New love!

Recently I've been visiting many nurseries due to some work commitments... and I ended up buying pots of mini orchids whenever I'm out working!

But all these pots of mini orchids are so pretty and they are very affordable, usually about $6-7 per pot. I simply cannot resist... ...

Let see how long these blooms can last and hopefully I can allow these pots of orchids to bloom again. I am so looking forward to growing them!

Mother's Day at Gardens by the Bay

After the Mother's day lunch with my brothers, Mother and Grandma, we thought that it would be a good idea to bring my grandma, mom and Beanie to Gardens by the Bay: Tulipmania to enjoy some air-con in the temperature-controlled dome and to admire some beautiful flowers and tulips.

Well, apparently the whole of Singapore thought so too.

Gardens by the bay was totally packed yesterday!

Geez, I saw more people than flowers and due to the crowd, the dome was rather stuffy. Hmmm, they should really consider installing some fans to create some artificial breeze.

Nonetheless, my grandma and mom totally enjoyed the trip. It hits me once again that old folks are generally really easy to please. I could tell that my grandma was really pleased that we took her out for lunch and the trip to Gardens by the Bay was the icing on the cake. She is 86 years old this year, but still very healthy and feisty. She could walk around the dome on her own (with the help of her trusted umbrella) and was very intrigued by the various species of plants and flowers that she has never seen before.

My mom, being the gardener and Mrs green-fingers, was totally excited and went around on a photo spree. Hmmm, that sets me thinking that I should plan a trip with her to Japan during Spring to either see the sakura or to Hokkaido during the Spring festival.

As for Beanie, she was rather co-operative. Thankfully she did not pluck or destroy any plants and seemed to understand when I told her that she wasn't allowed to pluck the flowers and could only touch them gently. *phew*

This is my 2nd Mother's Day with Beanie, and everyday, I am very thankful that I am blessed with a healthy, spirited, cute and sometimes-she-drives-me-crazy daughter.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms!

Flowers, flowers, flowers!

Finally a post NOT about Beanie!

My frangipani is flowering! Hurray! For a period of time, I thought the plant was dying. It was a sick plant as most of its leaves were infested with mealy bugs. I sprayed so much white neem oil that all the leaves dropped and I had a completely botah tree for a few weeks.

So much so that I actually started shopping for a new tree until I noticed that there were new shoots sprouting out and before I knew it, I see bunches of flowers!

Such beautiful blooms... makes my day, everyday. ;)

It's red!!!

I've never thought that I will live to see my Frangipani flowers, but it did!!!

Yay! I'm so happy! ;)

I've been wondering what would be the color of flowers if the tree ever bloom. Due to meanly bugs problem and the fact that I do not get enough sun at my balcony, I never have much hope of seeing my poor tree flowers.

So when ever I walked past a frangipani tree in full bloom, I would look at the flowers jealously and marveled at the beautiful colors of white, yellow, pink, red and even orange.

Giving thanks to the recent hot weather, seems that my frangipani is doing much better. Less meanly bugs and it actually flowers!

Just wana share my joy! ;)

My Gardening Woes I have no idea what is the name of this plant, but I call it the "heart-shape leaves" plant. I have quite a few of these. At least they are doing well. The wrinkled leaves of my Frangipani.

The "botak" brunch. ;( And there are some mealybugs on the new buds.

Help! Not many leaves on my Frangipani Tree... ;(

I have a serious case of mealybugs infestation, especially on my Frangipani tree. I have been battling these bugs for the past few months and they seem to be winning the war!

Most of the new leaves of the Frangipani are wrinkled and some of the older leaves are full of these pesty mealybugs!!! I used white neem oil to spray on the leaves every 3 days or so, but it didn't seem to be working.

So out of desperation, I used my own home-made pesticide, a concoction of olive oil, dishwashing detergent and water. But I guess I was overzealous with the amount of oil used and I ended up killing the leaves instead of the bugs instead!

Almost all of the leaves of the Frangipani withered and dropped off. But I figured that the bugs would die with the leaves right?

Unfortunately that wasn't the case! Once the new leaves appear, I began to see the same irritating mealybugs on the new shoots again! ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, I am back to spraying white neem oil on the leaves once again. To make matters worse, some of my other plants within the same planter box are also showing signs of the same infestation.

These mealybugs are driving me nuts. What else can I do to rid these horrible mealybugs???

Please help!!!

We re-potted 2 cuttings of mints, I chose pineapple mints. The leaves are so pretty!

