Torenia reseeded

I was trying to propagate roses when I discovered something else growing in the pot. Upon showing Mr Bear, he recognized it immediately and declared it "Torenia!"

I was surprised because (1) it was not 1 of the pots that I used for growing/layering/transplanting Torenia (2) I didn't expect it to reseed (3) my Torenia died like months ago (the layered transplant I 

gave Mutter was drowned by our enthusiastic helper and the one I gave Mr Bär somersaulted itself onto his balcony floor without success on a windy night).

Luckily I didn't tear it out thinking it was a weed. I transplanted it to another pot so that it would not crowd out my precious rose transplant. Ironically it is growing very well in its new pot now (almost died from the heat in the community garden, so I brought it home and resuscitated it with morning sun and loads of water), whereas my rose plant has kicked its bucket.

Updated!
I was going to reuse the pot where the rose has died to transplant another rose where I notice a baby seedling popping up through the pot. It looks suspiciously like torenia!

The Sorrowful adventure of Daikon

This structure was constructed from a combination of Daiso gardening wire (it came with plastic for cloching) + netting, to discourage thieving birds.

I was reading a Japanese gardening book on how to grow daikon (Japanese white radish) in a pot. Feeling very encouraged by the fotos + since Bobo and I like to eat the root vegetable + I wanted to compete against CU (chinese uncle - see earlier posts- who was growing them in the community garden downstairs), I decided to try it myself. The book advises sowing seeds in circles, then thin the seedlings out in phases so that only five daikon plants remain.

Well. Natural selection and my laziness in watering (I relied on the monsoon season) killed off everyone but two. So I ended up transplanting my tomato plants into the pot instead, devastating Bobo who hates tomatoes.

Lantana - Masochistic beautiful "weed"

Mr Bear was like, "what? You killed another lantana again?"

"Yes, I don't get it. I water it and fertilize it regularly. In fact, this time the lantana died after I fertilized it."

"Lantana is like a weed. You're not supposed to water or fertilize it that often."

"Oh." Makes sense now why the neglected lantana in the HortPark grew into such a huge bush by the open drain.

Note to self : Water extremely rarely for lantana. Should resort to God's juice as much as possible, and never fertilize. I note that when I bought a grow bag of it, the mix given by World Farm was well-draining soil with sand mixed in.

Stem cuttings seem to work. Should cut at least 5 cm of green growth.

The grape harvest

Seeing how big my hand is, you can imagine how tiny the grapes were. I had to cut it off the vine after the grape leaves started dying back. I am so sad, did I overprune it? It is bald and looks hideous. I am so worried that the grape leaves won't come back.

My Service Balcony Garten

I bought these little hot pink and purple Bygel containers from Ikea. Only cost S$0.90 each and comes with drainage holes, which were a tad too big. So I had to line the bottoms with netting to stop the soil from coming out when I water the plants. Great for hanging off window ledges and grille.

I think I might buy more, I am a little disappointed they don't come in blue. But I did see white ones. 

Rare Sight - Flowers blooming at the same time

It's rare for the flowers in my planter to bloom at the same time. But what is bizarre is that there seems to be two camps of flowers. I think I will try to get another flower into the space. What was upsetting is that someone stole one of my S$2 Daiso wind vanes, that used to occupy the space. So lame.

Lantana, Blue Daze and dunno what is that yellow flower...