Monthly Archives: June 2008

Yet another Gardening Saturday…

Posted on June 28, 2008 | 1 Comment

Today, I got to enjoy yet another long Saturday worth of gardening-related activities. Although I yearned for more rest at home due to the fatigue caused a past week’s worth of issues and hectic work at the lab, by attending events that take place during the weekend do help me to relieve my mind thoughts and worries that are related to work.

It started out with a kind invitation from Mr Victor Lee (who is Vice-President) to the Singapore Gardening Society’s Annual General Meeting Lunch at the RELC Hotel. Besides the good food, the session was a fruitful one as I got to meet up with some friends who I can seldom meet. It was indeed a good opportunity to have been able to catch up with them as well. I felt honoured to have been invited.

Later in the afternoon, I adjourned to Woodlands Regional Library to attend Cindy’s gardening sharing session with Rosalind (our famous Madame Butterfly from Alexandra Hospital), her friend, Lucy and my good friend, Cheow Kheng. I opened the session to spread the awareness of the upcoming Singapore Garden Festival, the Green Culture Singapore website and discussion forum as well as the existence of this blog. This was followed by a short introduction of who Cindy is to the audience.

Cindy’s talk today focussed on tropical pitcher plants that belong to the genus Nepenthes. Carnivorous plants like the tropical pitcher plants have always been attracting a lot of attention from Singaporeans, especially children, and I was not surprised by the overwhelming crowd that completely filled the little glass-walled function room where the sharing session was conducted.

It was heartening to see many GCS members who were present in the hall. Notably, Joseph, a former veteran pitcher plant grower, also a member of the GCS forum, who brought along some tropical pitcher plant seeds to share with the audience all the way from Clementi despite his busy weekend schedule. I admired his readiness to help as I witnessed him helping the library staff to lay our more chairs at the back of the room so that there are more seats for the audience who just walked into the room. I also got to meet up with Limei, who is already a member since the early days of GCS.

After Cindy’s talk ended, one member, Bill, who was accompanied by his wife, approached me to show me a picture taken using their digital camera, which showed a very healthy and large tropical pitcher plant grown inside a hanging basket. Bill told me that this plant was originally a small plantlet that was given away as a first prize during the GCS gathering that took place in March last year. Indeed, Bill has taken good care of his plant and with that plant, it also sparked his interest to grow more pitcher plants. A couple of other pictures showed more pots of pitcher plants, which were his evidence to show how their tropical pitcher plant interest has grown.

What I have witnessed this afternoon was a wish that had been materialised. The gardening forum I have set up almost four years back has served its purpose as a platform to allow enthusiasts to share their gardening experiences as well as one that helps novices to start their hobby. There, friendships are also forged which will help gardening more enjoyable with the company of fellow like-minded friends. Gardening talks that were a result from GCS’ collaboration with Community in Bloom and the National Library Board had helped to cultivate Singaporeans’ interest in gardening. I am very grateful to GCS members who have volunteered to come forward to share their gardening experiences in these talks.

One phrase that I noticed Cindy had repeatedly used during her talk was “Wilson’s forum”, which referred to the GCS discussion forum. I would hope one day, members and moderators alike will say that the GCS discussion forum is “our forum” instead of “Wilson’s forum”. Although it was set up by me, the GCS discussion forum had been sustained and made purposeful by the active participation and generous contribution from fellow members. The success of GCS is made possible only through the avid support from all our members.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Events, Gardening People in Singapore, My Thoughts...

Tagged , ,

Interesting Allium at the Community Garden

Posted on June 25, 2008 | 1 Comment

For quite some time, I was not able to tell what was being grown inside a trough. The plants in there were grown by one of my community gardeners. It appears grassy and when the hollow leaves were injured, they emited an onion-like odour. That pointed me that it could be a species of Allium. Interestingly, the leaves are not round in cross-section! They seem to be flatter on one side.

However, I thought it was a failed attempt to grow plants from the Allium genus as many are known not to thrive under our tropical climate. The plants never grew too tall and most of the time, the leaves never stood erect. The diameter of the leaves also never grew thicker as well. Neither did the plant appear to increase in clump size. All such observations seem to suggest it is a stunted Allium.

In the morning two days ago, I was surprised to see a recently harvested bunch of onion-like plants placed at one corner of the washing area in my community garden. I asked what it was and my community gardener who grew it told me its Chinese name, which was called “乔头” (qiao tou). The bulbs were white and small; they were about 3 cm in diameter and each plant has several bulbs clustered at the base.

