Jute Plant

I found this plant when I was clearing the messy herb bushes. My neighbour told me that it is called the Jute plant. Someone in the neighbourhood would come in and eat the leaves raw. However the red fruits cannot be eaten even though they are lovely to look at.

Shamrock from Greenculture identified this plant as Corchorus capsularis and on reading the Wikipedia I understand that the leaves of this plant are rich in anti-oxidants.
Read more about the plant here ..

http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Corchorus+capsularis

Physalis minima (Bladder Cherry)

This bladder cherry plant was not suppose to grow in this planter bed but somehow it was left alone to grow till this big. It has flowered and you can see the fruits hanging there. Meanwhile the older bladder cherry plant is dying of root rot in another part of the garden.
The scientific name of this plant is the Physalis species and the neighbourhood children who came to help in the garden sometimes pick the orange cherries to eat. I also recognised that the fruits when dried are used as cake decorations.

You can read more about the plant here ....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physalis

Artemisa sp. (Wormwood)

My neighbour bought this plant as a baby from one of the plant nurseries and the sales person told her that it was a Dill plant. After a year of growth .... when I first saw it ... it was taller than 1.52 meters. A Dill plant doesn't grow so tall .... it may reach a maximum height of maybe 60 cm at the most. This is what most plant experts call the false dill .... the plant scientific name called Artemisia species ( Artemisia californica). I also noticed that the plant is situated in the middle of the planting bed and somehow the plants growing on either side of it die after a while.

At this time the plant produced numerous white little flowers which seem to float in the air when disturbed. Knowing that whenever a plant flowers, it is a signal that it may die. So I trimmed the bush down to half it's original height, cutting away all the flowering parts. I'm wondering whether I should relocate this plant to a corner of the planting bed instead of letting it continue to grow in the centre.

Read all about the Wormwood plants here ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisia_(plant)#Selected_species

African Leaves

My neighbour brought back a stem cutting of this plant from a monastery in Penang where she went for meditation about a year ago. The cutting has grown big and tall and then she planted some more cuttings near the fence. She calls them the African Leaves and she has never seen flowers being produced by this plant. She uses the leaves and boils them to drink and also uses the dried leaves to make a tea concoction. She used to have high cholesterol and high blood pressure and after drinking the potion boiled from these leaves she said that she doesn't suffer from high cholesterol and high blood pressure anymore. So far, this plant has not been identified yet ... anyone can help me identify it?

Gossyplum barbadense (Cotton Plant)

I found this growing in the Passionfruit Cover. There are two of them at the moment. It is also know as the Eygptian Cotton, Creole Cotton and the scientific name is Gossyplum barbadense.
Read more about it here http://tropilab.com/gossyp-bar.html

6/3/09 update .... the cotton fruits are seen this time round ...so white and can be fluffy too but I took the pic after a rainfall .... so you see it's the cotton is rather dense.

Laurentia longiflora (Star of Bethleham)

Found this plant growing somewhere below the medicinal herb bushes. It has the name in the title of this post and is also called Laurentia longiflora. I understand that the leaves of this plant release an irritating sap and the plant is pretty poisonous.
You can read all about this plant here
http://ntbg.org/plants/plant_details.php?plantid=11854

Triphasia trifolia (Limeberry)

This plant is grown near the shadiest part of the garden. The scientific name is Triphasia trifolia.
It produces red berries which can be eaten. However I read that this plant grows well in sunlight and it seemed to be in the wrong part of the garden. The plant is still a tiny bush producing a few fruits only.
Read all about it here http://www.tropilab.com/lime-ber.html

Winged Bean Fruiting

Here's another bean plant seen fruiting. I've never eaten this and I wonder how to cook it. Anyone wants to share how it's cook?

Update on various plants

The mirabilis jalapa (4 o'clock plant) is growing bushier by the day and flowering too. When I planted it there was supposed to be two varieties ....the pink flowers and yellow ones. Now I only see the pink variety flowering.

My friend MS planted the red Spanish spinach and it is climbing on the fence pretty well. I wonder when will our first harvest be. It seem to be growing so slowly. Maybe it's better growing them on the ground.

Dnn from greenculture.com donated 2 kinds of ginger plant to the CG and also the Neem plant.
When I transplanted the gingers into the CG, I accidently decapitated the leaf off the yellow ginger and left the rhizome there. I think it didn't grow anymore after that. As for the blue ginger, it seems to be growing very slowly too ... it's grown in full sun. Now I wonder if I had planted it in the wrong part of the garden. I read that gingers are usually shade loving plants.
Now I have to consider transplanting it under the passionfruit cover where it's more shady.

The Neem plant is growing pretty well and it's getting bushier too.

French Bean Plant Fruiting

I heard from Iris that another lady planted this sometime back and it was sort of forgotten after a while. At the growing area there were some sticks placed to indicate that some seeds were planted. So here we see the French bean fruits hanging on the fence to my delight. Grown under the full morning and afternoon sun, they are doing well. I'm sure they will be plucked by strangers itchy fingers too LOL.

Red Okra Fruiting

My neighbour Iris planted a row of this in the CG some months back and they are doing very well. They have bright sunshine to grow and also are regularly fed fertiliser. Look at the red fruits .... it's my first time seeing this colored okra. This is not sold in the supermarkets and I wonder if the red color bleeds into the dish if I cook the fruits.
The flower is quite pretty too.

Germinating Seeds

After 2 weeks of break in the last weeks of December 2008 I was all set to try my hands at germinating some seeds that I obtained from Wisteria and Herb Lover. I used the cardboard egg carton , doubled up and soaked the seeds for about half an hour before planting them into the Horti- soil mixture. For about 4 days I watered them using a chinese soup spoon and what you see here were the seedlings. By the end of the week I noticed that the phoenix pumpkin seedlings were growing out their space and so I transplanted them into bigger pots. Out of the five seeds I sowed for the Roselle, Phoenix Pumpkin and the 7-Candle Stick plants only three germinated.

The phoenix pumpkin seedlings had big leaves as compared to the other two plants. I hope to grow them strong enough before transplanting into the CG.
I also have two Indian Borage stem cuttings ... hopefully they would root too.
Sending good vibes here!