Latest / What’s the Story: The Sri Lanka Podcast / A Sri Lankan Garden Companion | The Gardens & Plantations of The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel
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- A Sri Lankan Garden Companion | The Gardens & Plantations of The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel “Once, when I was young and true,” wrote Dorothy Parker in 1926, “Someone left me sad; Broke my brittle heart in two; And that is very bad.” Fortunately, an early broken heart was not to be my fate. Gardens were. Plants. And especially trees. For it was gardens, not love, that occupied my childish imaginings. Gardens, I concluded, were all variants of a single standard – the best example to be found amidst the faultless flower beds of the governor’s house, in Madras, the Raj Bhavan. This was a proper garden. Built in the 1670s, it boasted a regimented perfection that even extended to a deer park, whose trees were as disciplined as they were well-mannered. Of course, it helped that armies of gardeners tended them, but of these unsung heroes, little was ever said. Later, when I saw Versailles, it all came together. Gardens were actually houses, albeit with green bits. Over the years, I tested this theory in window baskets overlooking Scotch House Corner, on Bayswater balconies, in Welsh seaside cottages, and in Oxfordshire villages. It seemed to hold. Until, that is, we set about gardening in the jungle. We had bought, incautiously and without any help whatsoever, a 25-acre Plantation north of Kandy in central Sri Lanka. It had been abandoned during the JVP uprisings. It's 1,000 high rocky hills stalled a Dutch army in 1765, and until the civil war, the estate stretched over 100 acres with three working elephants. When the estate agent had closed the deal, the estate had been reduced to 25 acres and a bewildering number of buildings, all of them as unstable as a Sunday morning drunk. Trees grew in rooms; animals lived on shelves. And rapidly, I realised that the real world was precisely like my childhood definition of a garden, only the other way around. Limitless green forest with the odd house attached – and forever fighting an unsuccessful campaign to keep nature at bay. Earth Org, the environmental news website, agrees, stating that despite the interminable assaults made upon it, nature is still the boss. Just 20% of Earth's land surface is either urban or farmed. So our jungle gardening is undertaken modestly, with the lightest of hearts, the boundary between wild and tamed conveniently blurred so that excesses on either side are easily tolerated. It’s a green version of the balance of power and an opportunity to see Nudge Theory in practice. Even so, this estate, having been abandoned for twenty years before we bought it, had sided a little too firmly with the jungle. The balance of power was extravagantly unbalanced. The estate road was undrivable; the plantations had become savage forests, and trees grew in its courtyards and buildings, guests occupying superior VIP suites. Pushing these boundaries back was like sailing down the Nile: a slow voyage, with plenty of opportunities to become distracted by everything that happens when you blink. But slowly, slowly, our gardening team reclaimed parts of the interior and created four different walks to take you around most of it. Some areas remain wild, unvisited for a decade at least, cherished no-go zones left to shy lorises and civets. Of these four walks, the gentlest of perambulations is The Home Garden Walk. This stroll begins just outside the main hotel office and porch, with both buildings shaded by THE PARROT DAKOTA, a tree named after New York’s towering Dakota Apartments. This Sri Lankan Dakota version is no less a Renaissance creation – a Java Cassia, or to give it its common name, The Pink Shower Tree. Flowering with puffs of Barbie pink clouds in April and May, it fruits and sheds its leaves in December. Our specimen is over 120 years old; its hollows and defensive height make it our leading parrot apartment block. Amongst its many tenants are rose-ringed, plum-headed and Layard’s parakeets – three of the world’s 353 parrot species. Layard’s parakeet is easy to spot, as it has a long, light-blue tail, a grey head, and a fondness for sudden, prolonged screeching. The green-all-over rose-ringed parakeet is a giveaway too - with a bright red beak and the slimmest of head rings. But the most striking is the male plum-headed parakeet. He is a stunner, his proud red head offset with purple and blue feathers. He would turn heads in any nightclub. Two other parrot species live on the island but have yet to be spotted here: the Alexandrine parakeet, similar to the rose-ringed parakeet but much