I was thinking of buying this tub to plant some edibles until I realised it cost almost $80 each! *w/o the plants!*
My "lecturer" for the workshop. She is so young!

We attended this workshop with our neighbours, who are also avid gardeners. Had a good time bonding with the neighbours!

Gardening workshop at Hortpark, 19 Sept 2010

Hub and I, together with our new neighbours attended a gardening workshop at Hortpark on Sunday, 19 Sept.

It was my very first time to Hortpark and what a beautiful park! I was like the "mountain tortoise" who was wooing and ahhing at everything . The workshop was conducted in a very comfortable air-con lab, and we had a very young and pretty "lecturer" teaching us how to do stem cuttings, and how to plant some edibles like Kangkong and pak choi.

To be honest, I expected the workshop to be more enlightening especially since we paid $15 per pax! The workshop was really for beginners and the "lecturer" simply went through some gardening basics. Nonetheless, we got to take home some mint cuttings, some seeds and 2 packets of soil.

All in all, it was good fun bonding with our neighbours and a great way to spend a Sunday morning. ;)

Plants in the bathroom

I've always wanted to have plants in the bathroom... simply because I can then shower and water the plants at the same time! (kind of silly, I know...)

Other than that, I've always enjoyed the company of plants... their quiet existence calms my mind and since bathroom is a place where I relax, thus, I should place some plants to make the bathroom even more relaxing right?

Unfortunately, I have 2 very small bathrooms. In fact, the master bathroom is so small that, I have to place the sink outside of the bathroom, just to have a decent shower space. The above picture will be a dream bath.... where I can, hrm... have "live" audience while I sing in my shower. Heh...

Nonetheless, I am quite determined to place plants in the bathrooms. I will definitely work on the idea!

2 begonias have died... ;( so, I've decided to grow herbs instead. Mint is quite hardy, the basils are puny, but at least still alive. The frangipani is doing ok, I see many green leaves sprouting. *phew*

Spot the "Botak" plant... These are "Japanese Bamboos" or, at least that's what I've been told at the nursery.
Ginger is growing happily. A rather no-frill, easy to grow plant. Hopefully I'll have free gingers to eat soon!

I bought this Thyme just 2 weeks ago, but its roots are turning black and the leaves are dying too. Hiaz, to minimize my loss, I cut all the healthy leaves and froze them. Doubt it can hang on much longer...

Cookie, the curious cat was checking me out... until she saw another cat at the car park.

My plants after 3 months

So it has been 3 months since I moved in. Time to review my planter boxes...

Begonias -> Not much of a success. 2 have died, the remaining 4 seems ok, but they aren't looking all that healthy and happy to me. Hmmmm...

The herbs -> Mint is good, the basils... barely surviving. Thyme died. ;( Still considering whether I should get a pot of Rosemary. Argh, but I don't want to be a murderer... Luckily, the ginger is doing alright. The pineapple plantets (not in the photos) seem ok too. Hub commented that the "herb corner" is looking untidy and ugly. That kinda hurts my ego abit... But, that's how herbs are, aren't they? Any tips to "beautify" the area?

Japanese Bamboo -> Not good at all, the first batch had almost all died. So, I bought a second batch and some are showing signs of stress again... leaves are turning brown and dropping everywhere. I'm getting a bit discouraged, maybe I'll just get another breed/type of plants instead. Argh...

Some Pictures from Singapore Garden Festival 2010

1st Pic: My favorite exhibit. I like the structure and how innovative this garden was. The combination of aquatic plants and soil-based plants was really cool and the concept was such a modern interpretation of what a garden could be...

2nd Pic: a bed of begonias. So beautiful... the silver leaves with dashes of purple. Currently I have some begonias in my planter but after seeing this, I cant wait to buy more pots of begonias!

3rd Pic: These pretty pink blooms were rather strong smelling.

4th Pic: I was wondering what were these "trees" made of... still couldn't figure it out.

All in all, I really enjoyed the exhibits! $7.20 well spent. ;)

My Planter boxes are ready!!!!

Took a day off to do up the planter boxes and.... Dah Tah! They are done! Now I just have to ensure that the plants live and flourish!

1st Picture: The standing planter which is made of old teak.

2nd Picture: The planter which is in my wet kitchen. Original plan was to plant some edibles but as I do not have sunlight in that area, I can only make do with indoor plants. Nonetheless, seeing all these greenery already makes me very happy.

