Companion Gardening

We may not be able to grow some of these stuff in Singapore, but thought I should reshare this from Manitoba Garden Makeover's website.

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.

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.

Onkel Herrmanmeier's Garten

[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.