Homegrown

Picked some Syngonium aka arrowhead plant while walking the dogs for the green wall over at another apartment. Some of the plants didn't survive so I have to replace the empty slots.

More new shoots appearing for Magnolia Lily.

Highland hydrangea is not giving up.

For some weird reason, my lemon's losing leaves.

New shoots for Magnolia Coco too. 

The longan was pretty stagnant and then suddenly one wild branch of leaves appeared. 

Sowed more bachelor's button seeing the smaller died.

Dill from the supermarket is somewhat surviving.

Coco has been going through my mint.

Revival

 For some weird reason, one Bachelor's Button seedling is bigger than the other.

My edamame beans aren't as fat as I wanted them to be.

Lowland hydrangea is thriving, seems to be sprouting new shoots. I was contemplating if I should chop the top off to promote branching but turns out I don't have to.

Magnolia Lily is sprouting new shoots, if only they were flower buds.

So highland hydrangea somehow revived. I was thinking to use the pot for the balsam seedlings (the last two balsams plants were killed off, very weak due to spider mite attacks) and turned out hydrangea refused to die and sprouted some shoots instead. Man, whatever. I transplanted the balsam seedlings anyway.

My sister is rooting some common mint for me. 

And the same time, I sowed kailan/Chinese kale in a planter and Brussels sprouts on another. The Brussels sprout seeds are very old so instead of throwing them away, I just sowed them. Not putting much hope on it anyway.

Updates and New Additions

Over the past weekends, I've bought few new plants.

New lavender! Yay! Been searching for this quite some time.

Medinilla myriantha, also known as Malaysian Grape. 

I also got myself an Ylang Ylang plant. 

The scent of the flowers filled the balcony, no joke. 

2 new ground covers that I pinched from my dad's bonsai pots.

 A variety of Japanese roses, from my dad's garden. It's fuchsia, white and orange.

An Indian curry plant seedling. 

Red okra seedlings! Now occupying the pot that used (actually somewhat) mint from Austria. The mint died and only one tiny plant survived which is the one at 2 o'clock in the picture right now.

Nai pak seedlings on the right, Japanese kale seedlings on the left.

Local mints that I grew from seeds which I got as a gift. 

My basil seedlings revived after suffering from lack of water. Next to it was the Ylang Ylang bloom that fell off when I was transporting it to the balcony.

Supermarket lemon seedling.

2 rogue basil seedlings in my empty pot. 

Wild strawberry and a random seedling - I'm keeping it for now to see what it is.

Clemson okra pod that I'm planning to let it to seed. Seems like it's reaching its end soon.

Avocado seed from my colleague's lunch that I'm germinating now.

Okra Be Cool

Finally I get to witness the gorgeous flower!

The first okra is getting bigger day by day.  

My baby Chinese kale. Note the difference of the growth. One has better sun exposure, obviously. The smaller baby Chinese kale is sharing soil with wild strawberries that I brought back from Austria and a lemon seedling. 

Mint form Austria. 

First harvest of my baby Chinese kale as last night's dinner. 

Simple stir-fry with garlic. It's so yummy!

Growing Season

Looks like everything's going good.

Magnolia cuttings. The ones that I stuck into soil did not work out. 

Am pretty diligent in watering these. Was told that the soil should not be dry at all.

Mints from Austria are finally adapting to the climate.

Okra seedlings.

Chinese chives seedlings. Took a while to germinate.

Kailan aka Chinese Kale seedlings are doing pretty well.

Seeing how sad the gardenia was, I finally chopped them off, changed the soil to miracle-gro potting mix with some epsom salt in it. Hope it's happier.

Motivation

Yes.
A lot of plants died - at least 3 plumerias, Thai Basil, pink Amaryllis, supermarket lemon seedlings, local mint, a variety of succulents and avocado.
It somewhat discouraged me but I renewed my motivation and want to focus on edibles instead. The new apartment seems to have better sun exposure but it doesn't look like it helps.

Ginger. I planted another bentong ginger root in. It hasn't send a shoot out yet.

My crazy basil.

Gardenia sprouted so many flower buds and still can't bloom. I was told that the soil wasn't acidic enough that it couldn't absorb the nutrients so I ran out to buy the necessary stuff. I've been spiking the soil with Miracle-Gro (although I bought Mira-Cid but I haven't use it yet since I still have Miracle-Gro, I should have checked my inventory!)

Well, the soil is definitely acidic but what could have gone wrong?!

The kaffir lime seedlings have grown and started to smell like one. It didn't smell like one.

Sowed Clemson okra and all germinated. Transplanted the seedlings few days ago.

Only one out of 4 snap peas sowed germinated. Soaked the remaining 4 seeds last night and have just put them into the soil. The pinkish stuff you see around the seeds were to prevent rotting.

Yes, another avocado.

Another couple of cordylines that I got from the bouquet of flowers (below) my boyfriend surprised me before he left for Greece late last month. 

Water-rooted Thai basil again, this time I'm letting them root more.

The plumeria branches I found 2 months ago. I pulled them out from the pot just because. Now one of them has an inflo.

So now... let me share with you what I have new in store/balcony! We recently went to Greece and Austria and of course, I took some stuff home!

The Alpine Strawberry aka wild strawberry from Austria! They don't look too good now but you can see some might survive. The fruit is the tiniest and has more intense flavour.

Purple magnolia! Below is the mother tree. Behind the tree was white grape. It's a long shot but I'm experimenting in rooting them in water and soil. 

I also brought back 3 varieties of mint: brown mint, balm mint and peppermint. Doesn't look like one of the variety can survive so I pulled one bunch up and try to revive by putting them into water since the roots still look alright. I think that one is balm mint. 

A variety of succulents! One of them is flowering :)

Lastly, this baby came from Santorini. Yes, I took it from the resort we stayed. This should survive since Santorini weather can be harsh

2 tools that I invested recently. The white watering can is from Ikea and the red spray is dirt cheap from a hardware store. It holds a litre.