Tiger Tiger

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Poem by William Blake

Very pleased to have another flowering by my tiger orchids. They’ve been slowly blooming for a week now. Tiger orchids are the largest orchid species in the world. They need a lot of fertilising which I don’t do much of.

As you can tell from the photo, they’re not shy of full sun. I’m not an attentive gardener so it’s really thanks to the alternate heat and rain that chased away the haze this year.  Regular pruning of ferns that like to creep up the  base and branches that die.

Amorphophallus

Amorphophallus flowered!

Planted from elephant Yam bought in Little India grocery shop

Amorphophallus has flowered after a dormant period.  Suddenly I see it everywhere, at the recent Garden Festival, used in indoor decor and as part of landscape displays.  Its perfect for giving interesting variation on depth and perspective and varying height in displays.

Hort Park display at the 2012 Singapore Garden Festival

 

Amorphophallus Titanium at Singapore Botanic Gardens 2011

An idyllic Malaysian Village lifestyle

Time seems to stand still in the suburbs of Malaysia.  Wooden huts on stilts. Traveller’s palm with their sheaths of stems holding rainwater.  An emergency drinking supply for the traveller, hence the name?  Also, apparently the fan tends  to grow in an east-west line, providing a crude compass.

Traveller's palm with fan-wide sheath of leaves

Caladium

No Flash in the Pan: Epiphyllum Oxypetalum

Tonite I’m alone.

With the scent of the Epiphyllum Oxypetallum for company. This is the second time she bloomed in 3 months.

She has proven no flash in the pan. As Epiphyllums go, they may take a really long time to bloom. Hence, the Chinese idiom, as SC reminded me, 曇花一現 (tan hua yi xian), the very flower named to describe someone with an impressive but brief moment of glory.

1 Feb 2012 Slender bud

Photo taken in Nov 2011

Taken on 1 Feb 2012 at 11pm

About 18 cm

The Japanese have a name “Gekka-Bijin”, Beauty gazing into the moon.

She certainly is a beauty with a scent, as refreshing as red ginger, and sweet as geranium.  While she’s no flash in the pan, she sure required patience.

May your 2012 bloom beautifully and abundantly.

Singapore’s National Flower – Vanda Miss Joaqium

Vanda Ms JoaqiumTall flowerless Vanda Ms Joaquim

Vertical Green

What do you do with a lone stretch of balcony space, with a wall 2 storey high?  We toyed with ideas like a water-fall, certainly can’t compete with the tallest man-made waterfall in Bird Park.  Our ID recommended a Japanese water feature with Zen-like stones/ pebbles. Not bad.  Or pygmy bamboos with a trough like container.   Maintenance. L is concerned, who’s going to sweep up with shedding leaves? Turns out he’s absolutely correct, bamboos shed like crazy.  Daily. That was a rhetorical question, because the answer is certainly, not him.  And he knows I won’t do it.  Then we thought of getting the white stacked boxes from Far East Floral. Or putting an alocasia macro-rhizo.

To this day, we cannot resolve who thought of putting the fishing line idea for the vines to creep upwards.  So we had an elephant climber, which loved the sun.  And I loved the big leaves and purple flowers.  Until the December rains came, and the elephant climber grew too straggly, and its leaves started turning yellow and shedding.

Climbers and vines naturally grow upwards, and you don’t have to worry about training the creeper up on the fishing line. It finds the life-line and twines clock-wise, or so we were told by K.  But you have to worry about it being too thin at the bottom. Climbers focus all their energy growing upwards. So when they’re young, twine a few loops around the bottom.

We have the elephant climber, the Aristolochia leuconeura, the Jade Vine and the stephanotis floribunda (bridal veil vine)

Jade vine is not the best idea in an apartment, especially one with full sun as ours.  But having passed the word around that I was looking for it. I had to buy it.  Be careful what you used for, you just might get it.  If we have a huge garden, then jade vine certainly makes sense. In any case, vines tend to be invasive.  I like the Rangoon creeper and all the other creepers at Hort Park. but they are better fitted for larger territories.

I’ve two pots of self-propagated coral vines rewarding me with pretty pink blooms which I’ve blogged earlier.  We have a bauhinia which is not doing too well, and bleeding heart vine as well, and hoya. Will share more about our hoya another time.

Timber Decking finishing touch

Bridal Veil vine (Stephanotis Floribunda)

Jade vine at Ubud

Straggly elephant climber after too much rain

Elephant climber flowers on roof

Metamorphing – 4 vines

Current state of 4 vines

The first version of our vertical green, elephant climber

Elephant climber at our balcony

Jade Vine

Spotted at Maya Ubud in Bali, the jade vine.  Draped over a tree as tall as 3 stories high, and mild, cool crisp temperature, this jade vine is flourishing with at least sightings of 8 bouquets.   The claw like flowers are a translucent turqoise green and does remind one of the precious jade ear-rings our grand-ma used to wear.

I was especially thrilled, not having seen one close up before, although I’ve bought a mini plant from hortpark, not expecting to see it flower.  Jade vines, I’m told, are heavy climbers.   Last year at WorldFarm, I was told that it would be featured at the Garden Festival.  Someone had bought all the jade vine specimens at Worldfarm.  To my great disappointment, it was nowhere to be seen, no one knows what happened, and the same Worldfam salesman forgot about his comment.  I must have heard wrongly. I presume you can still get it there this year, since the Garden Festival is not until 2012.   But it may not thrive as well in Singapore weather, as it needs a cool temperature of about 20 degrees celcius and a huge structure to do well.

I am now rewarded with something I can touch and feel, the tree which this vine has conveniently twined itself around, is beside a flight of stairs, and there were blooms even at the bottom of the stairs.  There’s a photo of me beside the flowers on my facebook.

Water plants 3

 

1. Thalia dealbata or Water canna

2. Cyperus haspan var. vivipurus or Dward Papyrus/ Sheathed Flatsedge

3. Pontederia cordata var. lanceolata or Pickerel Weed

Thrives under full sun.  When we repotted these plants, they suddenly grew to twice the height.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is another type of Thalia, Thalia geniculata, also known as water canna. But the flowers are different.  When we bought our Thalia from nursery, it had not flowered yet, and we assumed it was the geniculata hybrid.

Lesson learnt, buy plants where you can see the flowers. Unless you absolutely trust the nursery.

 

 

 

Yellow Leaves

Generally it may be true that roof-top plants cannot get enough water, exposed to the hot sun. Surely they get thirsty. 

 

The elephant climber seen here, is suffering from water fatigue. Too much rain. When this happens, stop watering and test the soil.  Let the soil dry out before starting to water again.