Hoya Corner

I'm in the middle of setting up a Hoya Corner in the CG. Many of the hoyas started as stem cuttings in my bright balcony. I had quite a number of successful rootings too and it seems that they are quite easy to grow.

The Hoya multiflora below was rooted by my friend who passed it to me and it flowered it my bright balcony. I have transferred this to the hoya corner in the CG . Let's see how well it grows there. This hoya is very easy to flower according to my friend.

Below is the Hoya imperialis . The vines are thick and long. This was passed to me to hang in the CG cos' it was not able to flower easily at my friend's apartment corridor. After a couple of weeks of shaded sunlight .... you see the flowers blooming huge :-)

Phals from Malacca

I know that Orchids are expensive and so I have been resisting the urge to get any. Then I fell in love with the Phalaenopsis Orchid flowers. Beautifully star shaped petals with so many kinds of color variations and dots, spots and striations .... some of them have fragrance and some have not. So I bought my first Phal from AMK for CNY decorating a part of the sitting room.

I had the chance to drive to Malacca and visited Jonker Street and here I found the distributor of Phal Orchids for The World of Phalaenopsis. I found full bloom Phals of various grades and of course the prices are in Malaysian Ringgit. I couldn't resist the chance to buy three Phals back since they are potted in spagnum moss. I double checked with the sales personal and she said I that I can bringthem back to Singapore trouble free.

Gardening Mannequins

Dh and I went on a Malacca drive away earlier this year. We went on to explore Jonker Street and came upon this red building. Inside this building was a cafe. And this cafe was decorated with the gardening metal dolls. I've seen these being sold in Singapore too but the varieties were limited.

But over here ... gosh .... there were many kinds and the smaller ones really looked adorable.

Prices ranged from RM 30 for the smaller ones to over RM 200 for the larger ones.

I guess they would really look quite enchanting if I put some of them in the CG. But it's only my dream lah .... budget is always not enough ... sigh!

Auntie Lian

She is a tireless volunteer who takes care of the vegetable growing area. At over seventy years old she is such a charming lady who quietly and calmly goes about doing what is needed for the vege garden. She has such a sense of humour too. Her love for gardening came about cos' she had lived in a kampong growing vegetables in this part of Hougang for many years before shifting to a HDB flat. So living near the CG has given her a chance to rekindle that love for growing again.

Pomegranate Tree's a Fruiting

This was planted about one and a half year ago. Trimmed the leaves and branches a couple of times and I think my neighbour did add some fruiting fertilizer recently.

Mini Cucumber

My neighbour germinated the seeds and another volunteer helped her to plant them in the CG.

It has been fruiting quite a number of times and the cucumbers are the mini variety ... so cute looking.

Purple Brinjals

The elderly lady loves to eat brinjals and so she grows them white. But this time she grows the purple variety. She believes that eating brinjal is good for the joints. I suspect that for the elderly ladies, any fruiting vegetable that gives off the mucilaginous substance ..... when eaten ... they believe .... would help the joints. But I don't like eating them .... LOL

Roses in the CG

I had always thought that it was difficult to grow roses in Singapore. I had spent sometime in my childhood watching an uncle of mine trying to grow roses in his planter beds in a terrace house. Roses bought during those years were not cheap and I heard that he was willing to pay $50 for a pot of rose. I remember he bought many pots and than planted them into his planter beds and they all died a slow death.

Then I read about a GCS member being able to grow roses at her balcony and then another member was growing them in her office garden in pots. And gosh the roses shown during the sharing session on the forum when the members visited nurseries .... Wow!

I just got inspired and was willing to try my hands at growing them.

I read up a blog on growing roses from a rose expert. This was to get my potting mix as close to a well drained soil as possible. Then I got cuttings from a forum friend who grew roses .... and then .... wala .....

Here are the pics .....

Flowering Longan Tree

I have been wondering for the longest time how to get the tree to flower and fruit. There was a thread on GCS on getting fruit trees to flower and some of the suggestions were pretty hilarious.

About a month back I found the tree sort of messy and just trimmed off some branches and leaves. I just poured some garbage enzyme around the ground where the stem grows. With the rains recently, I happened to check on the tree again and realized that it has flowers. Oh ... such happiness and I realized that I don't need to wait for the tree to grow two stories high before I can get flowers and then fruits. On examining the leaves of the tree .... I think it looks like the Ping Pong Longan Tree ..... which means this tree is going to give the CG lots of fruits throughout the year .... Oh such happiness again!

Fruiting Melon Fence

The melon vines are growing and I've controlled the snail population by throwing snail pellets onto the soil. So now the leaves grow lush and the flowers are out.
I've got the baby melons you see below and the largest one was spotted by one of my CG volunteers. They have sharp eyes for fruiting vines :-)





Hopefully and very soon this will grow a little bigger and when it turns yellow .... it's time for harvest. This would be the first Xiang Gua in the CG.