A clipped tree at Bangkok's Grand Palace, perhaps the most authentic example of a classic Thai garden, originally built toward the end of the 18th century. A number of plants are trained in this way, the one here being Diospyros rhodocalyx, popularly known as the Siamese Rough Bush.
As in China, Thai palaces consisted of various enclosed sections, each serving a particular function. The outer areas were relatively bare of greenery, often paved with cobblestones and devoted to government offices and audience halls; the real gardens lay behind high walls, designed for the private pleasure of the King, his wives, and their attendants (which is perhaps why the French visitors quoted earlier never saw them).
Clipped mai dat specimens in the Wat Po enclosure.
An artificial mountain: such creations, called khao mor, were popular features in traditional Thai palace and temple gardens and ranged in size from small to quite large.
No record remains of the gardens in the royal palace of Ayutthaya, but they were probably similar to the early ones in the Bangkok palace which was in many respects a deliberate replica. Here the original plants are said to have included varieties chosen because of their fragrance, among them Michelia champaca alba (champi in Thai), a member of the Magnolia family; Jasmine (mali-dorn); Michelia elengi (pikul), the flowers of which were used to scent clothes and make potpourri; and Mammea siamensis (sarapee), an evergreen tree with white blooms. There were numerous ponds, planted with Water Lilies and Lotus, as well as khao mord to create an illusion of topography in an otherwise flat landscape. An illustration in a travel account by the Marquis of Beauvoir, who was received by King Mongkut in Bangkok in 1867, is captioned "Un arroyo a Bangkok" but is almost certainly taken from a photograph of one of the pools in the Grand Palace garden; among the prominent plants is what appears to be a wild Dracaena (chandhana), which produces sprays of fragrant flowers.
Prince Chula Chakrabongse notes in his history of the Chakri Dynasty that, in the early 19th century, King Rama II redesigned the original garden that had been planted by his father. He created one with "a large lake, lined with bricks, which had several islands, large and small, all connected together by charming little bridges of diverse designs. On some of the islands there were Chinese pagodas, on others little European pavilions, and the King took his meals or listened to music in these delightful buildings. There was boating on the lake, and sometimes evening parties were held when the Court went into fancy dress, and all the little canoes which were paddled around the islands had bright lamps of myriad hues." The description is strikingly similar to many written about the Imperial Palace in Beijing.
"Khun Chang Khun Pan", the narrative poem written by Thai poet Sunthorn Phu in the early 19th century, contains an episode in which Khun Pan slips into the house of his love, Nang Pirn. The author lists various potted plants on her verandah, which were no doubt typical of those to be seen in both palaces and aristocratic households of the time, among them Michelia champaca alba, a Dwarf Tamarind tree with its branches clipped into balls, Pandanus odoratissimus (lumchiek), Jasminium sambac (mali-sorn), Melodorum fruticosum (lamduan) and Sansevieria trlfasciata (ked).
Aesthetic considerations were secondary in the gardens of most ordinary homes. Here the emphasis was on practicality—plants that could be used for food, such as fruit trees, and a vast variety of culinary herbs, and others that yielded the ingredients for traditional medicines. The arrangement, more often than not, was haphazard, with little attention given to present-day concepts of landscape design.
An engraving of a pool in the Grand Palace garden in the mid-19th century, taken from a photograph and entitled "Un arroyo a Bangkok". The tall, palm-like plants are a wild Dracaena with fragrant flowers. This pool, part of a large artificial mountain, was used in a variety of royal ceremonies.
Superstition played (and to some extent continues to play) a significant role. A Star Gooseberry (Phyllanthus acidus; in Thai mayoni) is regarded as lucky when planted at the front of a house since its Thai name sounds like the word for "popularity". Almost any plant whose Thai name begins with the syllable ma is, in fact, considered auspicious: ma-krut (Kaffir Lime), mamuang (Mango), ma-fuang (Starfruit), makham (Tamarind) and ma-la-kaw (Papaya). The fact that they also produce fruit is perhaps not entirely coincidental. Other plants, however, without any practical use, are also looked upon as auspicious and often grown as much-prized potted specimens. Many of these are notable for their patterned leaves, like Codiaeum, Caladium, Dieffenbachia and Aglaonema, as well as almost anything with gold-coloured foliage.
Other plants were considered to be unlucky, at least in non-royal, non-religious compounds. Plumeria was one, since its Thai name, lan-tom, is similar to ran-tom, which means "heartbreak"; another was a kind of fern called prong, since that sounds like plong, meaning "to dispose of. M R Pimsai Amranand, an authority on Thai gardening, also lists others. She says that Bombax ceiba (ngiu), a native tree with red-orange flowers, was excluded because its soft wood is used in making coffins; Hibiscus because condemned criminals were once paraded through the streets with a red Hisbiscus flower behind their ears; and Clerodendrum fragrant (nang yaem) because older plants were supposed to turn into spirits. Modern gardeners appear to have overcome most of these prejudices, though many still refuse to include Plumerias in their landscape plan.
Khao Wang, "the Mountain Palace", built by King Rama IV in the mid-19th century atop a hill in Petchaburi and recently restored by the Fine Arts Department; the compounds include an observation tower for astronomical studies, the King's favourite pastime. Rarely seen in private gardens, Plumerias were often seen in royal and religious gardens.
A building in Khao Wang, showing one of the numerous old Plumeria trees which were planted along the road leading up to the palace.
M R Pimsai developed her love of gardening in England where she lived for much of her younger life, and was frankly horrified by most of the Thai gardens she saw on her return in the 1950s. Her first impression, she later wrote, was "of flat pieces of land with spindly fruit trees planted all along the fences, with herbs and flowers planted in ugly raised beds completely straight, looking vaguely like graves. Or sometimes one would be introduced to someone who was thought to be a great gardener, and on going to his house one would see no garden but a collection of Crotons, Gerbera or orchids, all grown in straight rows or in pots. The emphasis was on the plants, with little thought of how a garden should look. The word suan in Thai and translated as 'garden' conjures up in Thai minds a place the English would call an orchard or a market garden."
Soon after that was written the situation was to change dramatically. Such Western concepts of landscape design as lawns and massed beds became common, while to meet the growing demand for horticultural novelty both private collectors and nursery owners introduced countless new ornamental specimens from tropical places as distant as Hawaii and South America. The choice of Heliconias, for example, was limited to only a few varieties as recently as the 1970s; within a decade there were dozens, along with such related species as Alpinia and flowering Bananas. Moreover, Thai commercial growers became expert at developing new hybrids of Codiaeum, Aglaonema, Dieffenbachia, Cordylines and others, often assigning them impressive names to increase their desirability (and, inevitably, their prices).
Thai garden styles today reflect as wide a variety of tastes as can be found anywhere in the tropics. Some show a continuing fondness for
