There are many spice gardens located throughout the tropical world where visitors can learn about how spices are cultivated, harvested and prepared for sale. Sri Lanka, a major spice producing country, has the highest count, but some of them are tourist traps where after being provided with a free tour, visitors are pressured into buying spices and other botanical preparations at inflated prices.

However, there are many others where the owners simply enjoy sharing their knowledge of growing spices with other tropical gardeners. One such spice garden is located in the popular Thailand tourist district of Krabi. Located on the outskirts of the town of Ao Nang Beach, it’s called the Natin Spicy Garden and is maintained by a retired Dutch pharmacist, Piet Ruijters.

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Piet established the garden over a five-year period from 2005 to 2010 and as well as herbs and spices that are used in Thai and Indian cooking, it has many tropical fruits and vegetables, medicinal and poisonous plants, and some that are grown for their fragrance or aromatic plants from which extracts can be used for perfumes.

The garden was opened to the public in 2010. It’s labelled as a ‘botanical garden’ on Google Maps, which of course it is, but the label is somewhat misleading if you are expecting a garden along the lines of the botanic gardens that you may have visited in tropical cities.

 

Piet may then ask you if you are familiar with the croton – a popular foliage plant grown in tropical gardens. Then he will tell you that just four small seeds of Croton tiglium, crushed and ingested, can kill an adult in six hours. 20 drops of croton oil from the same plant will have the same fatal result.

Fortunately, Croton tiglium is not the same species as the colourful crotons that we grow in our gardens (but it’s the same genus) but it’s worth knowing that there are dangerous species in the Croton genus which shown never be grown in the home garden if there are children or pets around.

The Croton is a member of the Euphorbiaceae family and Piet has a big collection of plants in this family including Ricinus communis – the plant from which castor oil is produced. This is an easy-to-grow plant in tropical climates. With its striking rust-red palmate leaves and red feathery flower spikes, it makes a bold contrast when planted amongst green foliage plants.

However, its seeds are also poisonous so need to be handled with care. The seeds are a source of ricin – one of the most toxic poisons found in nature. This Kew Gardens blog describes Ricinis communis seeds as some of the most infamous seeds in the world because of their unique beauty and notoriety from being used in James Bond inspired assassinations.

Another shrub in Piet’s collection of poisonous plants is Abrus precatorius which produces the familiar red and black seeds that look like ladybirds. These are known as rosary peas, crab’s eyes or jequirity beans in different countries and are frequently used to make colourful bracelets or necklaces throughout the tropical world.

These seeds are also highly poisonous as they contain abrin, which is even more toxic than ricin. One chewed seed can kill an adult. Whilst wearing native jewellery made from Abrus precatorius seeds won’t kill you, some wearers have reported skin irritation, and the jury is still out on whether abrin can be absorbed through the skin in amounts sufficient to cause illness.

Abrus precatorius is definitely not a shrub to plant in the home garden because throughout the tropical world it has become invasive and is now regarded as a difficult to eradicate weed. In any event, it’s not a particularly attractive plant like the castor oil plant and can take over the garden.

Piet primarily grows these poisonous plants for their educational value because, despite most parts of the plant being poisonous, they are also used in traditional medicine and for producing botanical extracts. Knowing how to detoxify the poison and which part of the plants to use is key to their use in traditional medicine.

Aside from the poisonous plants, Piet has a large collection of other tropical plants that have both medicinal and culinary uses. An example is Bixa orellana – sometimes called the lipstick tree because the dye that can be produced from its decorative red seed pods was once used to colour lipstick.

That was before synthetic dyes took over from botanical sources in the production of cosmetics and foodstuff colourings. But ground Bixa seeds are still used in Caribbean, Jamaican, and Filipino cuisine to impart flavour and colour to specific dishes.

Bixa orellana is an easy to grow shrub or small tree (max. 6-8 metres) and can be kept compact if grown in full sun with regular pruning (in partial shade it can get straggly). Its pale pink flowers are attractive, but it is when the shrub is covered in its bunches of hairy red seed pods that it is has the most landscape impact.

These are only a few examples of the many interesting plants that Piet is growing in his garden, and this article has not touched on the many herbs and spices that he grows that are used in Thai and Indian cooking. We’ll leave Piet to tell you all about those when you visit because he’ll pick samples for you to taste.

About the only plants in Piet’s garden that are not poisonous or edible, or used for medicinal or culinary purposes, are the ornamental orchids. But even some of those have ethnobotanical uses. For example, the juice from the pseudobulbs of the Pigeon Orchid (Dendrobium crumenatum) have been used as eardrops and a poultice made from the leaves can be used to treat pimples.

Natin Spicy Garden is open from Thursdays to Tuesdays from 9am to 12 noon and from 1pm to 4pm. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, Piet conducts guided tours of the garden starting at 10am. There is no entrance fee, and the guided tours are free, but there is a tip box at the front of the office building where you can make a donation to help with the upkeep of the garden.

There can be a lot of mosquitoes in Natin Spicy Garden, even during the middle of the day, so bring mosquito repellent with you. Even better, wear long pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Those will protect you from the sun as well as mosquitoes if there are many around.

All images: © David Astley

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