Front Gardens of Samoa by shirleykitts

Front Gardens of Samoa

Shirley Kitts

Front Gardens of Samoa

Shirley Kitts

Front Gardens of Samoa: tropical style in the South Pacific

Shirley Kitts

The Old Inn Publishing Lewes, England

Published by Old Inn Publishing 2006 www.theoldinn.org High resolution hard copies can be ordered from www.lulu.com/theoldinn

Cover photograph: hedge outside garden belonging to Mrs Talalou Ava Misili

Introduction The place We were very excited about going back to Samoa as it is one of the few interesting parts of the world where the weather is hot all year round but nobody hates us just because we're English or white or relatively rich. It probably helps that the British didn't actually forcibly colonise Samoa, but they did send missionaries whose influence was, well, quite mixed. On balance, most people seem to be pleased about the bringing of Christianity, since nearly everyone now is a devout church-going Christian. Even the boys who play in the hotel band are likely to take off from the bar in a hurry because they're late for choir practice. Samoans are a tall, handsome, confident people, proud of their culture and of their beautiful country. They feel quite sorry for foreigners who have to live in dark, cold, crime-ridden, money-obsessed, dirty countries like Europe or the US, which means we don't have to feel guilty at all, neither for the past nor the present, which makes a nice change. The previous year, Inman and I had taken our first trip to Savai'i, which is the more traditional of the two largest islands of Samoa. We stayed at a rather wonderful hotel, the Safua, which had the most interesting guests: very few foreign tourists, but a group of rugby referees holding a training course there, a man from New Zealand who travels round the South Pacific inspecting hospital machinery, and various politicians. It is also home to a geologist called Warren Jopling who is famous worldwide for the educational excursions he runs round the island. We went on one of these tours to see some of the many places of geological and historical interest. It wasn't long, however, before I became completely distracted by the amazing ornamental gardens laid out in front of the houses.

The houses The houses, (called fales, pronounced fahleys) were themselves quite spectacular. Some were made of wood and thatch, others of concrete and corrugated iron, but most were built in the traditional style: one room, round, oval or rectangular with open sides and a roof supported

on pillars, with woven mats that could be rolled down for privacy or protection from the weather. We had a particular weakness for the little old thatched ones which looked as if they were growing from the soil, rather like witches' cottages in English story books. We also greatly admired the larger newer ones, painted in bright colours, with roofs of tile or beautifully weathered corrugated iron, every shade of red, and with rafters decorated with strips of printed bark-cloth or multicoloured bunting but otherwise looking a bit like Greek temples. Sometimes a family would have two, three or more fales, each added on over the years. The traditional ones were not always the oldest; it is a very suitable style of building for that hot and humid climate, catching every breeze, keeping cool, clean and insect-free. In a couple of cases we found that younger members of the family had opted to build their own small thatched fale, possibly for a little independence in what is a very communal way of life.

The gardens The fales were mainly grouped in villages of a dozen or so by the side of the main road which circled the island near or on the coast, the interior being mainly mountains. Typically, the fales were arranged in a row or semi-circle, each with its own patch of garden in front. There would be one or more 'meeting' fales in the centre, or fronting the road, where communal activities took place. Along the roadside there were also some wonderful stretches of hedging and edging, planted in a variety of styles, subtle or dazzling. Further inland were the plantations, the food producing areas, which you would expect in such a place. The front gardens, however, were almost exclusively ornamental and not at all like other gardens we'd seen in the tropics. Growing conditions in the tropics are, of course, fantastic: warm, wet, sunny, with more or less 12 hours each of night and day all year round. Things grow easily, and in all the tropical countries we've visited any ornamental gardens look very similar with spectacular great evergreen, sometimes everflowering plants. This is what I usually think of as

tropical gardening, and indeed the main aim of English gardens designed in tropical style seems to be to create a piece of rainforest, with big-leaved evergreen plants grown close together, with ferns, palms and so on. In Samoa however, where much of the country is covered in just such forest, many of these ornamental gardens seemed designed to contrast with and give respite from it. One favoured style was a low-growing sea of brilliantly coloured mixed flowers and shrubs, often in tones of red and yellow. Where they did grow large evergreens, they were often underplanted with small deciduous trees, shrubs, grasses and flowers in subtle pastel colours. In fact, a lot of people seemed to be making things difficult for themselves deliberately, and were growing masses of little, fiddly, delicate flowers like roses and orchids. The layouts were often formal, in beds and borders, but with informal crowded planting, looking for all the world just like English cottage gardens - and nothing at all like what we in England usually think of as tropical gardens. I suppose, though, that what really delighted us about the gardens was what always makes a garden exceptional - that combination of distinctive design and beautiful planting. For front gardens, of course, there are special requirements. The garden needs to frame and complement the house, mediating its relationship with the environment. It is the first thing seen by visitors, both friends and strangers, and will be their initial introduction to the inhabitants, so should accurately reflect something of them. And it should interest and delight passers-by. These gardens had it all, in buckets.

