The Dwarf Apple Plant is a Cherry Plant after all........!

No, it is actually not a real cherry plant either .. !  After diligently surfing the internet for a week  or more to find  out more on this  'Dwarf Apple Plant" (posted  12/12/2010),  I am now convinced that this plant is actually the Malpighia Glabra ( common names  Barbados Cherry , Acerola,  West Indian Cherry).  For more information and photos  check out this article at  http://www.enotes.com/topic/Malpighia_glabra) or this article  by  Jim Conrad's Naturalist Newsletter (http://www.backyardnature.net/yucatan/barbados.htm).   I went back to take a good look at the shrub again just to compare with the photos on the articles. The shrub was flowering  but fewer fruits .   The owner must have harvested the fruits.   I am actually quite pleased  to know that the fruits are rich in Vitamin C and in fact extracts from the fruits are sold (http://www.gentcare.com/EnProductShow.asp?ID=3).

I am keeping my fingers crossed that  the baby plant I have  will  grow well.  Daily I keep checking on it and it  seems to be doing okay. 

More on the Passion Fruit.....

Somehow end of year  brings about a feeling of  nostalgia that another year will soon pass by,  but not without  an anticipation of a new beginning and experiences for the new year.   As I review the events of this year,  there is not much that I want to do differently. I am thankful for the many new lessons I learnt.   It is so true what they say  -  life is a continuous journey of learning, and  experiences continue to be our best teacher.  It would seem that as I age,  I should be wiser but yet why do I  feel sometimes there is more and more that I do not know or understand ......?   The world seems to be getting more and more complex, and complicated with new research, new technology, , globalization, innovations, .......etc.....  Yet all I want is to keep my life as simple as possible.......

The one thing that makes me happy these days is watching over my plants as they grow and reward me by staying healthy and lush.  I take great delight  whenever any of the plants bloom, bear fruits or  even a  cutting takes  root.  As I look at my increasing collection of plants, I keep saying enough is enough.  For as the plants grow they take up space and  my mini garden will run out of space !   I have been buying bigger pots recently.   I had  to repot some plants since they have outgrown their pots.  Recently with the alternate heavy rainfall and hot sunshine the plants seems to thrive and grow well.  So I have been pruning and weeding to do much of anything else!  

 I am especially most delighted with  my passion fruit. There are many buds coming up, and daily there are blooms, and of course ----- small  FRUITS! Actually I stand corrected when I mentioned that the passion fruit flowers do not produce any scent unlike my blue passion flower (posted 13th Jan 2010).  The  passion fruit flowers give off a pleasant nutty scent...! Well  here are some new shots of the plant.  About  a month back, we construct a simple structure to help the plant to climb along it.

Buds....the more the merrier !

Yesterday's bloom and a New bloom ..

A small fruit appears after about 2 or  3 days ( I did not keep track)

Hope the fruit stays .... and not drop off !

Will 2011 bring me plenty of these fruits ? 

To all readers .................. May the New Year brings you  Good Health, Joy, Luck and Success ! Happy New Year everyone !

Another Practice Target......

Resting position ?

Wings spread out.... see the 'face'?

There is this common  saying that we  'kill mosquitoes' (in hokkien - 'pak mung')  to pass time.   It looks like  I have started  on something different, pointing  my camera at butterflies if there is a target tempting me !  I have my computer facing the window that looks out into the garden.  So when there are movements in the garden, I get distracted.  Butterflies move so fast, it is hard to  'shoot' them.  I do not want my neighbors to start thinking I have gone beserk....running around with a camera in my hands.....lol! 

Getting nectar ?

So it is fortunate  I observed that actually a butterfly will come back to the same spot  (or area)  again and again if there is no danger.   All I need to do is to just stand still in a chosen spot and wait patiently for it to return.  It may take a while,  one need to have the  patience. However if  the butterfly does not return in a minute, it probably is not coming back. 

.  

Yummy ...

Butterflies, in my opinion, are friendly  and curious creatures. Once they see you are not a threat to them, they just continue doing what ever they were doing. There should be no sudden movements as they will take flight immediately.

I like this shot best...

This camera is supposed to be able to  take multiple shots,  my daughter has shown  me how to do it before.  However as they say, it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks....lol!    For that matter, I only learn to take pictures  just recently.  So I need to practice if  I am to learn the art of taking good pictures. And I have to surf  for  information on butterflies.... Resolutions for  2011? 

Update : 24th Feb 2011   -  The name of this butterfly is "Blue Glassy Tiger"

Dwarf apple plant ?

A neighbor has this bushy shrub about 3 feet plus  tall.  He grows this shrub opposite his house at the  edge of the padang (playground field).  This shrub produces tiny fruits that look  like apples (yes I think they are apples)......miniature ones,  the size of a thumbnail.  The tiny fruit turns from  lime green to bright red when ripe.  I like this cute looking shrub very much and has kept a look out for baby plants each time I pass by this shrub during my morning walks.  I got lucky two mornings ago .... lol!  Take a look at  this baby plant.  I hope it grows strong and healthy like the mother plant.  

