Tropical Evolution: A Cornucopia of Thai Fruits & Flowers

I finally completed the exotic fruit and flower arrangement of my dreams!

The second story balcony of our teakwood Lana-style hotel room here at Sib-San Resort in Chang Mai, Thailand overlooks the Rim Ping River. The amazing view is full of flowering tamarind trees, ancient frangipani, torch ginger, ornamental bananas, and teak wood trees. in the middle of the riverside property stands an ancient silk floss tree with emerging buttress roots easily over 120 feet tall. A small wooden shrine has been constructed at its base for prayer and to honor the ancient spirits who still reside here.

Acquiring all the fruits and flowers for this arrangement took hours of considerable effort, visiting several local markets. one fruit market had beautiful durian, rambutan, huge lychee, purple-black mangosteen, custard apples and airtight bags of freshly packed gardenias.

I then gathered seasonal white pendulous butterfly ginger, pink and chartreuse cone ginger, pancake-size raspberry vanda orchids.

Finally I used the hotel driver for an hour with my Balinese machete and knocked on local doors with amazing gardens and asked permission to harvest colorful heliconia, pink torch ginger, flaming red poinciana blossoms, and multi-colored frangipani flowers. The Thai hospitality and graciousness never fails to amaze me. I even cut copper-colored ornamental bananas from the street!

Once I began, the staff arrived and saw me designing the arrangement on the balcony. They rushed off and returned with a dozen stems of ascocenda and aranda orchids, so I now possessed every tropical color of the rainbow. This was to be the arrangement of my dreams.

Randall Quirk Journal, June 20, 2015 - Sibsan Resort, Chang Mai