The (NSFW) Anatomically Correct Cactus: The Dick Pic

Our collective jaws touched the ground when we saw this weird ass cactus at Flower Dome (Gardens by the Bay)!!! We had to queue behind a tourist who.... snapped his hand hovering near the cactus as if simulating a HJ. When he turned his head and realized that we were right behind him, he laughed embarrassed as if we all shared a secret joke. Ewww.

Bobo said drily, "...as if we gave a shit that he is gay."

After capturing this naughty cactus with my phone.... I was infected with an equally naughty idea.

I whatsapped Miss Bear if she ever received a dick pic from anyone.

She replied, "of course not!"

Naturally it was an invitation for me to send this to her. LOL. So I did.

2 sky gardens at 1 multi storeyed car park

Out of consideration, I won't say where they are, because I am not sure if they are "legalized" community gardens. One is focused on flowers with some vegetables, and the other is almostly entirely made up of vegetable plots. The second one is obviously run by someone who is quite experienced, as the getup (while hideous - seriously yours truly is living in a glasshouse and shouldn't cast stones) is highly efficient, with two crops per lot.

 

Close up on the portulaca on the right. Please ignore the shadow cast by my FAT arm *lol*

NSFW. Porn! I found it amusing that there were two grasshoppers f**king on the netting above my head.

Anyone know what this is? Some say it is edible. I say it is not.

Efficient gardening. The cucumber plant provides some shade for the caixin from the harsh sun.

I think this is malabar spinach!

weird looking lady's finger

Zinnia

another zinnia

Balsam with red and white petals

Barter trading - How I traded my way to a free Rose plant

I was walking to the nursery to buy soil for my intended radish growing experiment. As I was cutting through some blocks of flats, I noticed a man standing outside a first floor unit of one of the blocks. I was thinking whether to continue on or walk up to chat with him.

Since I am very KPO by nature, you can guess what I did. While chatting, he asked me what kind of plants I plant. I told him that I favor roses. He said, did you notice that I have a pot of roses? It was behind the support pillar. 

He said got it a year ago from the rubbish collection point, which was within LOS from his house (I wondered inwardly about his apartment's value). While I examining it, he unexpectedly offered it to me. He said he didn't like roses. Sacre Bleu!

I added the wigwam support, the wind that arrives with the December monsoon is no joke. My plants are going bald!

I was super delighted, especially since it was the color and variety that I had been trying to propagate (updated: ok since then I realized that the color is closer to that of the blackish red rose I have, not the electric pink one I have been trying to propagate). Attempted three times (once the CU even gave me a pot with balling roses, it died after my enthusiastic repotting in a bid to get rid of the balling problem), twice with no success. I had some cuttings root on my third attempt but I am not sure if they will succeed once I replant them in soil.

I asked him if he wanted anything in return (it's only polite right?). Unexpectedly he said cactus. Now I remembered that my mother and her friends excavated some neglected aloes and cacti from their allotment when they took over it and abandoned them in a sad corner of the allotment. So that was why I ended up taking a very long bus ride to her allotment to liberate one of the long-suffering prickly prisoners. They were very ungrateful and poked me along the way, renewing my hatred for cacti. I decided that it was quite ugly and broke off two ears and cleaned them before passing them to the man.

Carting this guy home - hibiscus

This pot of hibiscus was from the cutting given by our late neighbor from next door. He was a bachelor who loved to grow flowers and look after injured pigeons and mynahs (seriously don't understand the fascination with those winged pests). It was quite sad really, he and his parents watched me and my brother grow up. First his dad died from a fall, then he died from cancer, and in the end, his mother had dementia and was taken away to live somewhere else. The apartment fell empty for 7 years until his remaining siblings were able to legally sell it and distribute the proceedings.  Till today, I consider them as our neighbors, and those people who lived in the apartment since, transient families. 

My parents have started reducing the plants in their garden and so my mom passed this guy to me because he had stopped flowering. I slowly carted him home on this trolley. I think he is suffering more because he can only get filtered morning sun now, poor thing, though he hasn't kicked the bucket under my care yet.

Papaya tree

I think they call this pawpaw Down Under. There seems to be an uncle who is cultivating a secret garden at the two patches of land near my old place. He has awesome luck with papayas especially. Check out the fruit on the tree!

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. :)

[11 May] National Parks Board Advertorial campaign for Singapore Garden Festival

About a month ago, the newspapers ran a campaign called "Share a Plant" to promote the upcoming Singapore Garden Festival (16-24 Aug 2014).