larger. It’s a bit of a city dweller. The other, the sparrow-small, endemic Sri Lankan hanging parrot or lorikeet, is a rare creature: a twitcher’s crowning glory. All these birds can be found in G. M. Henry’s celebrated 1958 Guide to The Birds of Ceylon, which sits in the hotel library, together with some of his original watercolours. Henry was one of the last great ornithologists – the sort you would fight to sit next to at dinner. A discoverer as much as a describer of species, he wrote extensively about the island’s wildlife. Born on a tea estate in Sri Lanka in 1891, he wrote a bird guide that is remarkable not only for its comprehensiveness but also for its entertainment value. His descriptions are unforgettable and funny; of the lorikeet, he remarks, the bird is not simply another parrot but a convivial and restless one with highly ridiculous breeding habits. Reading his identifiers, you almost feel you have met the bird concerned at a party, conference, dentist’s waiting room or orgy. Close to our blushing Cassia is KASHYAPA’S CORNER, a small garden of Frangipani trees, named for the anonymous 5th-century mistress of Kashyapa, the king who built the Sigiriya pleasure palace, where he partied for 22 years before being murdered. Its frescoes show her holding the wickedly fragrant frangipani flowers – wicked, because, despite lacking nectar, their dreamy scent tricks moths into pollinating them. Arguments rage gently over whether there are 20 or 100 species of the tree, but none of this matters in Sri Lanka, where temple-goers have so eagerly adopted the plant that it is called the "Araliya" or "Temple Flower Tree". South American by origin, it spread around the world on the backs of gardening missionaries. However, this does nothing to explain how its flowers came to be depicted at Sigiriya over 1,500 years ago. A small tree, rarely more than 20 feet high, it flowers in shades of red and yellow, white, and peach; and even when bare, it is as close to an architectural marvel as any tree can get. Stretching out beyond KASHYAPA’S CORNER is a croquet lawn, instead unwisely planted with Australian grass for its smoother velvety feel, but continually under siege by the more rampant and feisty Malaysian grass, which possesses the invasive qualities of pirates. A much-sheared golden dewdrop hedge surrounds it; the plant is liberally tolerant of the hardest pruning and has become something of a poster girl for tropical topiarists. Growing through them are a few dozen stately Queen Palms. We call them DONA CATHERINA’S PALMS, after the island’s most beguiling queen, Kusumasana Devi. Three times tempestuous queen of Kandy (1581 to 1613), Dona Catherina died of grief, outwardly Buddhist, inwardly Catholic. It was her bad luck to be caught up in the wars between the Portuguese and the kings of Kotte and Kandy, and as the last descendant of the original Kandyan kings, she was a pawn of immense value. Nowadays, the various lines of Sri Lankan kings are all but untraceable, and these palms, like most surviving monarchs today, are more decorative than helpful. Their saffron-orange seeds have limited edible value, sweet, with a flavour that ranges from plum to banana depending on maturity. The paved pathway that leads from the front porch to the main building is the LIPSTICK WALK, named for the young Lipstick Palms that line it. This species crept inexorably from Southeast Asia to South Asia, its progress fuelled by a reputation for glamour and beauty, if not utility. An older pair opposite this walk was planted in 1926, the year Marilyn Monroe was born. Monroe, queen of lipsticks and, in many ways, not dissimilar to these palms, wore Guerlain's Rouge Diabolique lipstick, which is red like these palms. Her lithograph, by Andy Warhol, hangs in the Singing Civet Bedroom. The path first passes an old clove tree – our BABY SPICE TREE, so called because cloves are one of the island’s most recent spices, having arrived here with medieval Arab traders. Its aromatic status has not stopped its tiny fruits from being widely incorporated into some of the country’s most popular dishes, including black chicken curry, pineapple bread, and, best of all, garlic curry, a savoury dish of coconut milk, garlic, and cloves rarely tasted beyond Adam’s Bridge. The clove tree sits alongside our AUSSIE TREE. Grown from a seed from Stellenbosch, this Illawarra Flame Tree hails from Eastern Australia and is noted for its blood red flowers, famously varied leaf shapes and sultry nature. As Simply Red put it in their song, “A new flame has come, and nothing she can do can do me wrong.” This tree can do little wrong either; its shade of red eludes even the most subtle of Pantone references. At the end of the pathway is a tree we call