November Garden Updates - Part 1

Loading these pictures took me forever.
These had been constantly collecting in my database and I have to eventually delete the older ones as they had to be considered obsolete
(Well, most of the duplicates which been taken weeks and months prior to this)

This happens when I have too many pictures in the database - arranging them in sort of a way to tell a story which I end up forgetting or changing or changed due to a different inspiration mood swing.

Regardless,
I really want to push all the pictures by this month end.
(I thought of putting one in a day would suffice - I'm totally in error)
Right now - I'm in denial of having the ability to manage too many pictures in the database.
To delete or to show and the next dilemma of properly arranging them for easy viewing.

Leave aside about the factor of truth:
Living in modern times, one had hardly enough time of anything.

So what's my story here.
I had constantly changing my garden scape for years and finally found a setting that I'm totally happy with.
This setting just suit so well for these years
(hope I'm not wrong - well, it does feel like it)
Yeah.. the year end is coming and so is Christmas..
I may as well - settle all my garden works by this time frame as I can focus on other matters.

Do you know that this whole porch area is fully cemented?
The whole garden area here is all in potted plants.
My point here is all about arrangement with the right type of plants.
Here, I rarely have to prune or trim anything.
All they need is regular watering and routine fertilising.

If you notice - the stacking up of the pots on the bricks gives some body-height for the plant to show a fuller optimum space and visual impact.
Another factor is colours.
I often prefer to have variegated colours.
Pineapples, Pandanus & Agave somehow have those thorny, spiked & grassy effect in making that add difference.

Should I say:
Suddenly something red appeared..
Adds drama to my garden.

The lowest portion of my garden is filled with stones and pebbles and also together with plants. Black Velvet Begonias seemed to love this setting. I often advice most of the gardener's friends to do such a setting for them if they find that planting them on soil don't seemed to work.

Garden Update - September - Continued

Two of my Earthstar (Crypthantus) died both sides.
It shouldn't happen but I guess its the neglect due to lack of watering and feeding.
These pale brown earthstar seemed to producing lots of pups compared to the red/pink counterpart. The deep red had became dormant and the pink still holding on for now.

I need to get more of them but find them in nursery do proof a challenge as not many of them sell them or if they do - it would be very expensive. Getting a bargain is difficult when there is no competition.

I had now replaced the missing spots with Golden Hahnni 
(Sansevieria Trifasciata Golden Hahnii)
I would had preferred more of the red ruby Earthstar - if I can get my hands on them in the first place but for the moment  I think this will do.

My existing Bromeliad collection gave me an idea.
Those of with spikes, sharp edged needle points and spines at the leaf edges.
These are of the touch me not dangerous kind. 
I wished I had more of the red ”keep me away” kind of colour but the best variegated ones I have are of these yellow, lime & green shades. 

(All of these plants were rescued from dumps, burning sites and throwaways - abandoned on street side-walks)

Plants in this collection:
Top: 
1) Dwarf Gold Pandanus - 
(Pandanus pygmaeus 'Variegatus') or P. toei 'Variegatus'
2) Varigated Agave

Plants in this collection:
Top: 
1) Miniature Pineapple
2) Varigated Spider plant

Plants in this collection:
Top: 
1) Green Agave
2) Golden Hahnii

After  checking through Google - 
I now found out that Tequila are made from an Agave plant.
The Aztec people make the fermented drink from them

King's Mantel, Bush Clock Vine -  (Thunbergia Erecta)
This blue flower plant had really tested my patience. 
It rarely flower and when it does it only gives out one or two blooms. 

I got this plant from a pruned branches where my neighbours had thrown. It did took awhile to establish a lovely bush but that is the problem.
It only remained as a boring bushy shrub.

I'm still considering hard pruning and heavy fertilising for a nice lovely bloom. And if that fail too - this plant is kicking its bucket from my garden.

Earlier this place proved to be a sore-eye as I tend to get rid of all that doesn't do well in my garden. In most cases the very reason is that these are sun lovers and my garden can only accommodate shade dwellers. 
And so in this collection.

1) Dracaena marginata 'Tricolor'.
2) Yellow Walking Iris - (Trimezia martinicensis) 
3) Blackberry Lily -  (Belamcanda  chinensis)
4) Ground Orchids - (Spathoglottis X Parsonii.)
5) Screwpine Leaves - (Pandanus amaryllifolius)
6) Pineapple
7) Jewel of Opar - (Talinum paniculatum)
8) Step Ladder Ginger - (Costus malortienanus)

The champion in this collection are the Ground Orchids. 
They have been blooming continuously for about 3 months now.
I had set another pot here where once it was inside my porch area where it got limited sunlight.
Hopefully they would reset and start blooming again.

The Jewel of Opar seemed be a collateral damage when the grass cutter comes along. I guess the cutter could tell the difference and slice everything away. 

Somehow this plant comes back with a vengeance with more spikes and more blooms. I prefer not to take it for granted and place them at this drain-side where there is no weed or grass.
(And no grass-cutter to raze any weeds)

Step Ladder Ginger - (Costus malortienanus)

This plant was growing from a cement crack and was a survivor. 
In fact I did got rid of it ripping it off from the ground and this plant proved resilient by coming back again.
I pulled the root rhizome from the cracks & planted them in this pot.

There are some few other non-significant plants here which I have not put in details of which I will come back when I get a better shot on them or when the plant generate with satisfactory growth - whichever comes first. 

Come to think of it - there is so much to do now in my garden where another reset is urgently required where I really don't have the time or the energy to get myself to do it. Looks like its going to happen in a slow pace with a little a time.
It would be a nice appropriate time for me to finish by year-end holiday season.

Colourful Foliages

If you consider these plants at the first glance - they may appear to be beautiful but in reality these are the ones that tend to disappear from the garden if they are neglected. 

