A gardening game

Thank you Kitchen Flavours / My Little Potted Garden for inviting me to this great game where you not only can link up and keep an update on garden bloggers all over the world, you can also have lots of garden tips when reading their blogs. Then you have to list down 10 things you love to do. The next step is to invite another 10 bloggers to join in the game. Have fun everybody!


10 things I love to do:-


1. Of course its gardening! Love it since I was in primary school planting my first vegetable by
accident, the cherry tomatoes, must have just threw the seeds into a broken stainless steel
pot and walla! I got endless supplies of cute little tomatoes for curries, masak kicap and
salads! Then my first flowering plant...bunga tahi ayam (marigold) with abundant supply of
their name sake which kept them healthy and lush with big orange flowers! I was so proud
of myself back then..the only kid growing plants on the block..Love to surround myself with
plants and beautiful flowers!





2. My marigold became the next step to my next love...flower arrangement! Entered them for
flower competitions 2 years in a row in my school...and won! I remembered the first time I
gave the arrangement the name "Apollo 13" with 13 big orange marigold in between a
banana leave shoot coming down in a semi-spiral...From then on I got hooked on flowers and
I even worked in a florist at SOGO once just for fun!





3. My love of flowers, plants and their beauty give me the creativity to create art and crafts,
drawings, painting, in mediums like porcelain painting, water colours. dried flowers
arrangements. I just love the arts! especially for occasions like weddings, family parties or
just small personal gifts to family and friends.

4. I love to travel now that my sons have all grown up and independent, give me time to explore

other places in Malaysia and abroad when my purse string permits..the rich culture

and history of places I read before in my geography books! So far I have been to Turkey,
Jeddah, Medinna, Mecca, Phuket, Jakarta, Bandung and all the states in Malaysia. Usually
I will travel with a good friend Noni.





5. Eating! Travelling will give me big appetite and forget about my dieting! I want to sample all
the local food at that particular place I visit. Noni and I especially enjoyed our first trip
abroad together to Turkey becos of their delicious and wonderful local cuisines!





6. Decorating the house was my passion since I was in secondary school, living out in one or
two-rooms police barracks most of the time. Always moving the megre furniture around to
make it look more spacious, decorating it with fresh flowers in labu sayong, scrubbing the
cement floors with powdered clorox to make it whiter than white! haha...Attended
workshops on interior decorating but no formal education.

7. Since I love eating.. I love to cook too but not a very good cook. But good enough to feed my

3 healthy sons, family and close friends especially during family gatherings and celebrations

like Hari Raya. But Im completely, utterly hopeless at baking! My bad experience during
secondary school, when a birthday cake turned out floppy in the middle, put me off baking
since! Still I attended workshops by famous chefs..but never have the guts to try them at
home!





8. I love the movies...Hollywood! Will go and see them at the cinemas if time permits with Noni
or just be a potato couch at home in front of the tv. Love romantic-comedy, costumed/period
movies, animated movies, dramas, adventures but not too much violent and gore in them. And
also local theatres at Istana Budaya.




9. Love to read when Im not watching movies on tv. Old period novels, historical biographies,
Hollywood movie stars magazines (my passion since secondary school), flower arrangements,
interior decorating magazines, detective stories, National Geographic, Readers Digest or any
good novels that I can read without feeling bored after 10 minutes.





10. Surfing the net...reading blogs from all over the world about gardening, social, arts, political
etc.

My 10 new invites to the gardening game:-

1. My Rustic Bajan Garden (Helen) - Barbados

2. Mastering Hoticulture (Helen Lewis) - USA

3. Little Garden Helpers (Garden Mum) - USA

4. Dung Hoe Garden (Rosey Pollen) - USA

5. Trees, Plants & More (Arati) - India

6. WalizGarden (Waliz) - Malaysia

7. MyJourney (Rainfield61) - Malaysia

8. Dari Lensa Kelabu (Madisyak) - Malaysia

9. Rosmerahputeh (Johana) - Malaysia

10. Garden Chronicles (James Missier) - Malaysia

HAPPY GARDENING!!!!

After a long break..a nice surprise!

Im back after a long break! Thank you fellow bloggers for wishing me happy holidays and Selamat Hari Raya. Couldn't get enough of ketupat, rendang, kuah kacang and serunding yet even with endless open houses! No...Im not gorging myself...just sampling a bit of everything of all the sumptious food, food, glorious food! Then back to fasting again (6 days of Shawal)....

And...back to old routine...gardening! No Bangchik, didn't leave my plants for the moon and the stars to look after them haha.....the rain, the rain, the rain, such a welcomed relief! A nice surprise too when I saw my grape vines bearing a little bunch of green fruits, a second time after last December! This time, I counted more than 10 grapes in that bunch, compared to two the last time...haha..My fault cos I have been neglecting them last year. So the hot, blazing sun and the rains, with a bit of tender loving care, really do wonders after all!!!!

a nice surprise

grape vines covering the arbor provides good

shade for my potted plants

there!...my lovely grapes..

Hope to see more clusters of grapes next year!

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays to everybody, Muslims or Non-Muslims in Malaysia!

Tomorrow is a celebration for all Muslims after a month long stint of fasting.

SELAMAT MENYAMBUT HARI RAYA AIDILFITRI

MAAF ZAHIR BATIN.

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