Michelia Champaca

    The Joy Perfume Tree.....and yes, the scent of the flowers  makes one feel good indeed . Just one flower, and the scent is so amazingly strong and intoxicating. I love to pick the flowers and bring them into the house. Place it anywhere in the house and that place really smells good.  I left a couple of the flowers in the bathroom and it was good  for two days. After that the flowers turned brown and unsightly. Pour away the water in the container, but the container still bears the perfume from the flowers. Interesting.

The Michelia Champaca is easy to care for. I first bought it almost a year ago. It was just one stalk then with some leaves. After planting it, I notice it grew very fast. We were thinking of buying a tree that would provide shade for the kitchen.  We could have planted a fruit tree or something. My husband wanted the Red Tip plant, but I thought a tree with scented flowers will be better.  Now that the plant has grown so much within the year and blooming now, I really love it.  The tree is still too small  to provide adequate shade, but  given more time, when the branches spread more,  it will be really  nice. Even parts of the plant smells nice. As new leaves spring out, it leaves behind a thin layer of some sort brown bark. Crush it and the scent is nice as well. 

A house down from my block has a white champaca.  I  was tempted to buy a white champaca as well, but then the flowers of my jasmines and gardenia are white.  The nursery told me the white champaca  can be potted and still blooms but the yellow champaca needs will grow too big for the pot.

 

Green Houseplants

If one has not been educated properly on plant identification, one can only compare from pictures of flowers, leaves, fruits, etc...but then some plants look the same, so it is not easy to get the correct identification at times. This is why perhaps I prefer the general names or common names. I find some of the common names actually very apt for the plant. It just shows how people can describe the plant so well, by comparing it to something else. For example each time I see the "Foxtail Palm", I can't help agreeing how much the leaves as they sway in the breeze look exactly like the tail of a fox!  Also there is the bottle brush plant - the flowers look exactly like a bottle brush!

So when it comes to my green houseplants I am all muddled as to what are their correct names. Well, they must stand in the category of either the Dieffenbachia or  Alagaonema or perhaps some other names? Anyway you see for yourself and test if you can recognize them.  Here goes .

Plant No 1 : Some sort of prayer plant? The leaves folds/curled  as in prayers at night . Unfortunately it did not look like any of those photos on prayer plant. Yes, it does have those deep veins. It is sensitive to direct sunlight, thrives better in the shade, and I need to keep it moist. The leaves are not soft, but crisp, so I really doubt it belongs to the prayer plant group. So I guess I will keep searching.

Plant No 2 : I think this is a  Dieffenbachia (Dumb Cane).  Its leaves are so colorful and nice, it could well be a alagoanema as well.

Plant No 3 : The man who sold me this plant said its name is "A thousand Green" or "Evergreen". I like the intense green color with the many  white dotted patterns on the leaves. The man sold it to me for RM3. He was more interested in selling his repacked fertilizers and  fresh flowers.   That is really cheap, of course. I only have to skip a bowl of my favourite asam laksa...haha! Anyway I am pretty sure this plant belongs to the Alagoanema family.

Plant No 4 :  Now this plant  is an Alagoanema as the light pink colors are distinct like the Indonesian variety. Did you hear about the story of Alagoanema or commonly the Lucky Plant? One man apparently  saw some digits from the patterns on the leaves after a night of rainfall and decided to buy the numbers. Guess what  -  he struck  first prize! Similar to that Fish Lohan that became some sort of a fad  some years back? Everyone wanted to buy a lohan  in order to predict numbers to buy! Even my mother was caught, but she did enjoy taking care of her pet fish as well.  Believe it or not?....Nay, I do not! I planted  this attractive plant on the ground under some shade because some pests  kept attacking its roots when it was potted. So it hardly grew. Perhaps I had kept the soil too wet or something. Now it is thriving.  This plant positively hates direct sunlight. The lady who sold me this plant told me it loves heat and bright sunlight! How gullible I was then....well, I really did not know much about plants then.

Plant No 5 : Now this one is a real beauty, and hopefully if  it resembles the plant (yes, Alagoenema) I saw on the internet photos, it might bear red flowers! The flowers are not striking, but the color is, so well I am looking forward to that day! Meanwhile I enjoy the pleasant light green foliage that is so easy on the eyes.  In fact my husband asked me to plant more of this plants since he seemed to find it pleasing as well.

Well whatever the names of the plants are, just beware that both the Dieffenbachia and Algaonema are both classified as very toxic plants and when handling always wear gloves as otherwise the skin may itch.  And never to let children or pets chewed on the leaves (not that they would, but it pays to be cautious).

Dwarf Ylang Ylang Plant.........Odorata Cananga var fruticosa

  There is much said about this plant because of  the Chanel 5 perfume.

    From what I  gathered, most growers are not too satisfied with the scent from the flowers, some even claiming they cannot detect any scent at all.   Perhaps the dwarf ylang ylang produces a different scent from the Ylang Ylang Tree that grows very tall in the wild or even the vine.