KING MUTASIVA’S BELLY. To ayurvedic practitioners, there is little this tree cannot cure. Its common name is the Beli Tree. For centuries, it has been planted outside walawwas to ensure all-around fertility - from crops to heirs. Given this task, and the fact that this specimen is rarely without fruit. It seemed only fair to name it after the 4th-century BCE King Mutasiva, the island’s most fecund monarch. Six of his 12 progeny became kings. Mutasiva is an oddly vexing historical being, the sixth recorded monarch on the island and only the second to rule from Anuradhapura. This city would dominate the country for 1500 years before finally being obliterated by Tamil invaders. But almost nothing is known about him. His grandfather founded the capital he was to inherit, and his son was to introduce Buddhism to the land. Between them, these three earliest of island monarchs can take the credit for much of the best of what the country was to become, even if the long reign of Mutasiva is a study in obscurity. Research into very early Sri Lankan history remains a singular endeavour, but the slightest glimpse of its times is enormously exciting, if only because it is so rare. And ancient though Mutasiva was, an even older item sits in the hotel library, a ceramic dating back to 600 BCE, 300 years before Buddhism arrived; 200 years before King Mutasiva; and 50 years before the reign of the island’s first recorded king in 543 BCE. The path ends at the main hotel building. To its valley side lies the art deco Pineapple House, and before it a tiled Spice Court, which was used in the old days to lay out spices such as pepper and cloves to dry naturally in the sun. At one end sit two large stone slabs, used by croppers to sharpen their machetes. On the other side of the main building is ARCHIE’S IDYLL. Named for Tintin’s Captain Haddock, who made the journey from alcoholic sea Captain to a country gent, Archibald was born next door to Highgrove and has an ancestry that makes the Windsors look relatively recent. From his office, or on site, Archibald assiduously polices this garden, a home to the island’s controversial national animal – the grizzled giant squirrel; and more commonly, Palm and Dusky Striped Squirrels, this former species not to be confused with the rarer endemic Layard's Palm Squirrel. Sri Lanka is actually home to seven squirrel species, only two of which are endemic, the Dusky-Striped Squirrel and Layard's Palm Squirrel. The Grizzled Giant Squirrel, though not endemic, is the most impressive of the lot, with a nose-to-tail length of one and a half metres and death-defying skills enabling it to make the most impossible leaps from tree to tree. In Sri Lanka, it hugs the central highlands and comes in three sub-variants that are all but indistinguishable. All three sport brown fur, white legs and stomachs, and frosted faces. They have excellent vision but poor hearing, which is something of a blessing for them as their cry - a shrill staccato cackle – is the sort of sound that can curdle milk. A wild Kohu Amba Mango shades the garden, excellent for making chutney, and a Jaffna Willard Mango, the go-to fruit for instant gratification. Young yellow Frangipani shade the lawn. Beyond its gates runs the slip road for trade deliveries and a flight of steps that take you up into Singing Civet Hill. ARCHIE’S IDYLL is surrounded on one side by THE JURASSIC WALL. The Maha-Madu Trees that grow above this retaining wall are descendants of the cycads that dominated the earth 300 million years ago, and are growing on happily here, an inspiration for our tenacious old-fashioned values. Nestled amongst them are Poinsettias (popular with the 13th-century Aztecs and later Western supermarkets at Christmas); Madagascan Traveller’s Palms; sweet-scented Indo Chinese Sapu Trees (sacred to Buddhists and the largest of magnolias); Cook and Norfolk Island Pines; Flame, Jackfruit, Jacaranda, and cinnamon. At the other end of the main buildings, overlooking the pool and the expanse of forested hills and valleys that stretch to the south and west, is a small extension to this walk, a sort of OUTER GARDEN WALK. It begins at BIANCA’S AMPHITHEATRE. This amphitheatre, one of just three or four on the island, is named for the estate’s most senior director, Kumarihaami, and opera singer, Bianca Castafiore, born beside Garsington Opera. It was built as much to forestall landslides as to direct Bianca’s melodious version of the Jewel Song in Faust out into the jungle (by the way, the complete works of Tintin can be found in the library). When we first arrived here, gravity was sucking the buildings into the valley. To forestall utter destruction, the amphitheatre's walls were built to a depth of about 20 feet, with a