Fern Kingdom

The Ferns are making a comeback in my garden.

Practically my garden is totally green.

Green had started dominated all over again after I started gardening.
I guess its a guy thing - to consider foliage as an attraction
(Except for girls - flowers fall in their category,

but of course - we can beg to differ) 

Anyway, the Long Green Cascading Leaves speaks volume to me.
Shade of course and the canopy style when in the tropicals..
That is the feel of extended feel of layers and layers of greens..
Just I like it - calling it a garden.

I forgot to mention
That in the big picture - its actually a Vertical Garden
The whole mass is Orchids, 

followed by Bromeliads, Hoya, Dischidia and finally ferns filling in the blanks.

And that's how they made the come back.

They easily tuck in between the structure.
The root mass tightens and secure the whole Vertical Garden from collapsing,

especially from material where the whole thing could had rotten over the years.

And they do great keeping the equilibrium perfect.
Great shade from the sun for the orchids - regulate excess water off from them in case any plants are suffering from over-watering.
And if there is not enough water - these will show signs of withering and will comeback immediately after watering - sort of a visual warning.   

They are indeed beautiful, this one is leathery
Quite durable and intricate in its design.

One thing for sure - if they are totally ignored 

They can disappear.
I had lost few species - the sensitive ones

Not all of them are hardy.

Finally, this fall under the sensitive category:

The Maiden Hair Fern
They do well near a water resource area
Not too much water and not too dry - a right balance ensures a good success with this one.

D.I.Y. Vertical Garden Project

It would have been easy if I had kept this and considered it as a finished work but nature had set it course against me in speeding up the delay factor. Perhaps the materials that I initially thought was classic were against me. Tin-can and a wooden crate are really lovely material to give that exotic time-less piece. I was wrong. Within few months the tin-can eroded and the wooden piece slowly giving away to rot.

This was my first project:  click at the link below
Tropical Vertical Garden Experiment

I was contemplating whether to continue with another project of improving the foundational material, whether they too will crumble due to the weight of time or proof worthy for the next round. Well this time I used the Cola plastic bottles. I found that they are quite durable, the bottles are steady and the dis-integrable factor is very low. This time - I used a wire-mesh which I bought from a stationary shop. Something that is used as paper files.

This is the final product. The bottles are stuffed first with moss to hold the soil from washed away when watering, The plants which I totally found worthy are those which are excellently hardy and able to handle small root space for growth.

These are the ones I recommend:

1) Wandering Jew - Tradescantia Zebrina
2) Basket Plant - Callisia fragrans or Spironema fragrans
3) Bird Nest Fern - Asplenium nidus
4) Trailing Watermelon Begonia - Pellonia Repens
5) Martin Mystery Begonia
6) Dorontheanthus Mezzo Trailing Red or Livingstone Daisy
7) Goose-foot plant - Syngonium podophyllum

These are doing strong for these couple of months now. I'm glad that I had changed the concept here. The plants too are doing OK, except for the Jewel of Opar - it never seemed to pick-up in this collection.
The birds ornaments adds colour and the final touch in this piece.

I doubt you would notice the recycle bottles. Hope this would inspire to you work on with these recycle items to keep our earth greener.

Tropical Vertical Gardening Experiment

I got inspired by The Rainforest Garden in the idea of setting up a vertical landscape garden. It was a situation when you got lots of plants but lacking display space. (too many plants and too less of a garden space would create a messy, unkempt - jungle look in the garden)

And I was also in a situation where I got everything under the sun theme and I need to focus with working out to bring the impact that I often look for - sort of create an ambiance where you feel good whenever you are in the garden (kind-a-feeling)

Yep, the ferns have to go. Its either throw away or give away situation. They don't fix well in my theme coloured garden. And so, this was a great idea of display. The good thing about ferns is they can really take the abuse. They can be over watered (but not water-logged) and would survive without soil. As you can see - the whole thing is a root-ball mass which easily fit into container spaced compartments.