    I bought this plant about a month back. I find that the scent is spicy and intense, not as pleasant as the scent of the gardenia or jasmine.  So far it is doing well in the flower pot placed outside the house. It is not getting any direct sunlight as I thought to leave it to adjust first and recover from the stress of  being potted. Also I understand from the nursery that the plant had just arrived, the day I visited the nursery.  I noticed some of the leaves seemed a bit damaged, perhaps during the handling and transportation  to the nursery.  Eventually  I will  move it to where it will  receive direct sunlight as this seems to be the recommendation.  Since I took  the plant back, it has been growing  new leaves and the flowers buds that were already present have bloomed, with more new buds appearing. I  like the plant as it looks so pretty, with the ornamental looking flowers, the ends are so curly. I find it quite unique that the flowers started so green and gradually turned yellow. When the flower  is most yellow and also most fragrant,  the petals start to drop away.  Perhaps 'pretty' is not quite appropriate, but somehow the plant is like a little girl wearing  dangling earrings looking cute and adorable....!

   This is the plant when I first took it home from the nursery where I bought it for RM15. Below is how it looks like now. 

 The plant looks healthy and perfectly contented that I hesitate to move  it elsewhere.

Quisqualis Indica ... Rangoon Creeper

 

   Now this creeper is a real beauty and never fails to attract attention with its clusters of  heavy blooms.  The burst of white, pink and red  flowers against a mass of green foliage is just so spectacular to behold!  My younger brother was so fascinated by this plant that he bought me two plants.   I planted them along the fence. To our astonishment within  hardly 2 months the two plants had flourished and started blooming profusely !  The creepers grew so rapidly that it reminded me of  Jack and his beanstalk!  Overnight the two creepers seemed to  sprout new growth, and they  are so considerate in taking turns to bloom!  When evening comes , the gorgeous blooms exude a  gentle and soothing fragrance that teases the senses . In the morning  fragrance lingers on but by the afternoon it is gone, only to return in the evening.   

Both of  my creepers are the "double".  I have seen the "single" but  they are less attractive but no less appealing.  The flowers bloomed in pure white, then  gradually turn light pink  and finally blood red,  within 2 to 3 days.  The clusters of  blooms  would normally   last for about 2 weeks or more. The  blooms as they wilt and die will stain the walls or floors they fall on.  So it was a good thing I planted them along the fence. Once the flowers have dropped completely , I  prefer to  trim it off. to allow new growth. Being a creeper, the rangoon creeper seems rather robust and do not need much care. It seems to be happy growing and blooming......! One of its common name is "Drunken Sailor", I have yet to find out  how the name comes about. 

 

The 4 O'clock - Mirabilis Jalapa

As a child I remember playing with the seeds as well as using the trumpet shaped flowers as a whistle.  The seeds are black and roundish - similiar to the goat's stool. As children, we would press open the seeds and extract the whitish powder to use as face powder.  I don't remember suffering any  side effects, but the seeds and the powder within is found to be slightly toxic! The flowers are  said to open by 4 o'clock, hence the name.  However I find this is not the case.  The flowers open when there is a drop in temperature,  mostly  around five or six  in the evening or sometimes even much later.  The flowers  remained  open until the next morning, closing  when it gets too hot for their comfort, I think. These days with people going to work in the morning and returning home in the evening, this is the plant they can enjoy.  The fragrance the flowers exude in a warm evening is just too lovely to resist.

Perhaps it was for childhood memories, or perhaps it was because my mother had this plant in her garden that  I collected the seeds to plant in my garden as well.  The plant grows easily, and it grows on me as well. The fragrance from the flowers is gentle and comforting, although some evenings I can't smell it at all.   In my collection I have the orange, white and pink varieties. About a  week  ago one plant bloomed for the first time,  and to my delight the first two flowers are the mixed - light yellow with streaks of magenta! Two days later on the same plant two magenta colored flowers appeared !  I cannot figure out how this can happen but according to Wikipedia, apparently this does happen. Interesting - so now I am looking forward to seeing more mixes from this common yet unusual plant.

Quote :"A curious aspect of this plant is that flowers of different colors can be found simultaneously on the same plant. Additionally, an individual flower can be splashed with different colors. Another interesting point is a color-changing phenomenon. For example, in the yellow variety, as the plant matures, it can display flowers that gradually change to a dark pink color. Similarly white flowers can change to light violet.
The flowers usually open from late afternoon onwards, then producing a strong, sweet-smelling fragrance, hence the first of its common names. In China, it is called the "shower flower" (Chinese: 洗澡花; pinyin: xǐzǎo huā) or "rice boiling flower" (煮饭花; zhǔfàn huā) because it is in bloom at the time of these activities. In Hong Kong, it is known as "purple jasmine" (紫茉莉). "

 The above are snapshots of the first mixed and magenta blooms. I like the pink very much since the color is refreshing and cool. It was drizzling  a bit when I took the pictures in the evening, so please excuse the photography.  I adore my mirabilis plants, they are easy to care for and they bloomed perpetually as well as profusely.  Now and then, I just trim the plant to encourage new growth.  The leaves are forever  green, although some may complain of the many wasted blooms that become black and unsightly on the plant.  It is a no fuss plant, and anyone can grow them without any trouble at all.  The stems are not so strong causing the plant tend to lean over so it might need some additional support unless one prefers the sprawling look in the garden.  Baby plants will appear all over the place, so either pick the seeds now and then  if one is hardworking and nothing better to do, or start pulling out the babies when they appear. Seeds collected can be thrown in neglected areas of the neighborhood !  The mirabilis grows nicely into a small healthy bush given a bit of fertilizer and cool weather. It does not like heat too much.