Atok: A tale of two flower farms
Like many of us I have always loved Baguio, having spent childhood summers there. We stayed at Tabacalera House, the old Philamlife mansion with a terraced garden on South Drive.
But, as for many of us, Baguio has become a bit difficult to love with its traffic-choked streets and exhaust-laden air. I make the effort to overcome these discouraging developments in a city that really smelled of pine trees in my youth.
Fortunately my mother-in-law’s apartment is in an old building beside Good Shepherd, sharing the same views of a quiet valley.
The apartment does one better: the direct view is of Mt. Pulag and waking up way before that Pulag sunrise is my Baguio routine.
Waking up early and getting to everything before everyone else is the best way to avoid the traffic and parking issues.Another is to visit in the off-season, like right before Holy Week.
But Benguet has so much beauty to offer outside of Baguio itself. This is where Atok comes in.
Some hear of Atok because of its chilly temperatures, its being the site of the highest point of the Halsema Highway, or its IG-worthy flower farms.
Those flower farms are not to be missed.
Atok is only an hour’s scenic drive out of Baguio and your first stop would be the Northern Blossom Farm on the right side of the road.
I make it a point to arrive before 7 a.m. so a warm jacket over your flowery summer dress is a must if you want to emulate those IG posts of floral-clad maidens frolicking in endless fields of blooms.
The entrance of Northern Blossom will leave you doubting that any kind of field exists in the vicinity. But after you pay your entrance fee you are led to what looks like a greenhouse. Step inside and it’s…
Wow.
Tall snapdragons in shades of berry, peach and apricot. Queen Anne’s lace towering over your head. And right outside, wide fields of lavender statis, shocking pink everlasting, gigantic cabbage roses, blue hydrangeas, creamy calla lilies… astromerias bloom carelessly, anywhere, while wild raspberries (sampinit) grow in random corners, waiting to be sampled.
All of this against a stunning backdrop of deep valley and blue mountains.
At the risk of sounding redundant, the earlier you go the better, because soon other visitors will trickle in and the one-way trail becomes lined with eager photographers like yourself. It’s a shame to have to rush your photo ops.
Just a hundred meters or so down the road, to the left is the easy-to-miss Haight’s Place, named for its founder. (Aside from the lack of a clear sign, Waze is hazy in Atok.)
A long and narrow road doesn’t look like it’s going to take you to a flower farm but it does, and first up is the Sakura Garden where cherry trees from Japan bloom at about the same time they would in their native soil.
Haight’s Place is much more expansive than Northern Blossom, so that even if there are many other visitors you are rarely vying for the same scenic spots.
There is no trail to follow, just wide open fields of flowers. They also have a cafe and rooms available.
If you arrive at a flower farm early in the morning you can be back in Baguio in time for lunch, unless you are off to other adventures.
If you are off to someplace else like Banaue or Sagada, you might want to stop by Northern Blossom on your way back south because their trail ends with unlimited freshly brewed coffee in a room selling succulents at ridiculously low prices.
If your visit coincides with them loading up their truck with blooms headed for Dangwa, you may buy cut flowers directly from them too… at cheaper prices than even the Baguio market.
Do you know the alley in the market where cut flowers are sold?
But that’s a story for another time.