six-foot-wide base tapering to slim walls above ground. “And so rock bottom, wrote JK Rowling, “became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” Private sun igloos fill the amphitheatre’s first terrace for people who want utter peace. In front of them is SHOSTAKOVICH’S TEA, a tea terrace named for the composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who reworked the famous “Tea for Two” Twenties hot song. His life, like the creation of this symbolic bank of Sri Lankan tea, was a struggle – but one that succeeded. We think the song celebrates the laid-back solitude of this jungle estate. “We won't have it known, That we own a telephone, dear,” wrote Irving Caesar, the song’s creator in 1924, 100 years after the island's very first tea was planted – just 12 miles away in Peradeniya’s Royal Botanical Gardens. At the amphitheatre’s bottom is COCO’S PAVILLION. Named for the youngest of the Estate’s directors, and the one most given to the invention of new forms of relaxation, the Coco Pavilion is where yoga, massage, meditation and even a little exercise can flow without interruption. Opposite it is BERTIE’S KITCHEN. With his alpha appetite, Bertie, named after Tintin’s Professor Cuthbert Calculus, is the muse behind this outdoor Demonstration Kitchen, where classic Sri Lankan recipes can be made and shared in the shadow of an Australian Foxtail Palm. This palm was a discovery made in the Aboriginal territories of the Bathurst Bay - that part of northern Queensland that points like a finger towards Papua New Guinea. Out in the jungle in 1975, a wandering botanist came across a palm he was unfamiliar with. Years of checking, investigation and discussion with the local Flinders Island Aboriginal peoples eventually led to the conclusion that it was a totally new species. In honour of the tribe, it was named Wodyetia in 1978. But its uncommonly fluffy leaves, which resemble the tail of a fox, soon promoted an alternative name: the foxtail palm. The base of the amphitheatre is planted with papyrus, frangipani, date palms and rather truculent Kottamba trees, popular additions to roadside cafes for the gorgeous green shade their waxy leaves provide. Its medical prowess eclipses its leisure uses: its leaves and bark have proven helpful in treating liver diseases, dysentery, diarrhoea, invasive parasites, and even some cancers. From here, the view stretches into the deliberately left-wild jungle, the hillside dropping to paddy land and small streams. From a side gate, the walk continues into CITRUS ENGESTROMA. Here, in between the mother-in-law’s tongue and lemon grass grow lemons, limes, kumquats, grapefruit, clementines, bitter oranges, tangerines, caviar oranges, and pomegranates – and a sprinkling of Ruffled, Stilt and Golden Palms, Areca and Coconuts. The grove is named for our Engeström family, who kept the lawyers of Malmö busy for over 100 years as the family sued one another down the generations. The official portrait of Edward Engestrom, who built a small palace overlooking the Baltic, hangs in the dining room, along with family daguerreotypes from the 1840s. The path leads into THE ORCHID WALK, an occasionally manicured jungle area of mahogany and flame trees, the odd clove and pine. This area of the walk is given over to orchids. One hundred and eighty-five of the world’s 25,000 orchid species grow on the island, 74 of them endemic, and this walk is named for them. They grow in cracks in the huge stone blocks of an ancient wall, their space shared with skinks and chameleons. In monsoon weather, an adjacent well turns the area into a cathedral of evangelistic frogs, dedicated to nighttime choruses. The path eventually takes you back close to the very start - the small garden of Frangipani trees that is KASHYAPA’S CORNER. This is the longer of the two walks, which we call THE ESTATE WALK, and it starts at THE PODI PATH just outside the front porch that leads into the hotel. A traditional kitchen constructed of mud and bamboo once stood on this path, managed by Podemenike, whose life roughly and remarkably followed that of independent Sri Lanka. Around 1950, she began work on the estate as a lady’s maid. It was just a few years after independence, and she stayed on to help protect the estate once the family fled after the 1987 JVP Uprising. This violent Marxist-Leninist insurrection almost toppled the then government of President Premadasa. For over two years, a state of near anarchy dominated life, with militant riots, mass executions, and assassinations affecting most areas of the island. Pro and anti-government militias added to the battle, the casualties of which, Human Rights Watch eventually estimated at 35,000 – a figure no sides yet agree on. It wasn’t the first such