3rd Picture: The outdoor planter that is along my corridor. The monster fern doesn't seem that big in the picture because I've trimmed almost 40% of its leaves.

4th Picture: The "Before" picture of wet kitchen planter.

5th Picture: The "Before" picture of the corridor planter.

The Planter Box Saga…

So I went to World Farm, a nursery at Yishun, 2 weeks back, hoping that I could buy some plants on the cheap and engage replanting services from its staff at a reasonable price.

World Farm has a very different feel from the nurseries situated along Thomson Road. World Farm, is literally a farm… it feels very kampong and people just leave you alone to touch, smell the plants. Those along Thomson Road are more commercialized and the nurseries are always busy, busy, busy with other customers that it seems to me, nobody ever slows down to REALLY appreciate the beauty of these plants.

Anyway, I really enjoyed my trip at World Farm, despite leaving empty handed. As World farm is busy preparing for the up and coming Garden Show at Suntec, the Manager said that they were really short-handed at the moment, and suggested that I contact a landscaper to help me on my planter boxes instead.

“Eh… ok, but I’m on a budget, y’know” I said.

“It’s ok, this guy is good and cheap” said, the Manager.

“So, agar-agar how much do you think the 2 planters will cost?” I asked.

“Aiyah, should be a couple of hundreds lah. Max of the max, 1K” he claimed.

Alright then, I contacted this landscaper, he came over the next day to check out my planter boxes and said that he would provide me with a quotation in about 2 days time.

2 days later, he quoted me $2XXX. I was like WTF….?

This guy is trying to skin me alive man. Hub, being the Forever Mr. Robert said “wah, ok what… very cheap. Half price from what our ID quoted us originally”

NO way! I can do everything at HALF THE PRICE.

That was it. I went down to Thomson Road yesterday (Sunday), since it was only 5 mins drive away. Drove past JM Flowers, saw the huge “50% SALE”, parked at its car park and all ready to start buying plants and the necessary equipments to do up the planter boxes.

Yesterday was the last day of sale; sadly, many of the good stuff were sold out. Nonetheless, I made my choices and picked the best looking ones available and caught one of the sales managers to sit down and discuss the charges required for delivery of plants and soil, as well as replanting.

It turns out that JM does not provide landscaping services, meaning that I’ll have to do all the “groundwork” of the planters myself, and JM can then take-over by laying the soil and replanting.

Ok, although I’ve never done anything like that before but I have done my research, I know all about the geotextile, the drainage cells and the type of soil that is suitable for my plants. All theory, of course.

Nonetheless, I’ve bought most of the hardware required and will start working on the planters soon.

The total bill: $700-$800 or so, since the soil will be charged as-per-use during replanting. Heh, luckily for the Monster Fern that we picked up earlier, will help us save quite a lot since the huge fern practically covers the entire planter that’s along the corridor.

Bleah. $2XXX, MY FOOT!

The passing of Princess Basil

Yup, she kaputed before I can take a picture of her to post on my blog…

And I am the direct contribution to her premature death.

Firstly, I should have bought good, decent soil from a reliable source instead of some Pasar Malam. The soil was infested with trips (a kind of pest with wings and can fly!), and that was a very bad start for Princess Basil…

And because of that, I changed the soil and repotted Basil 3 times and I guess the final repotting process was too much of a trauma for her. Yup, according to my reading, plants do suffer from repotting shock… and sometimes, do not recover from the trauma of the new soil.

The irony was that Princess Basil was actually doing not too bad before my itchy fingers decided to buy a new batch of compost/soil and repotted her.

Sigh, I should have just left her alone … she would have been still alive.

Anyhow, my itchy fingers previously also repotted 4 clumps of pineapple plantlets. Previously, my father-in-law bought a pretty and spiky pineapple for display during the Lunar New Year. Although technically the pineapple is fit for consumption, it was a rather small fruit and since my FIL was intending to throw away the fruit after the New Year, I decided to pluck some of the small plantlets, that are found at the sides of the pineapple, stuck them into a tray of the screwed-up soil from the Pasar Malam, and basically forgot all about it.

Weeks later, Viola! Some roots began to appear and all 4 of them made it! Apparently it’s really difficult to kill these pineapple babies as they are such HARDY plants.

A perfect morale boost to an aspiring gardener. It’s finally assuring to see some plants ALIVE and GREEN.

So, any aspiring gardener out there. Get yourself a pineapple and start a pineapple plantation!

