May 2010 GBBD - And The Rain My Drink

Do they look like Lady's Slippers or Wishbones?

Recently all my Torenias disappeared from my garden, having died back. I think it will reappear again somewhere and sometime later. But I miss them a lot, so I went to the nursery and bought some of these pink ones.

The name Torenia fournieri was given by Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy after a contemporary Swedish clergyman, Olaf Toren and also in honour of the French botanist Pierre Fournier.

The heart-shaped petals look like love,love,love.....

This is my Blue Daze (Evolvulus glomeratus) which I purchased from a nursery managed by a very old man who could hardly walk. He show me where his 'special offer' plants were by pointing fingers while sitting down on a shady bench. They were some helpers around but surprisingly these workers only tended to the plants. They were quite oblivious to his orders and they also ignored customers' queries. So I pitied him and took what I wanted to his bench to ask and bargain prices with him. I felt really dizzy because he smelt strongly of counterpain ointment! Howerver, it was a good buy. The prices were cheap and plants healthy.

This is my Hippy Lily (Hippeastrum reticulatum) which is commonly grown in tropical lowlands. They are quite easy to grow and they flower the whole year through.

The petals are heart-shaped in many photos. Can you see the yellow 'peace' signs around the centre?

This zinnia is grown from seed sold in packets at the garden centres. This time, all the seeds in the packet germinated but I am left with only a single mature plant - The Lone Ranger. I hope it will self seed. A packet of seeds cost about RM 3-5. A seedling sold in poly plastic bags costs almost the same price. I have a better chance with seedlings than seeds. The performance of seeds are unpredicatble and fluctuate between 0 - 100 %.

Now, with such a wide range of fluctuations, how to trust the seeds from packets?

Bye, bye love.....

A few weeks ago, I was so hard up for new plants, I went to the nursery nearest to my home and ended up with a few purchases. The sad part was that 2 plants was sick and died but before dying they infected my peace lilies. All of them suddenly died when their head was 'decapitated' and rotted off by some white powdery stuff that looked like fungus. It had just started to bloom when they said Adieu, so I said "Sayonara, rest in peace!" and I was left to pick up the pieces.

When I purchased this cat whiskers from the nursery a few years ago, the flowers were pale purple. Now all the flowers are white. I wonder what magic did I do?

This citrus plant was purchased during this Chinese New Year. The overflowing golden fruits have dropped off. It is blooming for the second time now. Usually, I'll wait 2-3 rounds before I harvest the fruits for eating or cooking. I'm worried the growers had applied a lot of chemicals to the plant during the forced blooming season.

The one that wouldn't die.

When I purchase my new citrus plant, I wanted to dispose off this old plant that I had been growing for 3 years as it seemed old and dying. I also needed the flower pot. But it was stucked inside the pot. I pulled and I pulled but it wouldn't come out. Finally I succceeded. I chopped off its head. I even stepped and jumped on it a few times to to loosen the soil and roots. The root ball was very hard, so I left it at the 'sick bay' (a shady area at my side yard, under the bamboo tree) with no food and water for a few weeks to meet it's own death.

Euthanasia -Resuscitation - Resurrection?

Strangely it didn't die because one day I noticed healthy green shoots coming out and growing sideways. This plant is a fighter. So I took it back again to its rightful place in the garden.

Blastoise is getting into mischief again and I caught him in action, haha!

The rest of my blooming flowers. I'm sure you know all their names. Do you know which is which?

• A fruit - Pomegranate flowers
• Edible flower grown for its natural blue food colouring - Blue Butterfly Pea
• Our local common name is Paper Flowers - Bougainvellea
• Bachelor's button - Gomphrena
• We can suck sweet nectar from its flowers - Ixora

My post today is dedicated to my lovely friend, Dr. Andrea, from the Philippines of Andrea In This Lifetime blog, the first commenter of my Kapok Tree post. Maraming salamat po for being my friend!

Today is Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. Now, do head over to May Dreams Gardens to see what's blooming round the world today.

This is my entry for Today's Flowers # 93, a meme which opens every Sunday, 2pm GMT. My grateful thanks to Today's Flowers team members; Luiz Santili Jr, Denise in Virginia, Laerte Pupo and Sandy Carlson. To participate and view other gorgeous flowers around the world, click here.

Blooming Friday - A Garden By The Ditch

Today I shall take you for a walk in the park. At the edge of our housing estate, there is this ditch that is higher than you and me. Here, we fondly call it the big monsoon drain for without it our homes would certainly be flooded whenever there is a storm.

My neighbours, the residents who stay next to the ditch area have taken the initiative to create a garden and a green environment. Come, let me show you the way ........

First, here is the Jetropha Integerrima, an evergreen small shrub with bright red and attractive flowers that can liven up any garden.

Next, we have the Nerium Oleander plant, an evergreen shrub with beautiful pink flowers. It is one of the most poisonous plant in the world, so we adults will watch the children and teach them not to consume the leaves but they can admire its beauty.

Next comes the Euphorbia Milii (Crown of Thorns or Christ Plant). Like many plants with lovely flowers, it has many torns. So, children, be careful when you want to pluck the pretty red flowers.

This is the Flower of Love (Tabernaemontana corymbosa), another evergreen shrub. This plant is very frangrant. Okay, you can stop here to smell the flowers. It is healthy and blooming furiously now. I think it kind of look like our galaxy, The Milky Way when seen from afar.

Here's a row of sugar cane plants. When I was a kid, they use to sell the cut stems which is about a foot long at the stalls. We buy them and even bring them into the cinema where we will bite and chew the flesh using our strong teeth and suck on the sweet juice. At home, we can boil the stems to make a sweet herbal drink. Out in town, there are roadside stalls equiped with pressing machines that sells cold sugar cane drinks to quench our thirst during a hot afternoon.

This is a tapioca plant. We plant them for the roots which is dug out for culinary use. We can boil the tapioca and eat the flesh or use it to make deserts, chips and cakes. Look closely on the top left corner or click on the picture. Can you see McDonalds across the dicth?

These are pineapple plants. I guess they are still teenagers, so we have to wait at least a year and a half before we see any flowers and fruits.

Yes, a baby papaya plant living together with the kangkong vegetable or ipomoea aquatica or water spinach. Papaya plants seem to love living at concrete corners, I don't know why. This kangkong vegetable can be stir fried with belacan (shrimp paste), a local favourite, which I like very much too.

This is one of the rosa-sinensis hybrids I photographed for my latest Wordless Wednesday post. Lovely, aren't they?

Finally, this is the blue daze (evolvulus glomeratus). The flowers are tiny but the they look very striking among the green leaves.

This little girl automatically stopped to pose for me when she saw me taking a photograph of the nerium oleander plant. She likes to come here in the mornings with her siblings and grandma. She is holding some rosa-sinensis hibiscus which she has earlier handpicked herself. I think she is a natural when it comes to modelling for me.

This is the place I come for a morning walk or jog. It is also the place where I have watched many beautiful sunrises. Besides the pictures here, other plants include the lemongrass, pandan, aloe vera, bougainvillea and bamboo.

Do you like this garden by the ditch?

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.


Update: 
My New Straits Times article titled "Garden Makeover for a Ditch" was published on 13 March 2010, the link is here.