uprising. In 1971, a similar insurrection occurred, this time against the Bandaranaike government, though its fatalities were considered lower. But the 1987 rebellion was the first truly island-wide event to profoundly affect the estate, leading to its abandonment by all except Podemenike and two elderly croppers, who were understandably fond of arrack. It was a terrible time for the country, and although Podemenike’s kitchen has long since gone, as you walk down this little path, you may, at least in your imagination, still catch the smell of real village cooking - warm spices and buttery rice. THE PODI PATH cuts through a pepper plantation, arriving soon at a flight of steps on the left just before THE SPICE KITCHEN. Herein lies the entrance to THE KITCHEN GARDEN, with two special trees coming into touch on the right. The first of these is a Cannonball Tree or Sal Tree. This is a mighty and magnificent wonder, with pink, white architectural flowers like half-open lids that give off one of the most perfumed and refined scents you are ever likely to encounter on this good earth. It grows to over one hundred feet, and the flowers eventually turn into seeds the size of cannonballs that hang off the main stems of the tree like a wayward artillery store. The tree comes from South America and is the source of adamantly held confusions. Buddhists believe that Lord Buddha was born in a garden of sal trees in Lumbini in distant Nepal. But the Cannonball or Sal tree, which grows in Sri Lanka, only arrived in South Asia in the 1880s. The first one to have a detailed record is the one in the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens, planted on the 14th of April 1901 by George V and his wife, Queen Mary. Given the extreme botanical spectacle that this tree is, it is no surprise that it has come to be conflated with the sal Lord Buddha would have known – Shorea robusta, a smaller tree with little flowers and no fragrance. I hesitate to boast and brag, but the inevitable conclusion from comparing our Cannonball Tree with King George’s is that ours, being much larger, must predate 1901. Beside it is what looks like a Breadfruit tree. Or possibly a jacktree? Actually, it is both – a rare hybridising that occurred entirely naturally between these related species. The relationship coach, Laura Doyle, famed, at least in California, for her trademarked “Six Intimacy Skills,” remarked that “Only God is perfect. For the rest of us, there are apologies.” And so it is for our Kitchen Garden. Invaded nightly by hungry porcupines; several times by a small herd of 20 wild boar, and often at the mercy of deer, squirrels, and monkeys, it is a wonder it ever produces any herbs or vegetables. Even so, we limp on, brave as Obi-Wan Kenobi, planting organic wonders that will flourish all the better once we finally get around to fencing in the entire acre. The happier plants grow in a large greenhouse, mostly soft vegetables and herbs. The area is surrounded by shade nurseries, home to hundreds of hand-reared trees destined for timber plantations or our rare-trees arboretum. Returning to the steps up which you first came to enter the kitchen garden, you then pass, on your left, THE SPICE KITCHEN. This modest building was made in the traditional way as a Pandemic project in 2021 by our whole team, using bamboo, mud, and leftovers. It is the place for staff teas and lunches, as well as a creche. Part of the building is used to process latex, the raw white juice extracted from the estate rubber trees, which is then half-dried and rolled on machinery made in Wolverhampton in the 1940s. At the building’s end is another flight of steps, this one leading up into THE HOCKIN SPICE GARDEN. The path through the spice garden is circular, eventually returning you to this point. And now you are in the Estate’s private spice garden, planted with cinnamon, vanilla, pepper, cloves, turmeric, and ginger and named for two sassy polyamorous Methodist family cousins who lived, ménage à trois, with a German POW on their remote Cornish farm for 50 years. Their three graves, side by side, overlook the sea near Morwenstow. The only graves here, however, are those of the three estate elephants, their limitless night songs still heard in the hearts of those best able to join in the occasional elephant Séance. The vanilla vines we grow in THE HOCKIN’S SPICE GARADEN are descendants of the 19th-century plants the British brought to the island, hoping to eclipse the commercial success the plant enjoyed in Madagascar. But it was not to be. Fastidious, fussy, and economical, it never amounted to much even though vanilla experts commend the unusual taste that Sri Lankan vanilla has evolved to produce - “a more complex flavour profile with delicate