THE HOME GARDENS WALK

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 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 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 making 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 an easy one to spot for it has a long light blue tail, a grey head, and a fondness of 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 is similar to the rose-ringed parakeet – only 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, his bird guide is remarkable not simply for being comprehensive but also because it is so entertaining. 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 (Plumeria Rubra), named for the anonymous 5th century mistress of Kashyapa, the king who built the Sigiriya pleasure palace, partying there 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 twenty or 100 species of the tree; but none of this matters in Sri Lanka where the plant has been so eagerly adopted by temple goers 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, though this does nothing to explain how its flowers came to be depicted over 1500 years ago in Sigiriya. A small tree, rarely more than 20 feet high, it flowers in shades of red and yellow, white, and peach; and even when bare is as close to architectural marvel as any tree can get.

Stretching out beyond Kashyapa’s Corner is a croquet lawn, rather 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-sheered golden dewdrop hedge (duranta erecta) 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 - Syagrus Romanzoffiana. 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 much more decorative than they are useful. Their saffron orange seeds have a mildly edible value, sweet with a flavour that moves 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 (Cyrtostachys Renda) 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 of Marilyn Monrose’s birth. Monroe, queen of lipsticks, and in many ways not dissimilar to these palms, used Guerlain's Rouge Diabolique lipstick, which is red as 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 arrivistic status has not stopped its tiny fruits from being comprehensively absorbed 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 (Brachychiton Acerifolius) 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 eluding 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 (Aegle Marmelos). For centuries it has been planted outside walawwas to ensure all-round fertility - from crops to heirs. Given this task, and the fact that this specimen is almost never without fruit. It seemed only fair to name it for 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, the city that 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, a yet 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 retiled Spice Court, which was used in the old days to lay out such spices as pepper and cloves to dry naturally in the sun. At one end sit two large slabs of stones, 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 make the Windsors look rather 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 impossible to tell apart. 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.

The garden is shaded by a wild Kohu Amba Mango, 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 depth of the walls of the amphitheatre were built to about twenty feet, with a six feet width 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 is 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 ended in success. 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 islands 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 Pavillion is where yoga, massage, mediation 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 (Wodyetia Bifurcate).

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 Guina. Out pig shooting 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 leisure uses are eclipsed by its medical prowess for 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 jungle deliberately left wild, 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 Malmo in work 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.