Questions Apart from being completely charmed by the gardens, I was quite puzzled by some aspects. The main one was this: people on Savai'i live largely by subsistence agriculture and fishing; they do not own labour-saving machinery such as washing machines and not everybody has electricity; families are quite large. Why then, do they spend their leisure time, which must be short, growing decorative but useless flowers? And not just the easy sort, but tender plants and annuals that were nibbled by beetles, subject to mildew and having to be carefully tended: weeded, divided, replanted, pruned, staked and tied, protected from the pigs

and chickens that roam about.

The plan The following year we went back to Savai'i to record some of these gardens. We intended to photograph the gardeners as well, and to print those photographs on the spot, to give to people by way of thanks for their co-operation, so we took along a little photo printer, which could be run off a car battery. This turned out to be an excellent idea. This was not really a cash economy, and very few people could afford to buy cameras, therefore photographs were much prized. It all seemed very simple. As well as photographing the gardens we would chat to the gardeners, exploring the gardening psyche, and in so doing would discover the answers to my questions, and probably a lot more besides. I was actually quite sure that the gardening psyche on Savai'i would be exactly the same as that in England. After all, gardeners in England are all the same as each other. Talk to any one of them. "What plant is that?" "Oh it's such-and-such, my neighbour gave me a cutting, I had it over there under the tree to start with but it didn't do very well so I moved it here and it seems much happier, of course the slugs love it, but I've been using bran and I must say it does seem to help a bit, I try not to use chemicals, and we had a hosepipe ban this year butâ&#x20AC;Śâ&#x20AC;Śâ&#x20AC;Ś etc etc." It isn't hard, one question will produce a response that will tell you all you need to know and a lot more besides, and not only about gardening. We were, however, at a slight disadvantage when it came to chatting to Samoans in their homes, for two main reasons. One is that, although Samoans are the most friendly and charming people on God's earth, they can seem a little shy of foreign visitors. The second factor was the dogs. Friendly and charming as the people are, the same cannot be said for their dogs. Houses are set well back from the road, and if you want to approach a house you typically have to hop over a fence or gate and stroll up with a pack of loud and furious dogs hurtling towards you. Sometimes, if they don't know you, they bite you. We decided we needed some help. The geologist, Warren, introduced us to one of his assistants, Hati, who kindly agreed to help us with

iii

our project. Hati was just what we needed - he was good company, knew everyone, took about five minutes to work out which gardens I would like best and most of all was very brave with mad dogs. The idea was that we would drive slowly round the island over a few days, and when I spotted a garden I liked, Hati would leap out and go to find the occupants (while fending off the dogs), ask them if they would allow us to photograph them and their gardens, and if the answer was positive he would wave to us (still cowering in the car). We would climb out and stroll over, trying to look casual. Hati would introduce us (still fending off dogs, which, with any luck, would have started to lose interest by now). We would then chat to the gardener, take photos and hey presto, job done.

The outcome Well, it sort of worked out. Hati played his part brilliantly. No dog too fierce, and no resident too shy, he gained us the entrĂŠe to every house and garden I took a fancy to. On the other hand, we experienced an almost total failure to communicate, on just about all levels. For example, we had one unexpected sartorial problem at the second house we called at, when a little boy burst into tears at the sight of Inman, which was very strange as children usually like him. We were told much later that the rather stylish local shirt that Inman had bought was actually the same pattern and design worn by government workers, and the little boy thought Inman was a policeman come to tell him off for being naughty. That will teach us not to be so insistent on authenticity, we'd have done better with the shirts specially aimed at tourists, made in Hawaii. Well, it probably won't teach us anything of the sort because someone else told us that it wasn't the shirt at all, and that just Inman himself, his beard and spectacles, were enough to 'cause uproar' with a child who had probably never had a close encounter with a foreigner before. Anyway, the main problem was that most of the questions I had prepared clearly didn't make sense. For example: I asked about pests and diseases; I could see that some plants were suffering a bit from some mildew and insect attack - but no-one admitted to any problems except for a worm that eats rose leaves, and apart from that it was just the free-ranging pigs and chickens kept by everybody that were any sort of problem, and many gardens featured special low

