Ornamental Delight

I must say the balsam took quite long to flower.

The previous tenants left 2 pots of wild orchids Bamboo Orchid and they didn't look good. After 2 rounds of fertilizers, they start to bloom.

I found that this is Brazilian Button and although they are quite pretty, they are invasive.

It's nice to pass by Ylang-ylang and get a whiff of her.

The pink and white roses are starting to bloom again after fertilising.

Few of my calendulas have been trampled by Odyssey. 

Peach-colored canna lily my neighbour shared with me.

Sunflower seedlings - not doing well due to lack of water.

Dahlia seedling.

I totally forgot about watering the platyceriums that a few wilted, especially the ridleyi. For a moment I thought I was going to lose her but today she perked up.

Productive

Not me, but the plants.

Edamames have start to produce with just 5 inches tall.

So is the red okra. At 3 inches, they are already growing pods. I would actually rather have them grown taller and stronger before that!

Mulberry, of course, have been prolific producers although we never get to enjoy. Birds and other animals (fruit bat, squirrels?) got to them first.

 My snow pea are climbing up the fence.

Mexican giant sunflowers are growing.

Japanese sweet potatoes also start taking firm ground.

A few of the bokchoys are attacked by slugs already.

Kailans are slower than bokchoy.

Hello carrots.

My ornamental and edible seedlings.

I've also managed to germinate some borlotti seeds that I dried. Didn't really expect them to germinate.

Gorgeous Ylang-ylang that permeates slight fragrance when I touch them.

A Gung Ho Move

Seeing that trimming the roots of Magnolia did some wonder with some new shoots coming out from her, I did the same to Calla Lilies and Avocado. 

 Avocado has been suffering from dried leaves which I thought to be burned from sun but the thing is that only mature leaves are like that. New leaves aren't burned. It has to be something else making it this way, isn't it? I noticed some blackened roots after pulling her out from soil. I also moved her under the plumeria tree for shade to let her rehab.

After some rots, I pulled her out to clean the rot from the bulbs. Hope this will perk her up a bit seeing all the blooms are dried out. Having that said, I need to learn more about her.

The After Dark orchids after moving them indoor.

Ylang-ylang is showing off. I think she will love the new house. Also, I will be planting her into the ground and will be practising my grafting (morbid!) on her so I can leave her there and have my own Ylang-ylang when we move again.

My sole surviving lavender sharing house with an onion. I am considering to purchase more lavender as I need to combat mosquito issue. Other plants in the combat list will be basil 

My tomatoes bloom kept falling off due to lack of sun. Maybe I just move her to the new house already. 

Ms Ridleyi is growing pretty well except that I didn't realise I cracked her couple of fronds.

I also broke Ms Bifurcatum the younger's shield when I was transpotting her from the bathtub after shower.

 What a wall. I will replicate and improve this in the new house. Am also veery tempted to change Bifurcatum sisters' frame to a lighter and slimmer one like Ms Ridleyi's for a sleeker and graceful look.

One Step at a Time

The Bifurcatums sisters had their twice-weekly bath today and I noticed they really like it here, they are showing some growth! 

Speaking of platyceriums, I'm currently also acquiring 2 more platys from a fellow member of a Platy group but they are of unknown ID, not Bifarcatum for sure though! I'm really hoping the Ridleyi I should be getting tomorrow will be a gorgeous one. Ridleyi is one platy that I MUST have. Take a look at her and you will see why. She's perfection.

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Anyway, I probably killed my basil plants when I was cleaning the balcony, I broke two of the three plants and another I pulled out as I noticed there was white stuff around the root system. The basil plants grew a lot of aerial roots so I figured they would actually survive but the picture will tell you otherwise. Among the basil, nestled a couple of sweet potato slips that I missed out when I was transplanting. By the way, the transplanted slips did not survive.

The heirloom tomato plants however surprised me a lot. They have started to flower despite the lack of size. 

Yesterday's spring cleaning also brought my attention to my lovely Ylang-Ylang who has never failed to flower, she's getting taller than me!

A random shot of the bamboos at our building vicinity. It's interesting/hilarious to see they grow sideways, instead of upwards.

Trial and Error

Let's start with something nice.

This is one weird bloom, it grew leaf in the disc.

My poor darling, magnolia lily. I really hope you would survive this.

On another hand, I found these 2 pieces of wood at the office that I thought might be suitable for fern mounting but I probably should saw off some of those tiny branches that stick out like thorn.

Scouting for the species I want has been quite discouraging despite having to confirmed with 2 sellers (one in Ipoh and another all the way in Singapore) as they are taking their time to respond to me. The agony.
So... I bought another bifurcatum. This elkhorn came with a nasty surprise - a frog. Yuck. I hate frogs. A frog jumped out from the pot and when I was trying to shoo it away, I knocked the elkhorn over and broke some of the fronds. 

My hammering nail skill is somewhat improved, or not? I bought new nails this time and the hardware store guy told me to hit the nails as hard as I can to lessen the number hits therefore increasing the accuracy. Well... actually, I started off pretty well, the top right was my first attempt, both nails got hammered nicely and then for whatever reason, I started to suck at it... look at the top left. But anyway, I will re-do the first frame so I can remove those hideous strings and at the same time, to stuff more sphagnum moss to and some overripe banana. Not the skin, the flesh as someone shared with me the pesticide-laden skin killed her stag unless you are feeding the organic banana then you are fine. The things I learn!

This time, I learned to pick a good stag.  It should show growth - green shields and growing fronds. What caught me off-guard though was how delicate the shields are! I cracked it while tying it with fishing line. Also this time, I nailed a few nails on the frame so I can tie the fishing line but turned out I didn't have to. The open frame design is already perfect and perhaps, I just need to hammer a slim plank behind it so I don't dirty the wall.

It also has a tiny shield and I took extra care not to be blocked by the fishing line. The fishing line I bought is also a little too thin that I need to be careful so it won't cut into the stag.

Finished product. It took the first elkhorn's place - the bathroom.

The first elkhorn is moved to above our bed.

An instagram worthy shot of the first elkhorn in its original place - bathroom.

Speaking of sphagnum moss, I'm disappointed with the one that I have because it's full of crap. 

Some of the biggest crap I had to pull out from the bag. Good quality sphagnum should be pure sphagnum without any other material.

 On the last note, we are looking into moving to a landed property. With that said, I would have plenty of space for gardening, be it ornamental or edibles. This is something that I tremendously look forward to. I hope to have a room full of light that I can flood them with plants like below pictures.

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