Elephant Ears and Allies

Its difficult for me to decide whether to keep or throw them especially when it comes to green, they indeed dominate everything. Somehow, I thought of giving them a second chance where the red stem changed my mind.

Then, I had this idea where I had added my unwanted extra dumbcane
 and peace lily into this soup-pot. Caladium joined in the fun.
I thought I had over did it and going to regret the outcome of it.
I thought the mess was last year's mistake and making the same mistake again.

Finally the  Black Elephant Ear comes to display.
I had got rid of all the green versions as junk (I realised that I cannot keep everything) that is - I don't want to keep all the common ones and call it garden - whereas they easily found and grows all over around my place (jungle)

This one escape my mind (I mean the ID)
It does have a beautiful flowers - happen to bloom during this season of time.

This is another elephant ears ( black stalk ones) I guess I had got rid of it
Just keeping the black leaved ones.
If you noticed - My Peace lily had bloomed.

The Fancy Leaf Caladium had sprouted.
It had been dormant for months, now looking at it - I had totally given up on them.
Their dormancy had but put of my confidence over their beauty,
especially when I'm in no mood to keep anything.

The camera is not doing justice to the view and colours that I see.
Somehow - its so different when I see it real life than in the picture frames.
Talking about Dumbcane species. I'm no longer going to pursue them.

I had learned to be contented with their cream hues, unless its Agloanema with her reds.
I think I had enough of this green and cream shades in my garden,

Caladium, Elephant Ears and its kind

These are not easy ones to keep in the garden
Not for a long-term factor as they do go dormant time to time and sometimes disappear totally for a year.

I think I lost few species,

So much so - I just left it as it is - if it appears, I celebrate the joys of colours.

If not.. then I don't bother much as I know some other plant is growing and doing well in the pot where these tubers are sleeping dead.

But still,

I enjoys the streaks, stripes, spots and patterns these leaves presents.

Somehow - like dumbcane leaves - they chart a map of somekind..
Like a hidden map, or a message...
Or perhaps some measure of beauty that needs to be discovered..
 still wonder - if any had discovered and able to explain their wonder.

Unlike Caladium, Elephant Ears are more hardy and don't go dormant.

But the downside is that they don't hold interesting marking like their cousin.

Regardless,

They measure up with a bigger side and strike the awesome..
Hardy as ever - some of these are able to stand inside stagnant water.

And that is truly like an elephant.

Autumn Berry - Extended Version 1

These are what I manage to collect: Basket Plant.

They look so well even when they are not growing on soil. In fact, I found them tossed on top of all the branches and dried leaves. There are another original set which had managed to crawl its way to the ground and had colonise there but most of the leaves are damaged - eaten by snails and with burned or damaged leaves.

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I found this huge Alocasia plant.

Known as Elephant Ears. I guess this is the biggest I have seen, never saw it when I last visit this place. I guess this one manage to grow fast and big.

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(pic below) I'm holding the smallest leaf from this huge elephant.

I wished I got a lorry and haul up this plant and plant it in a huge pot and admire the Bali style garden in my place. They do well for water garden theme. But I do not have the space nor anyone is interested in this huge plant.

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These are the remnant of what was left after all the tearing down, there are more houses been evacuated and been torn down. You can see the pile of bricks and cement debris. Earlier there were some interesting plants growing on that spot before these debris were dumped there.

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Those left over trees where once in the garden where there were houses & families and children playing in the garden. These were 100 year old ago where the Railway Quarters Houses once stood.

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I really wonder whether anyone can remember these places.

My mum lived once in this area when my grandfather was working with the railway company.

Back then, she often tell me stories of her childhood where she love to garden and her days spend tending everything from morning till night.

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That place now is a thriving Business Centre. Its a place now where no one will ever have a clue what stood there before. What is left now is churches, schools and temples but without their primary residents. All those activities done before like playgrounds, football fields and memory lanes are things of the past.

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Autumn Berry - Extended Version 2

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I hope these pictures does justice in revealing all the Autumn Berry plant description.

This one is Elephant Ears, a Alocasia species.

A lot of these fruits are opening.

If you notice, the flower closes and roll up and later explode with bright coloured seeds.

I guess its meant to attract birds as they eat and the seeds been propagated that way.

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This is Black Nightshade (Solanum Nigrum)

I had taken few cuttings of these and all of them are successful in my garden. but none of them had flowered or put out the fruits and so they don't look interesting as these.

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I have no clue of its name, it look very much like ivy and the flower look very much like a gourd.

I had checked few times in google with these description but was unable to find any information on it. The fruit is packed with seeds which look very much similar to tomato seeds.

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These are Weeping Fig or Benjamin Fig (Ficus Benjamina)

There are many varieties of this kind. Most of them are invasive and destructive.

Do check the warnings before introducing them in your gardens.

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This is known as Roxburgh Fig. (Ficus Auriculata)

It was mentioned that this fruit is edible and Malaysian use it to eat fresh or mix it with pineapple juice. I have not heard about it nor have no clue about eating this one.

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Its also known as Buah Ara locally. (but I'm guessing its the edible Figs and not this one)

When I was standing here, lots of these fruits had ripen and littered that area. The fragrance of these fruits were very captivating - they do smell very fruity.

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Finally, this Winter berry is known as

Bush Passion Fruit or Running Pop (Passiflora Foetida)

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It is very common to find this plant growing everywhere. It must be propagated by birds. I had seen these passiflora flowers but this one seemed to have more fruits than flowers.

Its known locally as Timun Dendang - translated as Drum cucumber.

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