Rose from the community garden downstairs

Like I mentioned that some weeks ago, I finally got to meet the two elusive old uncles who ran the community garden downstairs? The Malay uncle generously gave me some rose cuttings. But frustratingly, no roots after like several weeks. 

So I laid in wait, peeping over the railing at the garden, waiting and waiting for the two uncles to show up again. Last Saturday, after returning home in a foul mood, I decided to water my roses, since they were growing new branches and buds. I was delighted to discover a bald head downstairs, and ran off to find the Chinese uncle watering the plants with much misgivings, because the sky was overcast (turned out that we both guessed incorrectly, it did not rain later that evening).

After grumbling over my failure to root the cuttings, he offered to help me plant a new cutting in the garden. Just as I was saying that I would go upstairs to get a peat pot, he suggested that I take one of the cuttings they just managed to root.

Delighted with the surprise gift, I was profuse with my thanks. I brought it home, where I then cast it with a critical eye. Other than the lack of leaves at the bottom, the four buds on the two cuttings appeared to be half dead. So I decided to snip off two of them, Another one jumped ship a few days later. Bobo said that the bud probably decided that jumping off the plant was better than remaining in my care.

I tied it to the railing like what I did with the yellow rose, in the hopes that the abundant morning sunlight will inspire it to grow more leaves. Fail. Could be the strong wind blowing hard at the spindly stems. I am now trying a new method. I am putting it on the floor and securing the rose to a cane for support. Hopefully this will work better. Also fertilized the plant.

Wish me luck!  Anyway in the meantime, I am looking out for the Malay uncle. :)

White Rose and Yellow Rose

Like I said some weeks before, I decided to transplant the white rose to burnt soil in the vain hope that it would forgive my murderous paws. Well, for the first three weeks, it continued to disgorge leaves, looking really naked.

Then out of desperation, I decided to move it to the opposite side of the corridor (imagine a long rectangle. Basically I just moved it from one length to the other length). It is amazing what 1.2m can do. As an aside, how did I know it is 1.2m apart? I know this thanks to the town council trying to fine me some months back for hypothetically not leaving enough space for a man and a stretcher bed (apparently they measure 1.2m standing side by side) to pass through to the staircase -wtf, especially nobody is supposed to be at that staircase unless there is a burning need to escape from fire. If my apartment catches fire, I think I'd rather just burn to death than run down 59 flights of stairs.

But enough grumbling. The amazing 1.2m difference allowed the white rose to recover and grow three new blooms. 

You can see the other bloom at the bottom half of the picture

The other baby which hasn't fully opened

As for my yellow roses, which gave me four lovely blossoms the other time, only gave me one this time around. Nonetheless still very pretty.

Lone yellow rose

I was surfing photos on pretty gardens, when I came across this new idea for rose propagation - growing rose cuttings in potatoes! Bet you never saw that before! 

Am so going to try that with one of the cuttings. Wish me luck!

Miss Bear went to Netherlands

Glamorous Miss Bear got to go to Netherlands this time for work. According to her, the location was in a ulu town (so bad that they didn't accept credit cards, but had upstairs coffeeshops *interesting priorities*). Nonetheless she still managed to go to Amsterdam during the weekend. Since it was my birthday and her mother's as well, she got both of us seeds for our birthdays.

Yeah, so I have to grow this guy in the office, sigh. For those who are mildly interested, her mom got gerbera daisies.