A Single Bulb Blooms

Finally I see a bloom earlier on in the year but now the bulbs are only growing vegetatively.
I wonder if I need to give them more sun as the area where they are planted gets partial shade.

Mexican Sunflowers

I got the seeds from a GCS member and planted them in the CG. Out of ten seeds, six seeds managed to grow into plantlets before the fungus got to two pots due to the rainy afternoons.

So here I have four pots left and I see flower buds forming in two of the pots. Finally they bloomed for me and I jumped for joy.

Custard Apple Tree

This was planted in Nov. 2008 but it was under insect attack for a couple of months. Now it is in recovery mode as new leaves are formed. I find the tree grows very slowly and yes there is a fruit buy it is hard and it seems to take forever to ripen .... Haiz! Now someone has brought in another custard apple plantlet. Looks like it's going to be a long wait again.

Melon Fence Harvest

I managed to get my first harvest from the fence a couple of days ago. About two xiang gua rotted away before I got to it but there are still a couple of the mini melons hanging there and turning a tinge of yellow. They are about the size of tennis balls .... some are slightly bigger though.

Had my first taste of the melons below. My first time eating such small melons. They were crunchy with a refresing taste but not as sweet as I would like them to be. Perhaps it could be due to the many afternoon rains that could have affected the sweetness during harvest time.

My fellow CGers are looking forward to eating them but I am afraid that they would be disappointed about the level of sweetness these melons have to offer.

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!