Being naturally tight and greedy, I wanted to go and get one too. So I told Bobo to mentally prepare himself to wake up early so that we could go to Bishan Park to get one on Saturday. Both of us got up at 840am, by the time we found the place (Bishan Park is very big!), every single plant was gone even though the event started just one hour ago, at 8am. Some aunties were there complaining that the event planners should have brought more plants. According to the patient National Parks rep explaining to them, they already brought 200 more. Oopz too bad.

But I was also naturally very stubborn. So the next day, we hauled ourselves out of bed and went to Hort Park bright and early. A very nice volunteer brought his own spider ivy (see leftmost plant in above pic) to distribute to eager gardeners. I waited patiently for the plant only to have to fight off a lot of people (including this disgusting man who did not understand the concept of PERSONAL SPACE because he rubbed his crotch against my hip twice, only to receive a chair shoved between his legs by my clumsy hands. Oops I slipped. You play dumb, I play dumb too.). I was talking to the Bloke about it, that my desire to take part in this event had caused me to stupidly generate an additional 11km of carbon footprint. Not one for the environmental-friendly books. Also on retrospect, the plants also went against my requirements of "either edible or pretty bloom". Pretty leaves are not my cup of tea.

I toy with the idea of sharing these plants "as suggested by the website" come SGF. You can share the plant you got to someone else or use it in a display for prizes.

The two plants on the right are from the same family "Epipremnum aureum". The one in the middle has a cute local name called "money plant", I suppose the one on the right "golden pothos" has even better connotations because it is actually golden in color. Seems more fragile then the middle one.

The plants are pretty 打不死. They have survived my hands of death for about almost one month so far. In the meantime, I have encountered two snails. One from the golden pothos, the other from the new plants I bought. It couldn't resist the money plant and came off the plant (not sure which one, either the "fox glove" looking plant or gerberas. I don't know, the thought was equally disgusting because I carried both pots against my chest while hauling a bag of burnt soil), scaled the wall and somehow leapt onto the hanging leaves in the short minutes between my visits to the balcony. I was trying to find a device to somehow humanely transfer this particularly adventurous Mr Snail to the outdoor garden. 

I did see him the next morning scaling the wall, but when I came back again he was gone. Either he had leapt off the wall or into the stupid bird's stomach. I didn't really care.

See Mr Snail hanging off my money plant??

In case you missed him, here is Mr Snail, up close and in your face.

Plant Exchange

So remember how I said last week I finally met the elderly gardeners of the community garden downstairs? I was telling them that I had an edible cactus upstairs aka the former Mr Bunny Ears, which had grown erratically ever since I moved him to a bigger pot outdoors.

I said I would break a ear off for them, and did that.  I was watering my plants when I saw the tell tale garden hose from upstairs so I rushed downstairs to pass it to them.

In return the uncle gave me this plant. Usually I don't like plants that do not have flowers or are not edible, but can't stare a gift horse in the mouth you know? So I brought the little guy home. I am guessing he is either a yucca or agave variety *shrug*?

Patience is rewarded

I moved to my new place three years ago. Bought it secondhand, it is in an old neighborhood with a community garden literally within spitting distance (right downstairs haha). I walked past the garden often after work, but never saw anyone inside.

Recently I was meeting Miss Bear downstairs before we made our way to the gelato shop only to realize that the garden had a pot of brilliant fuschia roses. I must confess that I was so tempted to snip off a little bit! But I was reminded of how angry I was when people stole my plants, I decided against it. 

Instead on the same day that I failed miserably in grabbing the Share-a-Plant at Bishan park, I asked Bobo to drive me to World Farm (which now has an android app, which is just a regurgitation of its website so I deleted it), and bought two pots of roses for the house (I have that three pots in office). 

Bobo dropped me downstairs because the pots were heavy and I had bought some vegetables at the packing cum hydroponic farm nearby. So imagine I was lugging all that stuff, and I discovered the gate was open!!!!

I saw an old man cropping some leaves and called out to him to see if I could come in (and ask for rose cuttings) to have a look in the garden. For some weird ass reason, he was extremely suspicious and ignored me! Then another old man appeared and asked me what I wanted, I asked again if I could come in. He gave me a cynical look too, but said ok. I said great, I will drop my stuff off and come over.

So I ran upstairs dumped my stuff and ran downstairs again. The uncle must have realized his behavior was confusing so explained his suspicion was due to (1) complaints from neighbors for mosquitoes *oh please people* (2) he thought I was here to stomp them or something (I forgot I was carrying my camera).  He asked me what I wanted again, I repeated that I wanted to visit the garden since it was always locked and also if I could have some cuttings please?