With the frequent rainfall,  my rose plants are doing very well. .... especially this candy pink kampong rose from my neighbor.  This is the first time I ever have a rose plant with so many buds at one time.....so I am feeling really lucky. The scent these roses give off is really a bonus.

Captured in the morning after a rainfall 

Captured in the evening... !

Rainbows, Black Clouds and Strong Winds.....!

We almost go hiking again today, but had to turn back because it started to rain......! We saw  a  rainbow on our way home,  the rain had not reached our place yet . Now it looks like the storm is coming after a small dosage of sunshine.......

Okay, now it had started to rain........drip, drip, drip....nice, cool and breezy.

For nothing better to do, I am putting up  my Serissa  Foetida plant (posted 28th October 2010)  with its first single bloom. Yeah  it has its first bloom yesterday, and today the flower is still looking good.  Imagine  my delight upon seeing the many new buds as well . I can't wait to see  if this plant will live up to its  name  - " Tree of  A Thousand Stars" !  Maybe this first round of blooming won't be many  flowers. Anyway  I like the flower as it is so small and really dainty - very pretty indeed .  Take a look. 

To end this blog - have a look at my collage of  my first love and favourite. Yea ....just playing with photograph editing.....

A Practice Target........(update: 1st March 2011 : Tawny Coster)

This handsome  fella has been coming to visit .... finally I manged to 'persuade' it to be  my photography practice target.....Cool model, isn't he ? Perhaps it is a she ....probably looking for a place to lay her eggs. I  really need to read more on these beautiful creatures since they are one of the more frequent visible visitors these days......Then I will have names to call  them....

 

Not easy to arrange these  shots.....looks like I need to learn more on photo inserting and editing.  Actually I started  off with 8 photos.  So  I will stop here before I lost more.  Very troublesome to keep going back to insert them back whenever they get deleted somehow.   Sorry this is  what   I can manage for this post....sigh !

Update : 1 st March 2011 

Now I have some names for some of  butterflies visiting my garden.  Just hope I do not ID them wrongly though....! Anyway now that I have read up a bit on these butterflies and their life cycle, I realize now that this fella after visiting must have laid some eggs .  Below are the caterpillars hatched ..... ugly creatures with spines all over,  they look dangerous and threatening, not friendly at all. 

Actually they were nasty little fellas - they ate up my blue passion plant, and practically destroyed it. I had no choice but to trim the whole plant down after they were done!  Luckily they did not infest my passion fruit plant. 

Wind Chimes

It rained intermittently these few days, even though  some days it is blistering hot.   I always welcome the cool and windy weather, a good change from the heat!


My wind chimes are working overtime. One day I want to collect all sorts of wind chimes, right now I  just have three -  the clay  (from  Langkawi),  the metal  (Kek Lok Si, Penang)  and the bamboo ( Bali, Indonesia).  The bamboo wind chime produces a hollow sound ..... a dull tone that evokes something from the heart when the breezy wind brushes against them.  Takes me back to the holiday we had in Bali where the people are  so close to nature.

The  melodious tin-gin-ling sounds from the  clay chime  and metal chimes are somewhat  of  a higher pitch.   How does one aptly describe the  sounds from  these  chimes when  the wind  plays on them ?   Seductive,  Haunting, Mesmerizing , Soothing ..?  I am  at a loss. Simply that  they just pulsate with life seems so lame, so inadequate .....!  Interesting objects and credit goes to the wind chimes makers, they are great.  I guess to design these instruments would need some sort of measurements and knowledge of music to get the sounds right, to  bring  such pleasure to the owners.  I remember when I wanted to buy the wind chimes, I had a hard time choosing.......all played beautiful sounds.....and each more mesmerizing than the other.   In the end, I thought --- if I hang it up, I probably won't see it, just can hear the sounds.  So I just selected with my eyes closed ....!

 

I am not sure exactly why I  had this sudden impulse to collect wind chimes. Why do people collect them anyway?  People surely must collect them for they are sold  in most tourist  shops and most shops in town.  So I  did some checks from my best source.....!  Great.... so many sites offering wind chimes for sale.  And I never knew wind chimes have significance in Feng Sui  (I am not what one would call a Feng Sui  believer :- ). Anyway for those who might suddenly decide to collect wind chimes, check this site out .....http://www.suite101.com/content/feng-shui-wind-chimes-a266478, just for interest if not for anything else. 

So it is not a good idea to collect too many wind chimes ..... Well, as they say, see how it goes. If  I come across some unique wind chime  in the shop  that won't let me walk away .....

A morning at Gunung Jerai, Kedah

This morning, we decided to go hiking again at Gunung Jerai. As it was the year end school holidays, there were more hikers, cyclists and visitors  than usual.  There was a  group of students (about a hundred plus from a secondary school) hiking up for a couple days camp.  This must be the largest group of students we have seen so far ..... looks like it is going to be noisy weekend up there......!

Here are some shots to share....

Half way up...

A  wild berry plant

View from Regency Hill Resort

Fascinating orchids on the tree

Pitcher plants - Nepenthes

Fern Plant

A big bird ....I almost miss it !

