Frederik Majoor and his wife, Patraporn, live in a tropical paradise just a seven-minute walk from Surin beach in Phuket. They own three villas that boast a lush, beautifully landscaped garden, complete with a waterfall and a large pond designed like a stream and populated by 99 colourful Japanese carp, or koi.
What’s wonderful about it is that while Mr Majoor designed the villas, Ms Patraporn, better known as Aom, did all the landscaping herself. A fisherman’s daughter from coastal Pak Phanang district in Nakhon Si Thammarat province, the self-taught landscape designer turned a barren land into a garden many of us could only dream of.
“She designed it from the heart, not from books,” Mr Majoor, who is Dutch, wrote. “Before it was a completely empty field, no trees, no lake.” Proud of his wife’s handiwork, Mr Majoor sent in the photos you see on this page in response to my invitation that readers share photos of their plants or gardens and their gardening experience.
Growing up close to the sea, Ms Patraporn said when I talked with her on the phone she has liked plants, birds and fish since she was a child. “When I was in high school I started growing plants to decorate our home but unlike most Thai houses which are surrounded by flowers, I preferred foliage plants,” she said.
Her love of greenery was put to good use when her husband gave her a free rein to landscape their property. “I like green but it is far from monotonous as it comes in many different shades. Some plants have dark green leaves, while others are lighter. I use the different shades to complement one another. When I go to a nursery and see a plant I like, in the back of my mind I already know where to place it in our garden.”
Variety among the greenery: Patraporn’s tropical paradise in various shades of green.
Most of the more than 100 different species of plants she used in landscaping were purchased from plant nurseries in Phuket, she said, but some of the ferns she brought back in crates after a visit to Chiang Mai.
Ms Patraporn loves trees, and feels sorry that when roads are widened, grown trees are felled down instead of being relocated. “Now that I have my own home I want to surround it with as many trees as I can,” she said. With so many trees in her garden, birds come and perch on their branches and squirrels jump from tree to tree.
She also loves mountains, so she created one, complete with waterfalls, where once there was none. To bring a mountain close to her home she used boulders, some weighing up to three tonnes, with the help of a crane. “In all, Aom used 80 big boulders for the decoration of the garden and for the construction of the waterfall,” Mr Majoor said.
Ms Patraporn reminds me of an aunt who was one of Thailand’s pioneering landscape designers. Khunying Urai Lueamrung had a penchant for making her gardens look as natural as possible. Using her self-taught expertise in gardening and landscaping, she would build waterfalls and dry riverbeds where none existed. Planting ferns on rock crevices, her handiwork looked more natural than nature’s work itself. She was so good at it that she was commissioned to design the gardens of royalty.
She once told me that nature was the best teacher, and her landscape designs were but an imitation of nature. They were not like Japanese gardens or British gardens, in fact you would not find their like in any garden, because the boulders, the rocks and the ferns were laid out the way they had been found in their natural setting.
The grand dame of gardening and landscaping is now gone, but she left a legacy for the public to enjoy in the form of the King Rama IX Royal Park’s Romanee Garden, which was her last piece of work, and the Wang Kaew beach resort in Rayong, which she developed from a mango orchard and scrubby forest into a haven for nature lovers.
Both Mr Majoor and Ms Patraporn have a penchant for design; for him one villa was not enough so he designed another, and then another, naming them Villa on the Rocks and Villa in the Garden. Ms Patraporn’s palms and shrubs serve as green curtains that provide privacy for each of the villas, which enjoy a common swimming pool designed like no other: It is long and winding, like a klong, or canal.
With more living space than they could use, the couple will be only too happy to rent out a villa or two for those who would like a getaway from the stresses and strains of corporate life in the city. And what’s a better way to recharge your batteries than losing yourself in a tropical jungle, enjoying tranquil moments and savouring cocktails while watching fish lazily swimming in the pond, knowing that the sea is but a seven-minute walk away should you want to feel the beach’s fine white sand under your bare feet.
Apart from being an accomplished landscape designer, Ms Patraporn is also a gourmet cook, but that’s another story. The couple have websites, Villaontherocks.com and Villainthegardenphuket.com, for those who would like to know more about them.
Email nthongtham@gmail.com.
Chasing waterfalls: For accent and to create the man-made waterfall on the right, Patraporn used boulders.
In her element: Self-taught landscape designer Patraporn Majoor in her lush garden near Surin beach in Phuket.
