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.

This little guy

In terms of propagating by stem cuttings, so far I only had success with this rose. The other roses' stems I cut all died within days, whether I use honey/hormone/nothing/soak in water. I had grown one in the new community garden.

And now I am giving this one  to the other community garden near my place. On a plus side, if anything goes wrong with my rose, I can always get it back next time. Yeah!

My Office Rose (repotted and regrowth)

This is one of the 2 roses that Mr Bear helped me buy from the Cheers near his house. The particular rose has a gorgeous color that persists for a very long time. The effects of growing roses in the office versus growing them at home (in L shape / kitchen balcony) is astronomically different.

Had to carry them out with Mr Bear walking in front to prevent being crushed by the evening crowd

Since the office environment is always air-conditioned (except for weekends and late nights), the plants flourish very well, as if in a temperate country. At the beginning, I keep 4 pots of them in office as the "mummy plants" because the roses at home (kitchen balcony) were dying like mad. I also wanted to experiment on the various ways to transplant and propogate them. Eventually I figured out that it was the effect of no ventilation + heat, which killed most of them. So I moved the home roses to the L-shape. Till date, thank god, nobody stole them yet, but the rose blooms do not proliferate as many as those in the office. The best I got from office was 11 blooms at one single time (peach rose) versus 4 at home (pink baby).

I am ready for my close-up

However both pots came in very small pots after a while so the bush was very small and you could see that the roots coming out. So during a blooming lull, I transplanted this bush into a bigger pot. It went into shock despite my efforts and dropped A LOT of leaves. I thought it was doomed, but dumped in loads of goat poopoo, and bonemeal in a vain hope of rescuing them. In the end it was egg shell and egg shell water that saved it. But now I learnt that epsom salt was probably what was missing.

I was rewarded with rebloom and new leaves. phew. The awesome part of repotting is the new bush is bigger, and I get more flowers. But it was pretty stressful for a while.

Stupid mynah strikes again

That NBCB bird is at it again!

Destroying the delicate leaves on my poor rose cutting. No wonder there were no new leaves! 

<u>Updated!!!</u>

So I brought it to the community garden and planted it there. After <2 weeks, I am pleased to say, there is a bud forming. It is recovering nicely. Nothing like >6 hours of sunlight per day. Good thing it is going to bloom soon, because I have no idea which rose did I cut this from... I am waiting with bated breath to check it out.

See the bud growing nicely in the middle of the three sets of leaves.

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!

Recent Rose Obsession

Like I mentioned before, I am into cultivating roses now. My three roses (one peach, one orangey red and one purpley red) at Arbeit are doing fantastic, and had recovered from that 4 day long weekend that nearly did in the orangey red rose. I had asked Mr Bear then to take a firm hand and trim my dying orangey red, only to have him snip off a new side shoot that was doing ok.

So regretfully, I threw it in some water and now I have a little baby that is growing roots! Hopefully in a month's time, it will be ready to be transplanted and brought home. My idea was to keep some pots of roses which I deem as the master in the lovely air-conditioned environment with loads of SW sunlight. I will use the master to cultivate little stem cuttings which I will bring home to survive in my L-shaped garden. 

I also have two roses in the L-shaped. One is a mini yellow rose, which has not been stolen yet, and a huge white rose bush (which is dying because of the soil and insufficient sunlight. So I have just transplanted it into burnt soil). I am toying with the idea of cutting a branch and bringing it to Arbeit to become a new master and as a precaution against thieves.

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

Rose Garten in the office

Admittedly I have murdered many thriving pots of roses since I started my gardening adventure. I ruefully have to agree that the indoor balcony is not conducive to growing roses. Neither is growing them outside which subjects them to thieving hands and winged pests.

So after お母さん's rose bush died shortly after she gave me a cutting and I made one cutting myself, my cutting survived (the one she gave me hasn't bloody grown roots and it has been 7 months!) to grow roots and all. I replanted it and gave it to お母さん again, saying that she should keep it and just give me the next viable cutting. She said, no she was trying to cut down on her garden in the office, and so she regifted it to me again.

I went around my floor looking for a good location, and asked one of the bigger bosses to let my rose hang out at her window seat (I am a windowless cubicle minion). She said ok, even though she is not into gardening.

Mr Bear knows of my obsession with roses (god knows, I moaned enough about them online and offline) and so one day while he was at Cheers (a 24-hour convenience store), he called me to ask if I still wanted roses. I asked how much, he said the smaller ones were S$6 a piece, so I asked for two pots. 

The extremely opportunistic me immediately brought them to the big boss again and asked if these pots can hang out at her window too. She said ok, but I think I should practise restraint now :D. Other than the weekends where the aircon is not switched on and no one is around to water them (one of them nearly perished after a long weekend of 4 days but managed to recover in time), the sunlight pouring through the windows are helping my roses bloom very well! Haven't killed any so far yet.

I brought this rose bud home from the office to show case my office rose, but it hasn't survived the trip in my bag. oops.

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.