Saturday, November 27, 2010

The Mickey Mouse Plant

Year end in Malaysia must be the best.....except for those taking their year exams, of course.:- ) ! I like year end, as the days seemed cooler with more rain and cooler temperatures.  There is also lots of breeze, at least in this part where we live. My plants of course seems to like it too.....somehow they looked healthier and  greener especially my rose plants !   Must be the high humidity from the frequent rains and drop in temperature at night.   However more rain means I have to weed more and prune more.....all part of a gardener's lot!  I don't mind weeding.  Sometimes I come across strange young  plants.  If it looks like an interesting plant from the look of  its foliage,   I let the plant grow a bit before I decide if I should pull it out. 

One interesting plant I came  across is this Mickey Mouse Plant.   I believe the birds must have dropped the seeds  in my garden.  I am not sure if the right name is  Ochna kirki, Ochna Serulata or  even Ochna integerrima) .   The flowers and leaves all looked similiar in the photographs ....  !

{Check out these sites :  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochna_serrulata ,http://toptropicals.com/cgi-bin/garden_catalog/cat.cgi?uid=Ochna_integerrima , http://www.desert-tropicals.com/Plants/Ochnaceae/Ochna_thomasiana.html}

Anyway, I recognized this plant because of its slightly serrated (fine bristles) oval shaped leaves.   Many years ago, I noticed this strange looking huge hedge grown near my in law's house.  If you have checked the sites mentioned above, you too would have noticed the unusual flowers of bright yellow yet there are those red "flowers" with the black seeds looking a bit like  the Mickey Mouse cartoon.  Since both  colors  appeared on this hedge so prominently, I was curious enough to take a close look..  Later  I checked it out  in books  written about  tropical plants as well search on the internet. for more information.  I was so caught by this plant!   Then about a couple years back  I noticed that  the lady two doors away from my mother's house  actually has this plant as well. This lady  has the Mickey Mouse plant  growing as  a small  young tree (about 4 feet high)  with  the combination of pretty yellow flowers and red 'flowers' growing on the ground in front of her gate.  That was how this plant attracted my attention as well. 
 
So it seems pretty much a coincidence that I should find these young plants (yes, not just one, actually four or five) sprouting up in my garden.......The answer came one day  during one of my evening walks down the road from my house . A neighbor's house actually has this beautiful plant as well, but she grows hers in a pot , it is still a  small plant about 3 feet tall or so. The bight yellow flowers caught my eye!

Yes,  I dug out  these precious young plants.  I now have two growing very well. The others  probably did not like being disturbed.   I have one growing in a pot and another growing  on the ground.....I am keeping my fingers crossed that both will continue to do well....Take a look.

The potted one....

Notice the fine serration (bristles)  on leaves...

The one on the ground......!
These two young plants are very nice looking,  I think.  I am not sure when they will bloom maybe a couple of years?  


Now I am not sure what is the name of this plant,  but  this little  butterfly seems to like it.......This plant is from my neighbor, she said the flowers are fragrant but only open at night. This plant has not been thriving, perhaps the soil is too wet for its liking or it does not like direct sunlight......! It has been growing very slowly. When my neighbor gave it to me about a year back (gosh, is it a year already?), it was just a leaf and some roots......!


Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Waiting .... waiting ...... waiting... ...When will the Bunga Kesidang bloom?

I love collecting plants with fragrant flowers.  So when the nursery owner introduced  the  Bunga Kesidang  or Kerak Nasi plant to us,  we were delighted to buy it. Of course only after  I did some checking around in the internet first.  I liked what  I read in this article .... http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/Scentedgardens/Article/  and other sites as well.   Well it is  coming  to almost half a year now since we bought the plant, but no blooms so far !

Apparently the Bunga Kesidang is the state flower for Malacca. (Botanical name stated as  Canangrium Scortechinii  in the Malacca State Portal).  However other gardening sites referred to this plant as  the Vallaris glabra or Bread Flower.  After we bought the plant, we looked out for  this plant in the neighborhood whenever we take our evening walks.   The leaves are large, light green and rather prominent . Since it is a climber, it is not difficult to  recognize this plant even from a far.  Soon  enough,  we were delighted to spot this  plant  which was already blooming not far from our house.  