Busy Bee

I’ve been taking my green chores rather seriously lately. I would check on Princess Basil at least twice a day. Just wana make sure that she is sprouting new leaves and getting enough sun. I have also added some “organic” fertilizer to her… some left over coffee powder, some left-over tea leaves, and also some crushed egg shells. Well, so far she’s still alive, so I guessed those left-over stuff aren’t too bad for her. At least, not KILLING her yet.

I’ve also been surfing the net for more information about indoor gardening, and what are the suitable plants that I can plant for my planters. Previously, I was gloating that my unit was north-east facing, which meant that I would not get much sun. In fact, I’ll only get some partial sunlight from 2 – 5 pm onwards… Now, I'm kinda beating my chest over the limited amount of sun that I'll be getting UGH, O well, better than nothing.

So, I just gotta work with plants which are shade-loving. Most flowering plants and fruiting plants will be out of reach for me then. ;(

But I think I can still work with herbs with that few hours of sun, I can't wait to hop over to my herb garden while preparing for a meal, a la Jamie Oliver style. I simply adore the way he can just pluck some herbs from his herb garden while working on his zhi-czar.

So, from the internet, I’ve come across this ingenious lady, who has this really kick-ass idea on how to plant her herbs. Vertical herb gardening rocks!

I am so inspired…. This Project Planter Box is really getting interesting!

My very 1st plant -> Princess Basil

Since I’ll be the CEO of Project Planter, I better make sure that I do a good job… or else, the CFO-cum-shareholder will most probably skin me alive.

On the eve of the reunion dinner, 12 Feb, I was happily doing some grocery shopping at Jason’s, where I chanced upon some pretty, little pots of basil. I figured that it would be the best time to put my green fingers to the test, so I bought a pot home.

It came in a really small plastic container that even I wouldn’t call it a “pot”. Thankfully, Bishan was having its usual selling-useless-stuff Passar Malam, and I managed to find a decent looking, white porcelain pot and some soil to repot this basil.

The original plastic container was so small that 95% of the basil’s roots were growing OUT of the container. I was thinking of ways and means to cut up the container, so that I could retain as much of the roots as possible. Me, being me, Miss “chor-loh”, accidentally PULL out that 95% of the roots while I was cutting up that little plastic container.

OPPS… … …

O well, too bad. I guess Princess Basil just gotta learn to survive on that 5% of roots. After repotting my fragile Princess Basil, I realized that her stems weren’t do a good job in supporting herself and Princess Basil was being very unsightly, flopping all over the place. So, I found a sturdy-looking, sunny-colored-orange straw and stuck it next to Princess Basil; and tied her stems to the straw to give her some support.

There, she looked much better already.

Of course, I was worried that she wouldn’t survive for more than a few days. And it really didn’t help that I was busy plucking away her beautiful leaves as I really needed some basil to cook.

Despite of all that, Princess Basil is currently doing quite well. Her leaves are in a healthy bright green, and I can even see some small leaves sprouting!

Princess Basil is definitely hardier than she looks.

I’ll post some pictures soon!

Vertical gardens

Another sign that I’m getting old… I wana pick up gardening.

I know… that’s SO auntie rite? No offence to fellow gardeners, The typical image of a garden is a middle age auntie, who is slightly pudgy, wearing some baggy old T-shirt with old faded shorts. Messy hair in a grandma-bun and of course, classic yellow rubber gloves.

Yup, that’s my idea of someone who enjoys gardening, and yup, I’m describing my mum up there.

But seriously, how many young, hot, sexy gardeners are there out there? Well, I might not be that young anymore but I can still work on the “hot and sexy” part. Ha…

I haven’t really planted anything in my life yet. I mean, how difficult can gardening be rite?
Wrong! Apparently, keeping plants alive and healthy is quite a task. Keeping plants green and not brown seems harder than it looks. Anyway, it will be very soon for me to find out whether I inherit my mother’s green fingers. Since I’m going to have a pretty big balcony at my new place, both hubby and I have decided to do some major “landscaping” work and have already set aside a budget for plants and greenery.

Recently, vertical walls are in vogue. It sure looks cool and super relaxing, but I simply cannot imagine the work to maintain a “living wall”… If you have been to the new T3 at Changi Airport, you’ll know what I’m talking about. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s really very relaxing to look at plants cascading down a wall… leaning over the railing, swaying slightly to the breeze (in T3’s case, it was the draft of the air-con. Haha)

But a girl can dream right? Ahhh… looking at that wall is making me relaxed already.