A GARDEN OF EARHTLY DELIGHTS

A HOUSE USUALLY REFLECTS THE PERSONALITY OF ITS OCCUPANT
and a good example of this would be the lush, bucolic home of painter
Popo San Pascual, which resonates with his artistic wit and charm
 

A few hundred meters from a highway dotted with pretentious vacation houses is a winding dirt road leading to one of the most interesting homes in Tagaytay. A modest gate opens to yet another winding path shaded with trees so huge their branches meet from opposite sides to touch each other. This overgrowth of exotic plants reveal a terracotta-colored house in its midst, and so begins our adventure in Popo San Pascual’s paradise.

Unlike the barricaded enclaves so popular in this area, Popo’s house is simply made, with all the windows and doors thrown open so one can walk from the garden into the living room and out without a second thought. The main living area serves as his studio, and the bright colors of the walls reflect the hues of his paintings. Around this room are low ledges where his artwork-in-progress are perched. His style has changed somewhat, with the child-like yet witty naiveté of his early paintings giving way to more abstract, near-impressionist renderings, all of them alive with energetic lines, bold strokes and vivid color. “I wanted them to have the feel of those paintings in the ‘60s-that impressionist style, those colors,” he explains.

The house’s hallway is painted chalkboard-green, and has vestiges of quaint family heirlooms, such as an aparador from his grandfather and an ancient piano from his aunt, replete with candle sconces. Beyond this, there are two bedrooms, both of them small and idyllic in nature, their arrangement done in such a way to make one feel as if they have just stumbled upon them accidentally. One of them is his brother grew up in at his family home in San Juan. They are now painted green and laid with Indian batik fabric, its colors a perfect foil the bedroom walls embellished with Popo’s whimsical doodles.

Before Popo built the house, he frequented Laong Laan, the street famous for selling old wood and architectural components from demolished houses. The weathered windows and doors are actually pieced-together parts from old homes. “I wanted the house to look like it was a Chinese junk, like the ones you see in Hong Kong,” he admits. “I wanted the appearance and feeling of a house floating on water. I have a friend who lives in a junk listing about Repulse Bay in Hong Kong…I couldn’t forget its colors, the lights issuing from its windows while it drifted about the sea at night.” Hence, the omnipresent Chinese lanterns, the bright colors, the haphazard yet brilliant arrangement of furnishings and objects, the lived-in look of the entire place. He says that sometimes the wind is so strong at night it wraps around the house and howls, like it would be if one were at sea.

The lanai makes a natural transition towards the garden, made all the more charming by chickens scuttling about and a family of tortoiseshell cats that come and go at will. The walls here are decorated with his objets retrouves, found objects composed of oddly-shaped rocks, garden tools, mudshoes and his “noisemakers,” a collection of saws and metal covers that go clanging about when hit by a gust of wind.

In Popo’s garden, there are no clipped hedges or structured vignettes. Here, vines, shrubs and humongous trees take on an uninhibited stance and grow with wild abandon. He claims he built the house and nurtured the garden amongst the old trees, giant mutant plants that seem to have been around for years. There are several pathways around the garden, winding and maze-like, the positioning of the path-stones not giving any hint of where it would lead you. There are pathways leading to the main house, to the adjoining kitchen, to numerous ponds full of Quiapo (water lettuce) plants, and to several curious pavilions. One pavilion is a hut complete with mattress and pillows; a siesta hut, it seems. The other is even more unexpected, an outdoor exercise hut complete with benchpress and set of weights!

Popo paints at night, and spends most of the daytime tinkering in his garden, puttering about and humming as he walks around it. Sometimes he stops talking mid-sentence, politely excuses himself, and bends over to fill one of the many watering cans lying about and attends to whatever plant there is that needs immediate attention. The plants are gifts from friends, some of them purchased, and others traded and bartered from his numerous plant-loving acquaintances. Most of the plants were acquired from Quezon, including the giant gabi (taro plant), their leaves plate-like and massive enough to cradle a small child. He also has royal palms that grow like anything, most of them over nine feet tall and yet only four years old. There are also immense ferns and cycads, their leaves so ancient and prehistoric in appearance Popo calls them “Jurassic”. Other parts of the garden are divided into plant collections. A large are is dedicated to his bromeliad collection, most of them coming from his friends. In the backyard, there is an open space, which Popo calls his “Oracle”. The foliage here is less dense; with a clearing in the middle surrounded by a circular, Stonehenge-like arrangement of dapis, leaf-crushing stones from a hat-making town in Quezon. Their monolithic shapes are more than a hundred years old. Popo reveals that the holes in the middle of these stones are a perfect perching place for votive candles, which he lights up whenever he has parties. In the middle of the clearing is a table made out of metal discs by Trek Valdizno, while a fiberglass sculpture by Johnny Alcazaren lurks in the background. “It’s called ‘The Capeman’,” says Popo. “It used to have a head but I took it off temporarily. It looked so frightening with its head on at night!”

This garden also carries a few plants with unusual habits, “freaks of nature,” one might think. A hardy-looking hibiscus plant has both pink and white flowers growing from one stem. Another hibiscus, Popo claims, has white-colored blooms that when plucked in the morning, slowly turn pink as the day wears on. One other funky-looking plant is the medicinal herb katakataka (kalanchoe pinnata); the leaves of which form roots when pressed between the pages of a book. “The wonders of nature talaga!” he exclaims.

Popo says he has other plants for his garden, which he claims is constantly evolving. He even intends to put a gazebo in the area. As for the maintenance of this amazing garden, he is, surprisingly, rather nonchalant about its upkeep. “If it survives, it survives,” he says he bends over to water yet another plant.