I had set this up during the Chinese New Year holidays - its about a week now and they are doing fine. My greatest concern is that the whole soil & root mass might just flop & drop when watering. The other challenge is watering - too much water loosen the root support, lack of water dries up the leaves. The Bird Nest Fern are enjoying their new location as they sprout out new leaflets.

I had added Jewel of Opar in the selection to give some colour in the green selection and they simply look pretty good in the collection. The plants that are in this collection:

a) Bird Nest Fern
b) Drawf Petticoat Fern
c) Fluffy Ruffle Fern
d) Basket Plant
e) Jewel of Opar
f) Wandering Jew (Green Tradescantia)
g) Zebra Tradescantia
i) Joyweed

The most challenging moment is hammering the nails to support the wooden frame. It took awhile for me to handle the issue (guess I'm not good in being a carpenter) The wooden frame is actually a fruit crate. I had stapled a layer of plastic sheet to hold the soil and placed small containers to hold the root-ball mass inside them.
Sometimes, it is an issue of trial & error. And I foresee that eventually some species in this collection might overwhelm other species and that others might slowly disappear.

Of course - at the end of the day, it looked nothing like what the Rainforest Gardener proposed.
(lol) Well, I guess - it happens when you work with your own style and ideas. I wanted to use coconut shells and husk but it happened to be during the holiday season and getting them from a sundry shop is going to be a long wait (you can get all the husk & the shell for free as they are thrown away at the end of the day)

I have managed to really reset my garden during the whole Chinese New Year holiday week . It was also the issue of doing & setting a pot at a time, telling myself not to overwhelm and get up set or panic in seeing the whole mess. Amazingly I marvelled that I did manage to do some clearing work - doing little by little and eventually made some visible progress.
(I will upload my overall garden picture later)

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Wishing a Prosperous & a Garden Full of Overwhelming Beauty

to all who celebrate this Chinese New Year!

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A New Arrangment

These are the update of my garden. I had set the rescued orchid in this pot and positioned it here together with my Chinese Croton and Aluminium plant. I had trimmed off all the burnt and dried leaves (you can note the spiked short leaves)

My Palm Orchid is still surviving - still waiting for the next bloom. I'm contemplating of resetting this pot (replanting the whole plant into few pots) Still wondering if its a good idea. Of course, time is another anticipated issue.

I have manage to plant the spotted begonia here too, I think its known as Angel Wing Begonia. It look very poise with the rest of the plants. Don't you think so?

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This is my collection of Golden Hanni together with the Purple Queen Plant. They seemed to compliment very well with their opposite colours.

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I forgot to mention that I had reset my garden again. I didn't like the earlier setting as its not accessible for easy watering and the snails and slugs were having jolly good time feasting on all my plants. My Dumbcane plants suffered the most - it had literally became a cheese leaved plant with so many holes in the leaves that I have to cut off all of them leaving just the stalk.

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I had placed two pots of my Winter Jasmine Plant which I had planted it by seeds. It had really grown tall - still waiting for the flower to bloom.

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Not much of changes here except for the resetting of the stones and pebbles. The Cane Begonia had grown taller than me this time reaching for the roof. I have decided to plant more Flame Violets to attract more sunbirds - they usually come for their nectar.

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I had minimise all my ferns and just have these hanging at the tip of my roof top. I guess too many green plants are a little boring in my very limited spaced garden.
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This is how it was earlier before the new arrangement. Most of the plants had crawled out from the pots and had become leggy. The Coleus plant had become so matured that it may not survive for another month. I had given away some of my plants to my office mates who were very eager to get them in their garden.

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Right now, there is a strong sense of satisfaction and a feeling of zeal returned to realise that my garden is back to its original sense of worth. Seemed to made some positive effect on me as I find myself very much eager to water and watch the progress.

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I still have a lot of touch up to do, but its really OK now as the major once are already completed.

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