Cebu City’s selfie heaven

MA. ELENA SY Chua, owner of the Sirao Garden which has become the selfie capital of Cebu City, poses with a tourist in her flower farm that has started to add more flowers and attractions, like a windmill reminiscent of the windmills of The Netherlands. The place has since become a popular tourist destination in Cebu City. PHOTOS BY JUNJIE MENDOZA/CEBU DAILY NEWS

THERE’S a place in Cebu City that’s literally picture perfect.

A flower farm in Barangay Sirao, an upland village about 17 kilometers from the city proper, has become a favorite spot for tourists, especially those who prefer taking selfies with an array of colorful flowers in the background.

The garden is surrounded by yellow and red celosias, locally known as burlas, that provide a perfect backdrop for selfies.

Droves of tourists would go to the flower garden, owned and managed by Ma. Elena Sy Chua, an international flight attendant.

In November, Chua was forced to close it down after overzealous tourists stepped on plants and flower beds.

The beds had to be repaired and flowers had to be harvested earlier than usual to allow planting of new ones in time for Sinulog festivities in January.

Before the garden reopened in January, Chua had learned her lesson well. She put up signs cautioning visitors against stepping on the celosia flower beds to avoid a repeat of the incident caused by tourists in November.

More flowers

Chua also added more varieties of flowers and offered souvenir items from her recent travel to Amsterdam.

She also put up more decorations as her way of giving back to visitors who would come to the garden mainly to be photographed with the celosia in bloom.

Unlike in October when celosia blooms were meant to be harvested for All Souls’ Day and All Saints’ Day commemorations, celosia in red and yellow are present all year round for tourists to see and take photos with.

“If they want to come here, I want them to be happy, to enjoy nature and the fresh air. They can bring food. They can have picnics here,” she said.

At the flower garden, visitors are greeted by a white picket fence and rope-guided pebbled pathways that lead to the bottom of the small farm where a kiosk has been set up to house the image of the Sto. Niño, Cebu’s patron.

Less than two meters from the entrance gate, garden caretaker Severino Ople Jr. planted red flowers on the hillside to form the words “Sirao flowers.”

A TOURIST poses with a sunflower at the Sirao Garden in Cebu City. Sunflowers have been added to the flower farm’s growing collection of flowers which are becoming well-loved as backdrops for selfies. This tourist wears a Dutch costume rented out by the flower farm as an added feature and come-on for visitors. The place is accessible by motorcycles-for-rent that charge P30 per trip per person.

New breed

Twelve beds are also planted at the upper portion of the hill in the shape of a heart. Visitors can step inside the hearts of flowers through openings that were created to ensure that visitors do not step on the buds.

White wooden letters that form the words “Sirao Garden” and “Little Amsterdam” (as tourists have come to call the garden) can be found at the heart of the hillside garden.

A windmill built by Chua’s husband,
Alfredo, also adorns the garden, alongside Dutch wooden shoes, made in shades of black and pink.

Celosia flowers now have shorter stems, a product of an experiment that Chua and her gardeners launched when they planted the flowers in November last year.

These are usually planted around the third quarter of the year and begin to bloom in October when the weather starts to become nippy, Chua said.

Visitors may also rent out Dutch national costumes for P30 for selfies that would look like they were actually taken in Amsterdam.

The garden now has a gift shop that offers souvenir items like key chains, pens, pencil holders, vases, shirts and caps.

Chua said she brought from Amsterdam flower seeds, including those of sunflower, which are planted at the lower part of the garden.

“What we are trying to do is to make it last for a year. We already planted new flowers on the right side of the hill so they could bloom after the other side is ready for harvest,” she said.

Yearlong bloom

Visitors couldn’t be happier to be greeted by celosias in bloom any time of the year.

Among them is Melba Grace Donio, 24, a native of Lanao del Norte province, who said the visit to the Sirao garden was one of the highlights of the tour that she gave to her friends who came to Cebu in January for the Sinulog Festival.

“We were visiting local tourists spots here in Busay and the habal-habal (motorcycle-for-rent) drivers recommended this one. The flowers were nice and bloomed in different colors . . . just as we had expected,” said Donio.

To get to the flower garden, one can take a habal-habal in Barangay Lahug for P30 a person, said Chua.

Another set of habal-habal driven by Sirao residents can be found outside the garden to bring visitors down to Lahug.