My DIY Home Garden in Malaysia - GBBD Sept 2012

Earlier, I have posted a Youtube video for my GBBD post. Here's my picture lineup for Garden Blogger's Bloom Day - GBBD Sept 2012.

Tell me which do you prefer - Youtube video or blog post of my pictures?

1.

I didn't have much luck when I first started growing anthuriums.

They weren't growing well and they also didn't bear flowers.

I used to wonder why.

My DIY Home Garden in Malaysia - GBBD February 2012

1. Angelonia biflora 'Rose Pink'

During the Lunar New Year in January 2012, I was so busy that I didn't have time to visit nurseries to buy more specialty plants and flowers. I did get hold of some kalanchoes, chrysanthemums and lucky bamboos during my shopping trip in December 2011. Other than that, I had to rely on the performance of those already planted in my DIY garden. Luckily they didn't let me down.

My citrus limes and the little pineapple fruit stayed throughout the 15 days of celebration. The most wonderful was the Phalaenopsis orchid which I featured in my GBBD post in Oct 2011. Well, it bloomed throughout the season too - lasting a total of more than 90 days!

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - GBBD Oct 2011

Welcome to My Nice Garden! This was a birthday gift from my darling daughter last month. I think it's a doe that looks like Bambi. The little garden helper with the Welcome signage shall be my companion while I am all alone tending to my garden, standing in for my DH, the non-gardener.

“Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - GBBD Oct 2011”, a copyrighted post, was written for My Nice Garden blog by Autumn Belle @ http://www.mynicegarden.com/ on October 15th, 2011

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - GBBD Sept 2011

Here's my parade of flowers for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day 2011. The pictures are taken from 16 Aug - 13 Sep 2011. The first in line is Desert Rose, double flowers cultivar 'Santa Claus'.

“Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - GBBD Sept 2011”, a copyrighted post, was written for My Nice Garden blog by Autumn Belle @ http://www.mynicegarden.com/ on Sept 13th 2011.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - GBBD July 2011

Today is Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day for July 2011. Leading my parade of flowers today are the roses I had purchased from Floria 2011 at RM 10.00 (USD 3.32) each. I love their fragrance.

I love the dark pink rose the most because it looks quite 'happy-go-lucky' with its ruffled and wavy edged petals!

“GBBD July 2011”, a copyrighted post, was written for My Nice Garden blog by Autumn Belle @ http://www.mynicegarden.com/ on July 15th, 2011.

Putrajaya Floria 2011 Part 3 - Desert Roses (Prosperity Flowers) at the Garden Bazaar

1. Single Flower Adenium obesum - Desert Rose King 'Red Prosperity'

At the Garden Bazaar in Floria 2011, there are many varieties of Desert Rose plants for sale. The prices range from RM 8.00  (USD 2.66) to a few hundred dollars. There are single, double and triple flower varieties and cultivars. The triple flower ones are the most expensive.

“Putrajaya 2011 Part 3 - Desert Roses at the Garden Bazaar”, a copyrighted post, was written for My Nice Garden blog by Autumn Belle @ http://www.mynicegarden.com/ on July 11th, 2011.

Putrajaya Floria 2011 - Part 1 A Prelude to Roses Are Forever

Floria 2011 Putrajaya Flower and Garden Festival 9-17 July 2011 is an annual event organised by Perbadanan Putrajaya. It is into its 4th year and the details are as follows:

Venue: Waterfront Precinct 2, Putrajaya
Opening hours: 9am - 10pm (Mon - Thurs) and 9am - 12 midnight (Fri-Sun)
Admission: FREE
Theme: ROSES ARE FOREVER

Today I had the chance to pop in for a visit and I am so delighted because roses are my favourite. Now, I'm back from my blog holiday!

