Blooming

The weather is hot and humid, no relief even when its cloudy in the evening, hoping for rain that never came, well at least these few days....But when it came, it rains cats and dogs, with lightning and thunder! The flowering plants in the garden are a happier lot, showing their blooms to brighten up even a dull uneventful day. These are some of my favourite blooms in my garden.

water hyacinth blooming with its delicate bluish purple clusters

locally known as lembayung or keladi bunting

mini frangipani (kemboja) though not as sweet smelling as her big sister,

the plant is popular nowadays as part of a tropical or Bali theme garden,

it can be propagated using cuttings of mature

stems

I love petunias!
a variety with crinkly edges and a mix colour of red and white patches

deep purple and white variety

a common variety with a profusion of flowers

not sure of the name of this plant that goes well in

a hanging pot

sweet delicate begonia flowers

peacock flower or sepit udang?

Water plants

Water is the key to life itself and one of the most captivating elements that can be added to a garden. Just combine water, stone and vegetation and you have a time-tested way to create a peaceful, relaxing atmosphere.

The reflection of a sky, clouds or landscapes on a pool offers a beautiful and ever-changing spectacle. Here I often sit and contemplate about life, resting my tired bones after a back-breaking weeding session, while feeding the fish, admiring the lotus and other water plants....

my lone lotus

The sound of trickling water from the urn, can be heard from my bedroom window, soothes me with its soft melody and lull me to sleep.....here water hyacinth are placed in a tempayan
bcos the koi fish loves to feast on their roots and soft bulbous stems

Water orchid with its soft delicate white flowers dangling, in a tempayan
placed under the awning of my bedroom window, to catch the rain water....

A decorative pegaga which I was told can't be eaten as ulam

Water cabbages as I know these are called, the fish love them too...

Since I have the small pool, when in season the frogs make loud mating calls at nights which drowns the trickling sound of the water from the urn, and make me sleepless somtimes!

The long spiky plants on the left is where the frogs love to lay their eggs
and the koi fish congregate to feast on them...

False lavender?

I dont know exactly the name of these flowering plants I planted outside my fence. I came across these plants long before they are sold in nurseries. My aunt used to plant them in her garden way back in 1960's. One friend called them "false lavender" because at one glance, they do look a bit like the real lavender (English or French lavender) esp the colour lilac-blue and they give out a kind of fragrance just like the real one. But the real lavender is a woody plant and the false one has soft stems. The real one is a type of fragrant flower or herb while the false local ones, not exactly fragrance, more like the smell of marigold though not as strong!...and you know marigold is known locally as 'bunga tahi ayam' literally translated as 'chicken shit flowers', so you get the idea of their fragrance....hahaha!

English Lavender (real lavender)

local false lavender outside my fence
growing wild and blooming

If you touch these local false lavender, your hands will feel sticky because the whole plant feels that way, sticky and rubbery kind of feeling. Their flowers come in dark blue, lilac blue, dark and light pink and also white. But at one glance they also look like foxgloves.

A good start

My flower seeds are germinating well!

Im not sure the name of these flower seeds given by one

of the vendors at Floria Putrajaya FOC but the flowers looked

like marigold, the colour at least, but only one layer petals,

more like the flowers of ulam raja

Also happy to see the sunflower seeds given by Bangchik germinating well under my mengkudu tree. Hope to see the proud bright orange flowers in my garden later on. Bangchik gave me 2 different sets of seeds, 1 set the seeds are bigger than the other. So Im not sure whether they are of different types.

sunflower seeds growing well, though they are leaning towards the full sun.

have to move them to a new flower bed soon..

this is the seed of a honey jackfruit (nangka madu)..hoping that it
will grow well and fruitful, my favourite fruit..Im lucky I dont
get 'wind' (angin) after eating them even though I eat
them everyday!

cuttings from variegated Japanese Bamboo (not sure of the correct name though),

part of the flower arrangements from my son's wedding,

and let them stand in a glass jar of water..

happy to see them giving out roots after 3 wks...

daun pandan cuttings after a month...will transfer them

later in a low porcelain pot with pebbles,

as a decor on my coffee table

Caladiums (Keladi)

Flamboyant foliage is the hallmark of the Caladium. They are originally from the Brazilian jungles and are now grown as house and garden plants for their bright and colourful foliage as they add decor to any area in the garden.

Caladium have many species and the most popular is the Fancy Leaf varieties which have heart-shaped leaves usually with riots of red, pink, white and green splotches. Now they have dwarf varieties too. I saw the above photo shown by a friend in Kedah, his pot of caladium is displayed at the bottom of the staircase of his kampung house, a caladium bicolor (dwarf). The last time I was at the nursery, it was sold at a steep price for a very small pot. But the above photo is encouraging me to ignore the cost and spur me to buy the plant anyway!

The above are my own caladium, pink Rosebud Fancy Leaf variety, if Im not mistaken. They really add colour to my small pond where I planted them in a built-in container attached to the pond. I find them easy to grow without any fuss - no fertilizer and leave the rain to water them (when Im in my LAZY mood!)...haha...








I dont have to buy my caladium....just look at this, they just grow out of nowhere, out of the thick grass cover in one corner of my garden!








.....so all I have to do, is dig them out and plant them in pots!

a hanging pot of caladium just transfered from the ground 2 weeks ago

But so far, I haven't seen their flowers, if they have any in the first place. Anyway, caladiums dont need flowers to be showy. Just look at their bright and colourful foliage....good enough to attract attention and add colour to any boring little garden!

Parasite

Look at this healthy plant, green and in abundance! What fertiliser did I use to make it so "fat " and healthy? Well..actually this odd looking plant used to be my mango tree outside the fence. And that...what was left of it...a rotting stump covered by its killer or destoyer, a parasitic creeper!

not bad looking for something so vile...just you wait,

I got plans for you!








......it started off like this one, now attacking my rambutan tree,
sucking the life of my poor tree slowly leaving
rotting branches








.....then taking over the whole tree, like another of my mango tree at the back
of the house, rotting branches falling off from the tree when it
rains heavily....
and finally leaving a stump like the other one!

Now Im wondering whether this bunch of wild orchids with white flowers,

on another of my rambutan tree is also a parasitic plant,

slowly sapping its life off nutrients and

let it suffer a slow death.......

Morning Glory...wildly stunning

My beautiful, stunning yet wild, morning glory, is a sight for sore eyes early in the morning. Huge blue flowers among the green foliage never fail to amaze me! It really makes my day...

When I bought it 5 yrs ago it was very pale blue and left the pot at end of my pondok then completely forgotten all about it until last year when I found what looked like pink buds strewn all over under my mengkudu tree. I looked up the tree and....the most beautiful sight I have ever seen in my own garden! Deep blue flowers profusely blooming high up the tree on my neighbours side of the fence! Probably that side is sunnier and not in the shadow of my house. Too bad I didnt think of snapping their photos then...

Now I notice they are all over growing wildly, competing with the sireh for climbing space. They can be very invasive so I try to train their vines to curl and twirl along the fence just like training a grape vine to climb the pergola.

electric blue...

training the morming glory not to climb my pondok

or else it will soon look like a tree house in the jungle

morning glory peeking at the morning sun
pinkish tint on the inside of the tube,
when it closes n drops in the evening, the closed flower
is pink in colour with no trace of the majestic blue...