He said no problem on that, so he invited me to come in and explore, and he was so generous, he cut for me the rose cutting I wanted and unhesitatingly gave me cuttings from another two rose plants, 1 mini and 1 with vermillion rose petals. We then visited in the garden.

Rose cuttings from community garden

[18 Jan 2014] Hort Park's Gardener Bazaar

Hort park was hosting a Gardener's Bazaar on 18 Jan to coincide with the approaching CNY. Needless to say, there were flowers galore for sale. I bought some sunflower seeds and am now experiencing floppy sunflower seedlings syndrome *depressing*. Am following the instructions online to bury the stem, deep deep. Hopefully they will make it.

But I digress. I bought a yellow walking iris for S$5 from the Hort Park, which apparently I am overwatering. I will remedy this by not watering it anymore until the weekend.

There were a lot of stalls, most of the stalls were selling terrariums,vertical gardens and CNY blooms. Mr Bear told me that azaleas have a negative connotation, like woman's tears or something, but they are really popular for CNY. I am still waiting for people to throw away their lime plants after CNY... so sad, not yet... I crouch by the rubbish dump (don't tell the gov).

お母さん Mini Rose

お母さん gave me a mini yellow rose cutting. It has faded to a nice white, and I have now cut the plant a few inches from the flower to make a new cutting. Wish me luck in having 2 mini rose plants!

<u>Updated!!!</u>
Not sure what I did, but after I snipped off the top part of the rose, the bottom part of the rose plant died... wtf... Now I am praying the upper half (which bottom has been soaked in water) will survive.

I didn't throw away the bottom part of the rose, since the stem was still green. Now new leaves have sprouted. I guess it went into shock when I cut it. The top half still hasn't grown new roots yet.

Gardens by the Bay

I have been very busy at Arbeit, so have been mostly inactive online. However I am running out of space in my SD card so I am forced to update... sigh.

A few weeks ago I went with meine Kollegen to Gardens by the Bay. Had a lot of fun with the camera there. I am toying with the idea of buying the polaroid camera on sale for SGD99 at Challenger, but I am such a tight pussy. I think it would be wiser to splurge on a long-distance lens for my camera than to buy the polaroid. After all, it can be such a waste of $ especially when you take photos of people like Bobo who like to pull stupid faces at the camera and the polaroids themselves are deadly expensive. S$15.50 for a box of 10!?

Peace Lily

I was at the zoo a while back and chanced upon this lovely lady standing by herself in a dress of green.

Flowers in the gardens

I visited Mutter's garten a few weeks ago and wandered with her around the other gardens, while she asked for cuttings from the neighbors. I took some fotos of the pretty flowers I saw...

Can you identify what some of these flowers are?

Anyway the water lily came from the retired teacher's garten. He has another sprawling garden, which was devoted to cucumbers...

Vertical Gardens

I am researching on vertical garden designs because I am seriously running out of space on the balcony window. The egg shells, chilli plant, bean seedling, tomato seedlings. A lot of indoor gardeners rely on natural light from their flourescent lamps to grow their plants indoor. I personally think that flourescent lamps are really fugly, but I think the above idea is not bad, especially because it can double up as a room divider and provide additional lighting in a room. Not sure about the sustainability of the insect population though.

Blumen @ Mittenwald, Deutschland

I have been borrowing books on container gardens, and was vaguely confused but impressed on why so many different types of plants were arranged into a pot, sort of like a ever growing arrangement. How in the world do they know how to water them, esp since different plants have different watering needs?

Then I recalled this foto I took in Mittenwald while travelling around the Füssen area. Mittenwald used to be a place where violin makers congregated for their art. There was a giant wooden violin sculpture to commemorate this.

I don't know what flower this was, but it's really pretty isn't it? It's a close-up on the container flowers.

Michelstadt Blumen

I once talked about how if I could choose a place to live, I would want to live in Michelstadt, Deutschland. I love this beautiful town's old buildings, and am in awe of all the effort taken to keep them looking so lovely all these years.

This is a great way to hold your container plants if you don't have a garden!

Anyway I neglected to mention the great Frühstück we had Cafe Siefert (which also has some lovely flowering plants at their outdoor al fresco area), but that's another story which I will talk another day. What I want to mention today were the pretty flowers we saw as we were walking back to the carpark.

I was naughty and reached into someone's garden when Onkel und Tante H und B1 were walking ahead of me, to take this foto of this lovely Camellia Japonica. In a neighbor's garten, I saw white soldiers with hearts of yellow standing at attention together.

Then I saw the little dandelion waving bravely at the wind near the fence, while trellises of green bean promised a decent harvest.