Hanging Flowering Plants (Bleeding Heart Vine & Firecracker Plant)

 

Blooms are so immaculately white with the bursting of red lips. Once they established, there is nothing to worry about except occasionally watering & feeding. I had seen some of these in the wild & abandoned areas where they bloom profusely. This one behaves orderly when planted in a pot. 

Above all, I'm very much excited to see my Firecracker plant (Russelia Equisetiformis) bloom. It was quite some time to see them bare ( without leaves or blooms) and sort of feeling a little disappointed, especially rescuing this plant growing by the drain side. 

What more, this flowers are known to attract nectar loving creatures and I'm hoping to see more sunbirds visiting my garden. Currently the Flame Violets been sustaining the regular visiting birds. Yet to see if they make any difference with this one blooming. It's been a week since they started blooming. Hope they continue blooming for a very long time.

 

Rose in the Garden

I wouldn't recommend any new beginners to start their garden with roses. They are really tricky to start with, unless you got the hardy ones but those are not sold in nursery nor supermarkets.
I'm pretty sure most gardeners would have those heart wrenching moment to see their whole plant wither and die within those few weeks of purchase.
And as everyone's guess - they are from Cameron Highland (which are not yet adapted to lowland climate) But all is not loss.

You can really get good tips from Rosa Sifu - she really got a garden full of roses.
Die hard fans for roses should visit her blog.

Ok - as for introduction, these are the rose (red) which were the product of pruned material, bundled and thrown out along the street side. I didn't have the heart to see this one go to a total waste and managed to get few branches and try my luck. In all of those branches, only one survived. I had left it to grow without much care until lately during the Chinese New Holidays where I took the time to hard prune it. It had finally started blooming few weeks ago and never stopped blooming since.

I got the white version from my mum, just keeping one plant too. Felt that too many roses is just too much to handle in a small garden space. This one is a trailing rose and requires to be tied on a post. I had hard pruned this one too but yet to see the new blooms. Usually I propagate the pruned pieces and pass them to family and friends.
As you can see (last pic) that one is in the waiting list to be passed to a friend.

I have heard lots of rose stories and one too often I hear is very old folks getting their foot pierced by rose thorns. And often, its a tragic case where they are admitted in the hospital due to their diabetic complication where the wound is not healing.
All for the Love of Roses.

But it is not like that before, even now - if you purchase a well formed rose from a florist - handle them with care (care on your part) as they are laced with chemicals to protect the bloom from pest. You will note that those green leaves are slightly tainted with a white liquid (chances are they might be a pesticide or a liquid fertiliser) both are not natural nor organic material.

So, do not sniff your roses and never,
I repeat never consume those roses unless they come from your garden.

Health Factors - Part 1

I'm sure you would be wondering what got all these to do with gardening.
Well, health is the key to all things and gardening unlocks the secrets of healing
-where you will find a cure for all kinds of diseases. Knowing what to do, what to take, which herb and medicine plant gives you the edge to win the battle against ill-health.

I'm pretty sure everyone is fully aware of the deadly disease of cancer.
Once you get it, its going to be strong battle on your health part to regain back on what you once lost. And its too late to regret for not taking care of your precious health.

Our lifestyle is so well designed to kill us.
(traffic jam, junk food, fast food, pollutions)
The no. 1 killer is STRESS.

a) So, find a way to de-stress.
Go for a massage, an evening walk in the garden, smell those roses & lilies, take that bath with flowers, candles and wine (perhaps jump together with your spouse)
or, take up a hobby, find ways to laugh your guts out, spend more time with family and friends (do avoid children - if they stress you), serve in a ministry/community.
Do something that gives you the driving force, the passion to look forward for the next day.

b) Drink adequate Water - a best guide is 6 glasses.
So, work out a system. Get a water bottle or a drinking cup - specially for just drinking water.
- Drink 1 glass in the morning.
- 1 glass after you reached your office/college or wherever when you leave your home.
- 1 glass at 10am - 11 am (1 hour before lunch)
- 1 glass (1 hour after lunch)
- 1 glass at the evening
and finally 1 glass after dinner.
This won't disrupt your daily lifestyle if you feel you are going to toilet too often.

Note: your regular 3 cups of coffee or teh tarik
(tea with milk - a local fav. drink)
doesn't count as water.

There are a lot of factors that mentioned drinking lots & lots of water as a therapy, its a little difficult to overload with drinking too much water - so, its best to start it gradually rather than jumping into a regime which might cause complication to the gastric juices and overwork of kidney.

3) SLEEP.
No matter what you do - do not compromise on the area of sleep. Lack of sleep causes more stress and makes you agitated compared to all of the other area of stress put-together.
Don't wait until your body break down and then you want to take time off to rest to recover, by then too much damaged is done to the body.

4) OK - now, its the food part: DIET
a) Almost all or most of the diet programmes you invest your money, time & effort doesn't seemed to work or fall into short term result, simply because:
They are not practical based on your daily lifestyle.
Simple as that.

b) So, the next time you decide to go into a diet programme - always think whether you can live up to it for the rest of your life. IF not, don't indulge in it because your body will go into a emergency mode and start storing more fat than the last time you before you started dieting.

c) So, how to go practical about it?
- Get a diary or a notebook (an old diary also will do)
As long as you got somewhere to write and see your progress - daily, weekly and monthly.

- First, write down your current eating habits.
What you eat for:
1) breakfast,
2) snacks before breakfast
3) Lunch
4) Teatime
5) Dinner
6) Supper
7) Any other snacks eaten between.

Also calculate roughly how much you spend in a day to a week on food. Once you determine that you will able to play around that amount of what you spend converting into investing them to healthy food - gradually.

Write them daily (you can start from yesterday's meals)
But first - don't change anything - just write what is your daily diet for a week.

Once you got that sorted out.
See what you can replace - eg:
If you have: Nasi lemak & coffee for breakfast.
What can you replace that in way doesn't compromise nor disrupt your daily intake?
Perhaps, you can switch to a lower carb. and sugar for next week.
Eg: go for chapati and coffee,
then drop the drink without the condense milk?
(Malaysian choice of food are getting more & more unhealthier)

Same for every meal - see where you can improve it by switching it into a healthier choice.
Eventually you are able to handle and control the craving for the selected regular meal that you are taking for years.

As the 3rd week goes by,
others will notice your physical difference.
(provided they don't see you everyday)
Here - you will note your belly had lost a little fat, you seemed to fit in some of your once tight fitted clothes, your double chin visibly reduced)

This will give you the strong motivation to proceed to the next level where you really want to lose all the other stubborn fats that is accumulated over the years.

Now is March, by December (10 Months)
by that time, you got a beautiful, great figure and you would safe a lot and effortlessly without strife, pain or depression.

Later I will write about the herbs, healthy food and junk food. Something that most gardeners know and swear that this work & often time as usual, everyone takes it for granted because they are freely available.