“Putrajaya Floria 2011 - Part 1 A Prelude to Roses Are Forever”, a copyrighted post, was written for My Nice Garden blog by Autumn Belle @ http://www.mynicegarden.com/ on July 8th 2011.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - May 2011

Today is Garden Bloggers Bloom Day for May 2011. Leading the bloom parade is my bread flowers (Vallaris glabra) which we locals call it Kesidang. It is difficult to photograph the flower as they always seem to be drooping downwards. Well, this vine just loves to climb high. Whenever it flowers, we will first sense the fragrance, then we look up or around us, we shall see the sweet, starry blooms.

It has the scent of Pandan, our favourite aromatic herb and also that of 'nasi lemak', our favourite coconut flavoured rice.  Many Malaysians who grew up in a 'kampong' or countryside will have fond childhood memories associated with this plant. The fragrance is very pronounced in the mornings and evenings. A whiff of pandan always reminds me of home cooked food.

Rumphius (1628-1702) wrote about it as one of the perfumed flowers which the peoples of the Malay Archipelago were fond of using back in the old days, once upon a time, long, long ago.....

Blooming Friday in My Nice Garden

What's blooming in my garden today is my Adenium obesum (Desert Rose) in shocking pink. I'm glad it coincides with Blooming Friday's theme today of "Perfect Pink Pouts".


This the Lagerstroemia speciosa tree in front of my house. It's common name is Pokok Bungor Raya (Malay), Banaba (Philippines), Pride of India, Queen's Crape-myrtle.

It was planted by the housing developer. I took good care of it. It has been blooming intermittently for a few years already. This year, the buds started to form in early February just as I was welcoming Lichun Day and by early March it was blooming profusely. I just love the lavender purple flowers which has 7 petals each. One by one, the flowers will drop to the ground like money falling from the sky. This is because whenever it blooms, good luck comes to me. On the tarmac road, they look like purple cherry blossoms. These flowers attract bumble bees, butterflies and I see birds on its branches too.

Can you see the fruit on my ixora plant? These berry like fruits turn from green to dark purple but they are not edible.

Helen (islandgal246) of My Rustic Bajan Garden once told me in a comment that the best time to photography butterflies is in the early morning. That's the time when some of them has just emerged from their chrysalis and would need to dry themselves just before their maiden flights. And yes, that was how I found this butterfly on my champacca tree, lying quite still on the leaf. It was long enough for me to take a few close-up shots.

Do you still remember my pineapple plant that bloomed in February? Well, after the Chinese New Year season was over, I harvested the small, little fruit and this is what I get. Three slices of sweet, juicy pineapples.

I caught this spider crawling around my window pane. It looks like those spiders that the boys like to catch and bring to school for a game of spider fighting during my younger days.

While watering my plants, I stumbled upon this nest on my flower bed. It looked like it has just fallen from my palm tree above. So, I took out the nest from the bushes and peered inside.

Look what I found! There are 5 little birdies, huddled together in the nest. So, I called out for My Dear's assistance. We took a tall ladder and put the nest back to the palm branch, using a rafia string to tie around its nest to make sure that it will not fall again. We also made sure that its position was at a height that was difficult for the cat to reach. That night, I prayed that it will not rain heavily as I was not very sure whether we had place the nest correctly. Well, it rained heavily that night and I was very worried. The next morning, to my utter joy, I heard the sound of birds chirping happily. Now, I can hear this sound whenever mummy bird comes back with food for the babies. Mummy looks like a little black sunbird. Now I feel so relieved that I had successfully rescued my little friends.

Here's another little friend on my Jasminum sambac. To this little guy, the flower look huge. I wonder what he wants to do.

I would like to dedicate this post to my first commenter, Ms Lona, from Ohio, USA of Hocking Hill's Garden blog. She is posting lovely anthuriums and daffodils with a nice poem.

My grateful thanks to Katarina at Roses and Stuff for hosting Blooming Friday. To see what others have posted or to participate, click here.

This is also my entry for Fertilizer Friday. My grateful thanks to Tootsie at Tootsie Time for hosting Fertilizer Friday. To see what others have posted or to participate, visit here.

