one has to begin to train it. There are various systems of training trees and now details are