sweetness, subtle floral notes, and hints of cherry and caramel,” or so they say. Hand pollinated with the sort of brushes favoured by watercolourists of the more exquisite schools, it is nevertheless a bit of a hidden gem – and one that offers plenty of opportunities to practice patience. The cloves, cinnamon, and pepper planted alongside it are far more robust and withstand any amount of animal attack. But the turmeric and ginger tubers have to be husbanded carefully, for they offer wild boar treats of almost libidinous pleasure and excess. Getting back to the main path from its entrance point, THE PODI PATH then leads through a large plantation of pepper vines, growing gleefully up glericidia poles. Gliricidia is the perfect plant for this, being fast-growing and erect, and pumping the surrounding soil with lots of nitrogen. It is also much used as a living fence. The path moves on through jackfruit and clove trees and past THE ELEPHANT’S GRAVEYARD. Marked by Ceylon Oak or Koan Tree, the estate’s three elephants lie beneath it. The last elephant died in 1977, a few years after standing very firmly on her mahout. The plant itself is still long-lived, and this one is about 130 years old. All around it are more Jackfruit trees, some wild with smaller leaves and others more domesticated with larger crinkled leaves and more abundant fruit. The tree grows to around 70 feet tall and produces about 200 jackfruits a year from stems that bud directly from trunks and thick branches. It is one of those wonder superfoods that the West has recently discovered, but here it has long been popular in cooking –the seeds fried for chips, the flesh curried like pork, and the riper fruit made into puddings. From this point, the path is lined with new cocoa trees. For well over 100 years, cocoa was a core estate crop, and its oldest trees still grow here in the deeper jungle. Just 30 miles away is the island’s very first cocoa plantation, planted in 1819, 4 years after the British occupied Ceylon. This path of new trees, ALICE’S ALLEZ CHOCOLAT, is named for Alice, our Swiss family matriarch and first hotelier, from Appenzell, famed for its extraordinary cheese - and its liquor chocolates. The path continues below The Pineapple House and amphitheatre towards INKEN’S ACREAGE. Here, stretching out from a single Ginger Thomas tree, are acres of cocoa, teak, mara, and other classic highland trees kept uncultivated for wildlife. The Ginger Thomas tree comes from the Andes and is as highly ornamental as the person it is planted for, artist and family member, Inken Engstrom. Inken’s paintings hang in the hotel and in private collections in London, the Vatican, and Sweden. The tree itself provides immense protection against the excesses of nature, producing a leaf paste whose bio-chemicals bind to cobra venom enzymes, inhibiting the poison. At this point, the path divides: the more walkable stretch goes uphill into CINNAMON KATIA, a hill of newly planted cinnamon named for Katarina, a family member. Ceylon Cinnamon is known as true cinnamon for its unique, sweet, aromatic, and delicate flavour. It dates back at least to King Solomon, who imported it from Sri Lanka and refers to it in the Bible: “Your branches are an orchard of pomegranates with the choicest of fruits, with henna and nard, with nard and saffron, with calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of frankincense tree, with myrrh and aloes, with all the finest spices.” Two rare Trincomalee Wood Trees, beloved of shipbuilders, grow on its edges, protected by Presidential orders. At the top of the hill is THE AMBALAMA RISE, a hilltop named for Ambalamas, the resting places for pilgrims and travellers since ancient times. The nearest real Ambalama is 16 miles away, a remarkable 200-year-old structure built near the famous Kadugannawa Pass, a rock pierced to make the Kandy-Colombo road in 1820. This one is shaded by Cook Island Pines, originally from New Caledonia, and is renowned for a tilt that depends on the hemisphere: growing upright on the Equator but leaning south in the northern hemisphere and north in the southern. Also present are Jackfruit Trees and a Breadfruit Tree, remarkable for its carbohydrate-rich fruits. Breadfruit was introduced to Sri Lanka by the British in the late 18th century, after Captain William Bligh, famous for the mutiny on the HMS Bounty, collected saplings from Tahiti, a move that had disastrous consequences. From here, the path cuts across SINGING CIVET HILL, named for its occasional civets, and planted with cinnamon, Cook Island Pines, Sapu Trees, Poinsettias, red Flame Trees, originally from Madagascar; yellow Flame Trees and Australian Jacaranda. Somewhat unexpectedly, civet farts are widely known on the island