I like the foliage of this plant...

Nepenthes again ..

A close up shot

Fern plant....I  like the lacy patterns

Nice foliage......

Orchids on the ground

Beautiful foliage and flowers.....

A caterpillar...

colorful bug ..

The Cypress Vine ( Ipomoea quamoclit)

When I first saw the Cypress Vine  many years back, I thought it was such a beautiful plant with the lacy delicate fresh green leaves and bight red flower shaped in a star.  When we first move here, I wanted to have some fast growing plant to cover up the fence for some greenery in order to have some shade and privacy. This is a  very fast growing plant which is robust and can withstand  the hot weather without getting all scorched despite its rather delicate looking leaves when it started growing. Also it is a fast bloomer and within a month of growth or so, the plant will be blooming...very pretty indeed.  The down side of this plant is it can  be rather invasive as the many thousands of flowers all bear seeds that can start growing  anywhere .......! 

After I had the  Rangon Creeper ( posted June 24 2010) growing very well,  sadly I  had to remove this plant as there is really no space around the fence area.  By then  the plant  was  also showing  rapid  browning and not so healthy anymore. Any gardener will know it  can be a mess to pull out vines !   I presumed this plant has a short life span or perhaps due to the hot and dry spell,  they  started to dry up.  It  was  not easy to  just remove  certain brown parts of the plants as they are all entangled up. In the end I just removed the  whole mess of vegetation  entangled to the fence and the seeds all just dropped to the ground as I cut and  removed parts of the plant bit by bit.....!    Till today  young plants  continue to  shoot up  around  the areas where I had  planted this plant.  I have to keep removing them as I see them.   Perhaps I should try to grow the Cypress Vine in a pot and twined it around some sticks and see whether it can be tamed. ......well just a passing thought, as I do like the lacy leaves and attractive red flowers.....

Passion Fruit .....

The bud .....

I have a wonderful surprise....my passion fruit plant (see blog posted on 30th August 2010) is flowering again .... .....

The flowers are really exotic looking. I hope this round I will get to harvest some fruits....the last time this plant bloomed, I harvested just one single  fruit ...! This plant is about a year and half old. A friend told me that this plant will attract lots of ants since  the fruits are rather sweet. So far touch wood, I am lucky - no ants yet !  

Some months back I trimmed off most of the vine as I wanted to put in a stronger support system, but it looks like it is still inadequate.   Perhaps it is high time I think of erecting a kind of arbor to hold the plant which  is rather  heavy with such  tremendous foliage growth.

Unlike the fragrant  passion flower (posted 13th Jan 2010), this passion fruit flower has no scent at all.  This passion fruit vine is a vigorous grower.   I have to keep cutting off some leaves now and then.  Whenever  I do that how I wish the leaves are edible.....!

Tuber Head Plant .........

The weekend has come and go....and it is another new week ! What have  I learn this past week? I have a chronic problem that perhaps someone out there has a solution. It is to do with the Jasmine Sambac. (posted 23rd August 2010) When they bloom, the fragrance and beauty is really something. However, the downside of the jasmine sambac is they  are vulnerable to attack by unseen bugs  and  some tiny green  caterpillars.  I have picked these caterpillars off the plant as they were sometimes embedded within the new shoots.  The bug, I have yet to see, but they always leave behind small black specks of shit (I think). Sometimes the whole bush is under attack including the new shoots, the buds and the blooms......haiz.  It is a frustrating problem that keeps recurring. Each time I would trim all the infected parts of the plants. Sometimes I am lucky -  I am rewarded with nice blooms and fragrance, but soon the whole cycle is repeated.  Kind of frustrating.  This man at the nursery, he tells me I can try with spraying with the water based mosquito aerosol....would it work?  Well I will give it a try.....!  

Swollen bulb - partially covered

   In today's blog  I would like to share photos of  this plant - I do not  know what is its name .  The leaves are elongated and slightly wavy and it  has a  swollen round white tuber (onion like) that somehow reminds me of the chinese leek. 

Nice wavy elongated  leaves

Top view

Actually I have three of these plants taken from my friend's garden. She has a number of these plants.  I quite  like the look of this plant as I think it is cute.  I doubt it will flower, will it ?   The lush light green leaves are so pleasant .  I am not sure if this is the same plant sold as a Feng Sui Plant during Chinese New Year. I have this plant for about 9 months now.  I planted one in the pot and the other two on the ground. My friend had hers planted on the ground as well.  Like most tuberous plants, it does not need lots of water. It is a slow grower as well.  It seems to prefer  indirect sunlight. 

Planted on the ground

I think it looks better in the pot, so  recently I  removed one plant  from the ground to a pot as well.  I think it did not like being removed from the ground  and it is still sulking.....not showing much growth at all.  Well that is the world of plants...can't please them all the time....haha!

Update : I know now that these bulb plants are the St Christopher's Lily or  Crinium Jagus. One of  the plant (planted on ground) bloomed in March 2011 . (see post dated : 25th March 2011).