fences to keep them off. I came to the conclusion that Samoans were just not as precious about it all as the rest of us, and so didn't see a few caterpillars as much of a problem. This makes sense where conditions are generally so good, but on the other hand, they were growing plants that were relatively susceptible, so you'd expect them to take the opportunity for a bit of a moan, it's a gardener's privilege. A startling feature, on one side of the island in particular, was that the gardens seemed to be growing from solid rock. The whole area is volcanic, and in places the ground just consists of mounds and sheets of glassy black lava. Volcanic soil is very fertile, but there seemed to be hardly anything I would think of as soil, rather, plants seemed to grow straight out of crevices in the rocks. I had wondered what tools they must use to work such unforgiving terrain. There seemed, however, to be no concept of special tools for gardening. For cutting grass they used a knife, long and a bit curved, which they used as a scythe. For everything else they used another sort of knife, short and straight with a blunt end. With this, they could take cuttings, dig small holes, widen crevices in rocks, tease out weeds and so on. Plants were propagated by cuttings which were just pushed into crevices in the lava. Digging or major landscaping did not seem to be an option, but some people were managing to grow acres of immaculate flat lawns, how, I've no idea. What was the motivation for unnecessary gardening in that heat? This may be more complicated - they mostly didn't seem to understand the question. Basically, just like the rest of us they did it for pleasure, although flowers do play an important part in Samoan culture. There is also, however, a very strong culture of keeping villages tidy - people can be fined for letting the side down in that regard, and there does seem to be a certain amount of competitiveness about it. Maybe there was more than we had realised, or than they would admit to. Certainly in many villages the concept of tidiness seemed to have escalated to one of outstanding order and beauty. Time; this turned out to be the most stupid question of all. I thought that subsistence farming was exhausting, requiring constant hard work by everyone and that any spare time would be spent slumped in a state of exhaustion, or watching TV. Completely wrong. These front gardens were

cultivated almost exclusively by women, apart from grass-cutting which was delegated to men or children. The one exception we met was an unmarried man who tended not only his own garden but also the garden of the village's lovely old meeting fale. Mostly we found the women at home, sitting peacefully in their fales doing nothing much. Or sleeping. Or talking with their friends. Sometimes the men of the house were home too, doing just the same. They seemed to have the most relaxed lives imaginable and loads of time for gardening. I made the very na誰ve error of thinking that life without labour-saving machinery must be hard - on the contrary, a life without a lot of unnecessary things to look after and keep clean seems much less hard than one involving dishwashers and walk-in wardrobes. Many fales were furnished with just one large box that held all the family possessions. What really impressed me though was that the women spent two or three days a week making mats and other craft items, either for themselves or for sale, in one of the meeting fales with all the other women of the village. Every household uses loads of mats, for both practical and ceremonial purposes, including sitting and sleeping on, gifts, dowries etc., so they are very important both practically and culturally. The men brought them lunch on those days. My group of female friends think we're doing well to get a lunch or dinner organised two or three times a year. In Samoa they get three days a week and the men provide the food. Of course, I could be entirely mistaken about all this and maybe the people are actually as competitive about the mats as I think they may be about their gardens, and life is really stressful. Actually, there may be something in this - we heard that all the women of one village were engaged in making a whole load of mats for the new pastor, which was costing them a great deal of time and money. It was done freely, but clearly was expected.

The excuses All in all, although the whole process was just a joy, I was entirely disappointed in the level of gardening conversation, basically there just wasn't any. In the end we just chatted of this and that with anyone we could find, and hardly about gardening at all. Of course we hadn't allowed anything like enough time, we just rushed around from one lovely garden to another, took a few pics,

had a quick chat, then off to the next, and this in a place with a highly complex, stylised and formal system of etiquette, just about the last place to go gatecrashing in a hurry. Still, fortunately for us, Samoans are extremely tolerant of foreigners, realising we come from a far less civilised culture, so they make any amount of allowances for us. I had intended to include photographs specifically of the gardeners, but they weren't always at home, probably off making mats, so then we just snapped whoever was around: children, husbands, friends, neighbours. Even if the gardener was at home she sometimes wanted to be photographed with friends and family rather than alone, so we were not always sure who was who. I apologise profusely for any wrong attributions. I was interested to find that few people were able to name their plants, in any language. Warren told me that a Samoan asked the name of any plant would usually answer "Pua" (Frangipani). In the end I gave up asking, so the captions telling you what you're looking at are a bit scrappy but personally I always find them a bit distracting and never read them anyway. So here they are, Savai'i's front gardens, and their gardeners, and/or the gardeners' friends and relations. Since I was unable to learn anything at all useful through conversation, the pictures here will just have to speak for themselves, although they do not do their subjects anything like justice. You really should go and see for yourself. It is our idea of Eden, but with beaches.

Contents

Introduction

i-iv

Roses

Arch

Border

Noni

Hanging garden

Toolstore

Bottles

Cottage

Red roof

Pig fences

Snap

Blue house

More fales

Meeting fale

Yellow fale

Steps

Rock garden

Hedges

Flame tree

Crotons

Grasses

People

Goodbye

Acknowledgements

Roses

Anna Tuaio

A tangle of roses and spider orchids almost completely hides this fairytale fale from the road

Coconut husks used as edgings for these informal beds

The path is bordered with swathes of chrysanthemums, lilies and roses (opposite).