to be so pleasant as to smell of the flower of the joy perfume tree – the Magnolia Champaca, a scent immortalised in Jean Patou’s famous perfume, 'Joy', a fragrance that outsold all others, excepting Chanel No. 5. If by now the walk is proving too arduous, you can cut back to the hotel through steps and a side gate – or walk on overlooking GABI’S CLOVE GROVE. Named for Gabi, a family member, the 600 young cloves planted here grow in the protective shade of ancient rubber trees, still occasionally milked for their sap. They are descendants of the first rubber trees sent to Sri Lanka in 1876 by the British Colonial Office from Kew. Thousands of ferns from up to 20 species grow underfoot, including Silverback, Forked, Eagle, Sword, Whisk, Oakleaf, Limp leaf Ferns and Spleenworts. Beyond this are the estate’s WATER TANKS. The estate water comes from a deep well bored 300 feet through filtering rocks. Hydrologists and geologists picked the drill spot, but it took a traditional water diviner to nudge it onto its real mark. The water is then pumped up to these tanks, plentiful in the wet season but rather miserly in the dry season. Thankfully, our water supply is now supplemented by a recently acquired link to that rarest of all jungle species: mainline water from the new Galagedera-Mawathagama Water Supply Project. Water management, irrigation, storage, collection, and distribution were what made Sri Lanka’s great Anuradhapuran Kingdom possible in the first place, from the 5th century BCE onwards. Even today, it is a critical resource, powering over 50% of the electricity grid. Past the WATER TANKS is BEATA’S LOOKOUT. This viewpoint captures the spot where the immense dry plains of northern Sri Lanka begin their rise into the Central Highlands. Here, at 1,000 feet, the Galagedera Gap stretches out below, where, in 1765, the Dutch Army was defeated by soldiers of the Kandyan king. Stones rolled down onto the army from the adjacent hill. The Dutch sued for peace, returned to Colombo, and accepted defeat. The Dutch Coat of Arms that hangs on the hotel’s front porch was made a little before this date. The path then winds down through FRANGAPANI VALLEY, notable for its absence of frangipani trees, but soon to be the site of a newly planted arboretum of rare trees and out onto the main estate road, where it touches the main entrance gates. Here, the path is metaled - though when we first arrived, it had reduced to a single walkable track. Repaired and enlarged, it became THE RED ROAD. Only you can walk your journey, but many are on the road. So say native American Indians of THE RED ROAD, a metaphor for the sense of obligation and personal commitment to purposefully live your life. This RED ROAD, the main access to the estate, is carpeted from April to May by flowers of Flamboyant or Flame Trees planted across the estate. Grown from seeds from Madras, Sri Lanka, Australia, the Malay archipelago, the Caribbean, Africa, Egypt and the Gulf, the flowers vary from pale scarlet and almost orange to deep russets and vermilion. Batiks commissioned from Sri Lanka’s celebrated artist, Ena de Silva, on the flame tree theme hang all around the hotel. Hundreds of varied crotons, a plant noted for its kaleidoscopic leaf colours and patterns, bank the road. On one side, a pepper grove underplanted with sapu, teak, mahogany, African Tulip trees and mango stretches down into a small valley. On the other side rises a hill of rubber and cloves. And just before the walk ends, back at the central hotel entrance porch is JAMES’S CORKSCREW ORCHARD. This area is home to the estate’s goats, Imelda, and Ponzi, who mated "inter familia" to produce scores of Ptolemaic offspring, now farmed out to goat-loving vegetarian households nearby. Intended for a life of productive utility, the goats succumbed instead to a life of ornamentation and ease. Their paddock is planted with mango, rambutan, star fruit, coconut, tamarind, and guava. A pond and two old terrapin wells collect water naturally from the surrounding area. The orchard is named after James, a fond follower of the long and winding road. If the Estate walk proves too easy a promenade, then THE JUNGLE & VILLAGE WALK beckons. This walk leads out from the main estate through feral, undomesticated rubber and cocoa, into cinnamon, jungle, and eventually through a string of hamlets that abut the estate, where many of our staff have their homes. A small river runs alongside it, with acres of paddy, and the little road rewinds its way to the main estate gates. That was a production written and recorded by David Swarbrick at The Ceylon Press, based in the jungle north of Kandy, at The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel, and set up to tell the story of Sri Lanka.