I did some research on this Allium plant and found its botanical name, which is Allium chinese. From the PROSEA database, this plant is documented to be native to central and eastern China and is widely grown in China and Japan and to a limited extent in South-East Asia. It is known by its English name as “Rakkyo”, which sounds more like Japanese to me.

I also now recall that these are the white little bulbs that are sold in the supermarkets as pickles! Surprisingly, also documented in the PROSEA database, this plant has important medicinal properties, the bulbs are of interest in the prevention of thrombosis. They are used for the treatment of heart failures in Chinese medicine. Rakkyo is also used against fever, stomachache and eye infections.

The plants do not produce seeds and are propagated by bulb division. When I asked where my community gardener got the plant, she told me she bought it from Cameron Highlands in Malaysia many, many years ago.  To ensure a continuous crop, she divides several small bulbs from an uprooted clump and then plants them singly into the trough of soil again. Several small bulbs will be obtained from each of these bulbs that were planted.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Herbs, My Thoughts..., Vegetables

Tagged , ,

My Cornukaempferia has flowered!

Posted on June 23, 2008 | Leave a comment

My cornukaempferia has finally flowered. Everything happened really fast and I have to admit I took things for granted for not fishing out my camera to snap the necessary pictures to document the process. I vaguely remembered that I saw the flower bud appearing in the morning. Thinking that it will only bloom a few days later, I did not rush to take emerging flower bud. By late afternoon, when I passed by my plants, I cannot help to notice a strange golden colour that I have never noticed in my plants. I took a closer look and I realised one of my cornukaempferia plants has flowered. The flower only lasted a day. It faded by the following day morning.

This ginger is endemic to Thailand and there are only two species in this genus. The genus was already well known and before it was coined Cornukaempferia, the two species have been classified under other ginger genera like Kaempferia and Boesenbergia. The genus name, Cornukaempferia, is derived from the Greek word for horn, as in “cornu” and the word “kaempferia” at the back is to indicate the similarity of the plant’s aerial parts to plants belonging to the Kaempferia genus.

The species I have grown is C. aurantiflora, which is a day-blooming species. The other species, C. longipetiola, blooms at night. The specific name of the former species, aurantiflora, refers to the golden colour of the flower that it produces. The flowers are decorative enough but we should also not forget about the leaves which are also highly ornamental. The markings on the leaves have a silver iridescence.

I chose to grow my plants indoors under artificial lights which are turned on for 12 hours daily because I have encountered bad experiences of growing similar gingers outdoors as the snails and slugs will make a delicious meal of out of them. The plants are growing fine – the foliage colour came out nicely and the leaves grew quite large. In the plants I have, I am now seeing more new shoots arising from the rhizomes below. I situated them right in the middle of two daylight fluorescent tubes where the light intensity is the highest.

I allow the plants to dry out a little before watering as related gingers tend to have a tendency to rot if the substrate is overly wet. However, I also do not let the plants to experience prolonged drought and hence they never go limp. Plants that have undergone prolonged dryness may instead go dormant. I have placed a reservoir of slow-release fertiliser at the base of the pot.

So far, I have not experienced any problems growing this rewarding and beautiful species of ginger except that I noticed the margin of the leaves tend to become a little brownish and dry. I thought that may have been caused by the relatively low air humidity as well as the heat that has been emitted from the light tubes. My friend, on the other hand, thinks it may be due to overfeeding.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Flowering plants, Tropical ornamentals

Mandarin Talks – Needs Improvement!

Posted on June 21, 2008 | 1 Comment

I have finished my second Mandarin talk this year just now at the Geylang East Community Library. The crowd was satisfactory only maybe because it was not widely publicised. I guess after much practice of using my much unused Mother Tongue lately, using it for the presentation is now a lot more fluent for me. The presentation of the gardening session went relatively smoothly.

The presentation slides I did were mostly pictorial fearing that the library computer may not have Chinese language support. The sharing session ended right on the dot as well.

However, after the sharing session just now, I somewhat do not feel good about it. Usually after every successful sharing session, I tend to feel elated, if not, gratified, to have been able to dispense knowledge to help others in the gardening hobby.

Thanks to Shirley who has helped me to take some photographs during the session but I noticed something strange about myself as well – I keep having audience to face my back… Hmm… That’s wierd!