Phalanopsis and spider orchids growing to great heights (left).

Arch

Ufiufi Vaipou (you will meet her again later)

An arch of 'golden rain' (possibly a variety of Cassia) frames the entrance to this colourful house, underplanted with shrubs including tiny pink roses and yellow allamanda .

Pandanus leaves, for basket and matmaking, are spread out to dry on the front lawn

Cool blue and white planting in this shady area to the side of the house (opposite).

Tumama Vaipou, Faala Palaili and Isa

Border

Naetale Ioane

The modern but traditional style fale can just be seen behind this lush screen of palms. A long bed of lowgrowing shrubs and flowers is edged with smooth cobbles of lava

Noni

Talimalama, Penetekosa, Vaetia, Lui and Sapi

The preponderance of pinks and reds in the planting tones brilliantly with the weathered iron roof. Noni fruit is drying in front of the fale. It tastes disgusting, and is made into a health drink, now becoming very fashionable in America and Europe.

Hanging garden

Elisapete Pele and her sister

The man in the white shirt below is holding the long grass-cutting knife, which is used like a scythe. This is normally done by men or children,

Tool store

As used for digging, pruning, weeding, cutting, hoeing, scraping, opening shellfish................

Bottles

Mrs Ganilofa Toilolo

Water bottles filled with sand and painted white form a neat edging to this red and yellow garden.

Cottage

Sira Ioane

This was the garden and fale that I wanted for myself. It looks like a little English cottage, peeping out from the undergrowth.

Sira Ioane

This was the fale and garden I wanted for myself. I could be happy here.

Torch ginger

Red ginger and Allamanda

Hibiscus

Another sort of Hibiscus

Heliconia

Red Roof

Meaiti Fiu Sio, Tapai Leremaia, Mareta Fiu Sio and Sagato Samele The little boy here was the one who thought Inman was a policeman (see Introduction).

Behind this fale you can just see an older thatched one.

Many houses have family graves in their gardens as here.

Pig fences

Two examples of anti-pig fences. The pigs always win in the end though.

Snap

Papu, Poni, Melemelo, Mirako and Malene

This front garden consists of spectacular wide borders at the sides of the path, densely planted with palms, trees, shrubs, grasses and flowers.

Blue House

Tuli Silafau

This restrained design complements the pretty blue and white house in its idyllic setting

The border immediately in front of the house is laid out symmetrically and edged with lava. Flourishing spider orchids are trained up posts and recycled tyres hold small palm trees underplanted with crotons.

More fales

Meeting Fale

Mose Galavao

Mose is pictured in front of his own house and the graves of his parents. Mose tends the garden of the beautiful traditional round, wooden meeting fale pictured over, which was built by his father, and is now, sadly, due to be demolished and replaced by a new larger one.

(Opposite) Construction details of the fale from the inside. The whole thing is tied together with plant fibre rope.

Pigs - the main acknowledged garden pests. They're a very small breed and look quite cute.

Yellow fale

Mrs Tapuai Falemoa

A mass of pink zinnias edged with grasses and backed by bronze crotons on the left-hand side of this brilliantly painted fale. On the right, clerodendrums surround a family grave. A bush of yellow allamanda in the foreground.

Steps

Nammalaula Filipo and his daughter Asia

Dramatic tree planting shades the grand entrance to this fale, very cool and inviting, with a flowery border round the base.

Rock garden

Matele Tauveve

This garden has been made on un-reconstructed black lava â&#x20AC;&#x201C; you can see still see the shape of the volcanic flow. Plants are just pushed into crevices and somehow grow.

Another pig fence

Hedges

Flame tree

Leoia Tavai and Faimeatonu

A huge Flame Tree (Royal Poinciana) shelters this fale with its brilliant new roof.

Crotons

Soli Fuifaitala with Tativa and Faamasino

Over: two fales in a brilliant sea of crotons, chrysanthemums and zinnias. In the left hand fale the blinds have been let down

At the rear of these fales are extensive lawns, with borders of mixed flowers and palms. How they ever got all that expanse of rocky soil flat enough for such a lawn is anyone's guess.

Grasses

Tina Tasi, Letui and Penina Seira

Grasses used as a formal edging to beds of flowering shrubs underplanted with daisies, marigolds and other annuals

People

Warren

Hati

The Band

Inman in his scary shirt (see Introduction)

Goodbye Ufiufi Vaipou (see page 6)

Acknowledgements

Our grateful thanks to Hati and Warren, and all the kind people of Savai'i who welcomed us into their homes and gardens. Thanks also to all the people at the Safua Hotel for looking after us so well.