Hibiscus Progress Pt.1

It has been three months since I started growing hibiscus from the stem cuttings given to me by a forum member. Some of them have been re-potted into 6 inch pots and a couple of them are growing flower buds. The two flower buds below seem to look like the white or yellow variety and they seem to be blooming at such a small size. Stay tune ....

Bulbs Progress Pt. 5

I see the blooms of the gladiolus Peter Pears .... and a couple more buds coming up .....

Ornamental Pineapple Fruiting

Bulbs Progress Pt. 4

Oh yes, the bulbs are budding and blooming this time round. The one below with the pink blooms is called Gladiolus Cindy.

More blooms coming up .... a likely red bloom .... let's see ....

Brugmansias Progress Pt.1

The five brugs are growing taller by the day. They are also getting more leafy and once in a while the leaves get bitten by some kind of insects but no great harm done.
I understand that I need to grow them for about a year to get the stems to branch out to the Y configuration before I will get the flowers. OK ... so I need to be patient and just keep watering , feeding and insect control the plants for the entire rest of the year till next year.




I believe I see the Y configuration in the stem branching in the brugmansia above. Maybe this will flower sooner than the rest.

Bulbs Progress Pt. 3

I had some time last week and so re-staked the gladiolus shoots. I believe this is definitely one easier way to make the shoots stand up. Well now if the shoots need to flop, they flop around in a circle within the red strings. .... LOL

Bulbs Progress Pt. 2

Gladiolus shoots are shooting upwards without any doubt. I had feedback that there were too many corms planted in the pot. so I got them separated and now there are not more than four corms per pot. The shoots tend to flip flop all over and I tried staking them the way I did below but it didn't help much cos' they were still flopping around. Stay tune to a new way of staking them. Also the corms were planted too shallow .... so now got to put more soil into the pots and hopefully they won't overflow.

After repotting the dhalia corms, the pot got attacked by snails ...haiz! Managed to save one of them and changed the position of the pot so that the dhalia gets a little shelter from the rain.

Adenium Update 13th Month

I had changed their pots to a bigger size and fertilized them with vermicompost and the latest flowering fertilizer but they are still not flowering yet. So Just got to wait a little while longer.

Meanwhile check out their caudex. They are getting bigger by the day and very soon I will have to change pots again. Maybe this time round I will wait a little longer to get them to root bound the pots so that they have a chance to flower first .... stay tune!

A Vegetable Farm in CH

We had the chance to visit Cameron Highlands again during the September holidays.
We visited a vegetable farm in front of our hotel. Vegetables seem to grow big and juicy so easily in CH and most of the farms are covered overhead with a transparent plastic sheet to keep the rains away. Well it rains almost everyday in the evenings in CH.

Tomatoes growing this way without any branches and leaves. The branches are trimmed away and the leaves are allowed to grow at the top. This gives me an idea how to handle my tomato plants next time I grow them :-)

Spring onions are juicy here!

These are the apple melons of CH. They tasted a tad too bland in sweetness for my liking.




The farmer harvested fresh corns for us to eat raw. He sliced them thinly and gave us each a thin piece to try. I was really surprised that raw corns can taste so good .... juicy and sweet.

The farms are terraced into the slopes of the highlands. We had to climb a lot to reach the planter beds. This activity is definitely not for those with weak knees.

Korean Visitors

In January 2010 we had some garden visitors from Korea. They were the lecturers and students from Handong Global University. The visit was hosted by my RC chairman who is a member of the Silver Ribbon Group in Singapore.

The Silver Ribbon Group promotes positive mental wellness and has youths to champion causes to promote mental wellness and to adopt mentally healthy life styles. Community Gardening is being one of the mentally healthy life style considered.