These are actually behind the curtains.

The Spanish Moss had literally covered the whole view from the front - and so creating an illusion of a secret   Garden. 

A Garden within a Garden.

 The pink one which I got it a year earlier seemed to propagate easily and happily sit wherever I plant them.

This motivated me to get more Fittonias with many shades but only found 3 types sold in the nursery

(the pink, the red & the green ones) 

I skipped the green one as I had enough green in my garden & wanted to have more colours in my garden.

Basically the new ones I bought recently is the redder shade of Fittonia (Mosaic Plant) from Sg. Buloh nursery for RM6.00. 

The vendor refuse to give me a discount but I got it anyway as I noticed that there are none sold in other nurseries along the street-side.

The Earthstar Bromeliad  (Cryptanthus) seemed to give out so many pups and I manage to fill then in between of most nooks & corner in my garden. They seemed to be growing fast into the adult stage.

These pictures don't show a clear detail of my current garden as my camera had gave way. Something had snapped inside it and that's the end of it. I guess it served its purpose for about 10 years! Its a pity that I have to make do with my mobile-phone camera. It look so vague.
Hope to get a new camera soon when the funds are available.

Fairies in the Garden

Its going to be a little difficult to describe concerning fairies.

I did ask few of my gardener's friends on what you think about them.

To a certain degree - I did get raised eyebrows and a look that sounds like - 

"What! You believe in fairies??"

Guess its a guy thing not to fall for these mumbo-jumbo factor.

Well, I guess - I didn't continue with that conversation or leading to any explanation.

You can't go so far in any explanation when you hear a person says that they don't believe in the existence of fairies.

OK - Let me rephrase:

I don't go after fairies like the one who chases butterfly with a net and all.

I wouldn't say that I'm neutral about it - that whether they exist or not doesn't trouble me.

What I'm getting at is that :- 

IF there is an unseen creature as just as fairies.

And that they do exist and

IF they exist and make a dwelling place in your garden.

How would your reaction be?

- Would you continue to garden as you would usually do - regardless or

Would you change your perception concerning your garden.

I wonder if you would had watched any of the fairy themed movies - like Peter Pan, Thumbelina or Tinkerbell. There are lot more of these mystical creature based movies coming out very popular even the Box Office like Harry Porter and The Spiderwick Chronicles
And a lot more which I really can't recall much.

OK - leave out the entertainment industry - what about Garden Ornaments?
Even those who buy them will consider them as cute figurine regardless of their existence.

To me personally - I can sense fairies.
I understand that they are assigned to take care of nature.
They are nature spirit and to some extend there are some order and a complicated hierarchy involved in who does what. I'm really not sure of their detailed issues - what I know is that when they are present in a garden - the garden will certainly look beautiful and healthy.

Perhaps they do & work better in the unseen world.

And in the matter of the unseen world there is a host of things and issues that we really don't know or care about. Strange as it may seemed - the old folks and the native people somehow had lots of stories and legend concerning them. Its a pity that this treasure is slowly getting lost and faded away.

And to a certain extent the touch of a gardener hands is slowly replaced with an industrial, bland, uniformity.

A lot of garden now replaced with a landscape ideology which do not have a magic touch.

It just too boring and plain "dead"

An arrangement of line-up palm trees with ixora's in between is not a garden. 

But that is what it happening now.

And soon when the place appears to have weeds and grass growing in between  the collection - 

its truly a sore eye.

That's when you know - that there is no fairy taking care of this place.

I had heard countless true stories where the same similar issue is been always brought up.
Somewhere in the forest a tree cannot be fell - somehow an unseen force at work either make the worker sick or the vehicle unable to operate or the tools seemed not working.
So much so the work had to be abandon or a compromise/leverage had to be made.

Cases where people go missing in a jungle even in an island. Somehow they cannot see or feel so lost.
And often there is a mystical connection concerning these issues that they are not accurately studied or addressed.

A lot of folktales and old wife tales influenced from these realms.
Few I often remember - Do not garden in the night. Don't plant these plants in front of your house.
And yes the most famous one - Do not pluck flowers in the night...

So yes - its going to be hard believing in the existences of fairies.

(not to equate with the believe that you must adhere in these fairy tales - folklore rules - I certainly don't)

But somehow - that you rely very much on your senses.

Somehow - coming from the depth of your senses - you somehow learn to trust your instincts.

That there is some strange feeling that gives you a warning sign not to go near there, or to that tree, or that pond and your heart beats twice the fast if you brace yourself against your senses.

And true enough you found that a viper is coiled so invisible by the tree, or its too late by then when you find that your foot is resting on a vicious ant nest or being near a pond - getting your footwear all muddy and soaking wet (you thought it was dry ground)

Yes - when you are so seasoned with these situation in the garden.

Somehow the sense is so acute that you know something is wrong in the garden.

(That someone had plucked flowers or stuff without your knowledge (and you suddenly checking the scene of the crime) or that you seek and found a plant is almost dying because it got knocked over, or a flower is about to bloom - and you just noticed it when the plant it placed in a hidden, un-obvious place)

And you always arrive to the scene in the garden at the right precise moment to handle and correction the situation before it is too late.

As I said - it is going to be difficult to explain about a lot of things.

What I want to say is that - I had found that magic is real in my garden.

There is this good feeling that comes when a flower blooms or 

see the Caladium leaves with different spots of reds in the their leaves.

Or See a Sunbird come and drink nectar from the flowers

or watching the flutters of the bees and the butterflies.

What is your magic in your garden?

How do you say it: The source of the Enchantment?

Do you have a fairy in your garden?

Do you care to share your story?

There is a nice document on : Fairy Faith also

Click here for a nice fairy dance song. Enjoy.