Of course we pause to smell the flowers ! The fragrance from the small white flowers of the Kesidang  is very unusual indeed.  Nothing like the jasmines (Aug, 23, 2010), ylang ylang (June 25, 2010) or  michelia champaca (June 26, 2010).  True,  it does smell a bit like fragrant cooked rice ('kerak nasi'  means rice crusts in malay language) - but the scent is light and teasing, hard to pin point and describe.... Some claim the fragrance is similiar to  pandan smell, and yes I do find  it  only faintly so.   I like the scent and even though the flowers are not spectacular they are pleasing enough.   For a long time after, I keep checking for blooms on my Kesidang plant, but  plants like to adjust to their new environment first. One just can't hurry them when they are not ready.  When they are finally ready to settled in,  they  will start growing new shoots.  Recently I noticed the plant  seems to be shooting new growth, and at the tips perhaps flower buds?  I hope.  So now I am pretty excited and keeping my fingers crossed, but the new growth might  just turn out to be leaf shoots .......!

Kesidang plant
This is my Kesidang  plant ....  I have tied it to the fence, hoping it will climb nicely along it.    
 







The nursery owner says I can prune it to make it grow as a shrub, but I am not sure if that will work?  Perhaps I might need to give it some support....see how it goes....
Kesidang growing at its own pace.....!
Since I have no Kesidang blooms to put up, I will put up photos of  some other blooms looking good today ...........!  

Crepe Ginger... its grace and beauty is spell binding
Angel wing jasmine - so pure and white.... angels  in disguise ?

 

Waterlilies always make me feel the world of nature is just too beautiful to describe in words .......... ! 



Update : 4th May 2011 - Finally the Bunga Kesidang Blooms ( read post 4/5/2011)

Monday, November 22, 2010

Count Down - The Garlic Vine Blooms !

Continuing on the bright side of gardening (posted 19th Nov)......I would like to share my  delight with shots of  the garlic vine as the buds transform  to eye catching blooms ......!
A tinge of purple appears.....





close up shot of the buds.....



 

more purple appears...

waiting in anticipation !

Almost there   !
Finally they bloom .... ! This is the first time  the garlic vine plant is rewarding me with such an  abundance of blooms after approximately a  year and more of growth. 
Shot  in the morning

Midst of blooming...
Afternoon shots

Sheer Delights ....!
Tomorrow comes, the flowers will turn  paler in color  to almost white over the next couple of days  New blooms will appear, so one can see different shades of colors on the bunch ...... 



Sunday, November 21, 2010

Some Random Thoughts / Shots to Share........

This is the caladium I picked up together with the Sanseviera Trifasciata (posted 29th Oct).  I would like to collect more caladiums, I think they are so pretty and add color to the garden. Caladiums are not fussy plants, easy to care for. They just need humidity to grow well.




This is my Blood Lily Plant (Scadoxus multiflorus) , but it has not bloomed so far......sorry no photos on blooms to show ! I like this plant very much as the flower is very unique - a spherical ball of pink/reddish blooms! Can see a picture of the bloom at this link :- http://www.vanmeuwen.com/flowers/flower-bulbs/other-flower-bulbs/scadoxus-multiflorus/61574VM.  Unfortunately this plant is pretty much like the Hippeastrum (29th August) , they  bloomed at their own leisure.....! My mother had this plant for years and  the flowers were seldom  sighted, but the bloom (yes always just a single  ball) would last about a week or two, a sight to behold indeed. Like the Hippeastrum, it is a bulb plant.  At times there will be no leaf, one would think the plant died. Then out of the ground, sprout this  round ball of flowers  - sticking out of the ground like a sore thumb, very very strange....! I would like to study this plant and understand its strange pattern of growth further.... 

These few days my garden smells wonderful....the source? 



The Dwarf Ylang Ylang (posted June 25th) blooms perpetually.......and a real delight in the garden. Did I mention that I  have  two plants.....? I like the first one so much, I decided to buy a second plant a month later..... These two plants bloom all the time, and the scent the blooms  (even a single  bloom) give off  can be very strong even at a distance.