Blooming Friday - Week 2

This is Blooming Friday again. Today I will show you what I have blooming in my urban garden. Due to space limitations, many of my plants are in containers. I'm trying to grow a chempaka tree in a flower pot. My hibiscus shrubs and pomelo tree are grown in pots too. Only a few priveleged ones get to grow directly from the soil in the ground.

This is my one and only water lily plant. I has not stopped blooming since the day I bought it from the nursery. The boss selected the plant for me. She look for one with many shoots and buds growing from the bottom. She told me that it is important to put it in a place with the full sun and the plant must always be submerged in water.

If my observations are correct, the flower seem to open in the morning when the sun is shining and closes in the late evenings. It does this 2 times before the flower withers off. This picture above shows the flower when it opened on the first day.

This is the flower on the second day. It looks a bit different, especially in the centre. The petals are lighter in colour.

Usually water lily leaves are round with wavy edges but this one is split into 3, as though it has been cut by a special art & craft zig-zag scissors. This is the first time I see such as lily leaf and I didn't cut it like that.

This one looks like a verbena plant. I bought 2 of them thinking it was a lantana! Only one survived. The other one was blooming profusely before all the leaves dropped off and died.

This is my bunga kantan, the torch ginger flower. Many times, I was very tempted to use it as cut flowers to decorate my home but it ended up in my pot of tom-yam or asam laksa noodles. I usually use the unopened bud like the one on the right for cooking. If the bud is left to open to the stage like the one on the left, I'll leave it alone to let it beautify my garden. It looks like a pink lotus when opened further which is quite pretty.

This is the same chrysanthemum plant I bought for Chinese New Year in late January 2009. At that time it was in full bloom, the flowers almost twice as big. Usually, these types of plants do not last long and will die off just after the celebration is over. At least, that was what would usually happen to mine. But this time, it survived and I have 2 flowers with many buds. It should be purple in colour.

This chrysanthemum looks more white than purple.

Katarina asked us whether we have almost lost and recovered a beloved plant. Yes, this is the dendrobium left behind by my late mum. It was all dried up and dying when I took it back with me. Now it has multiplied to 2. Shy to say, this solo bloom is the best I could get at the moment. There are no tell-tale signs of flowering. One day the bloom just appeared and it lasted less than a day.

My adenium (desert rose?) is starting to form buds. This plant also nearly died due to the wet season. I moved it to a sunny place but shielded from the rain. Now it is growing more and larger leaves.

This looks like portulaca judging by the succelent leaves. I saw a whole bunch of it in a hanging flower pot. It was for sale at quite an expensive price, so I beg the nursery owner to give me a few cuttings. After some persuasion and sweet words, she plucked off 2 main branches and gave them to me. When I reached home, I cut them into 3 - 4 inch lengths and planted it on the soil. Now it is starting to bloom. The main colour is yellow interspersed with red in the flower centre.

This is my portulacas planted by 'pluck and plant' method from the mother plant that I bought from the nursery. I planted two plants of different colours in the same pot and this is what I get. I have never planted any portulacas from seeds.

This white portulaca was very happy to pose for me. Its petals are very thin and fragile.

This is supposed to be a yellow hibiscus. I bought this at a nursery along the highway somewhere in Sungai Buloh. The owner told me she 'maried' the plant herself, meaning she crossbreed them. She assured me that it was a yellow one. From the look of the bud, I had to agree with her. After all she only charged me RM 5.00.

Look what I got. It is a fat big red hibiscus flower with yellow at the edge of the petals and the centre stamens. The stigma which is orange reminds me of the ebiko in Japanese sushi. The red colour is very striking so I said to myself, OK, I can forgo the yellow one now.

So here ends the story of my flower parade. Hope you have enjoyed my post and do have a wonderful weekend!

This is my entry for Blooming Friday. My grateful thanks to Katarina at Roses and Stuff for hosting Blooming Friday. To see what others have posted or to participate, click here.