I still feel somewhat not too used to using Mandarin as the language to present my talk. One thing I noticed I could not really express myself as well compared with if I were allowed to use English. The sharing session just now appeared to be a little monotonous. It could have also be the topics that were being discussed as they are mostly technicalities that are required for starting a garden, such as how to choose a good location and steps to build a raised bed for vegetable gardening.

My English talks tend to be a little more lively with jokes from my personal gardening experiences that often perk up the crowd in the mostly an hour long sharing sessions. A friend of mine suggested me to use our local colloquial language, Singlish, which is a fusion of English, Mandarin and even dialect for my talk but I refrained as that may confer an unprofessional image to my audience.

I guess perfection comes with more and more practice. I just hope my Chinese audience give me some time and room to improve so that I can make my future sessions more lively and interesting.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Events, My Thoughts...

I love my Costus varzearum!

Posted on June 20, 2008 | Leave a comment

One of my spiral ginger plants is finally flowering! I got them as small plants with just a few skinny and weak stalks, it has taken quite them some time to get to the healthier state that they are in now. Anyway, this spiral ginger is not exactly that exotic and it can be found for sale in our local nurseries in Singapore. I found this plant tucked at one remote corner of a local nursery. From this, one can discern that it is not one of your well-sought after plants.

Botanically known as Costus varzearum, these spiral ginger plants I have belong to the category of plants that do not have common names. From the Gingers R Us website, the origin of the specific name comes from the fact that Costus varzearum can only be found in the várzea forests of Brazil. How interesting!

The foliage of Costus varzearum is very attractive, in my opinion, and looks a bit like those found in another relative, Costus erythrophyllus. Both species have leaves that are purplish on the underside and dark green on the upperside. On the other hand, however, the leaves Costus varzearum have somewhat wavy edges and are thinner compared with those found on Costus erythrophyllus. The latter species is also usually shorter in stature too and a little fussy and hence more difficult to grow, I found.

The purplish leaves of Costus varzearum are an asset to the location where they are grown because they help to break the largely uniform green colour brought about by the foliage of my other ginger and banana plants.

Today, I was on a day’s leave from the laboratory and had this rare opportunity just now to be able to exploit my time at a very leisurely pace to walk around the Zingiberales Garden under broad daylight so that I can appreciate each of the plants grown in there carefully .

I was surprised when I saw one of my relatively young Costus varzearum plants has started to flower. The flowering head was borne terminally (meaning it is produced at the end of the growing point) could have been easily missed because it was green in colour and quite well-hidden amongst the leaves.

What gave the plant away were the soft creamy yellow tubular true flowers that emerged from between the bracts in the flower head. The true flowers have interesting red-orange markings on their lips. The emerging flower buds are intense yellow in colour and they contrast starkly against the green-coloured bracts found on the flowering head and the purplish leaves that the plant has.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Flowering plants, Tropical ornamentals

Tagged , ,

Another beautiful devil in the garden…

Posted on June 19, 2008 | Leave a comment

The Bronze Banana, as it is commonly known as, is one of my favourite ornamental banana plants that I like. Not really considered as an exotic plant, it can be found in most large nurseries in Singapore from time to time. For me, this banana grows up to a height of about 1 to 1.2 m in my community garden, probably due to the good light level that it receives. This is considered quite a short height for a banana.

It is grown purely for its ornamental value due to its decorative inflorescence that has bracts that are brick-red in colour. This is a bract colour that can be considered as unique in the genus Musa. The fruits are few and very small and hence not the dessert type of edible bananas we are so used to see and eat.

Botanically known as Musa laterita, the specific name “laterita” was given for the brick-red bracts this plant produces on its inflorescence which resemble the colour of laterite, a soil type prevalent in the tropics, as mentioned earlier. In many plant catalogues, one may also find this banana being marketed as a cultivar of Musa ornata, which is another popular ornamental banana.

When I first bought this plant, I did not know much about it. Hence, I did some research on the Internet and got to learn more about it on the website on Musaceae by Constantine and Rossel. True to what they have described on their website, it did not take long for me to notice the unruly growth habit of this ornamental banana after I have planted it in the ground…

Like all Musa species, this plant produces suckers but they do not grow around the mother plant. Instead, the suckers of the Bronze Banana grow out from the ground far from the main plant. It travelled from its original growing location due to the long rhizomes the plant sends out. When I first got it, it was grown inside a big black polythene bag and this nasty growth habit was not apparent at all.

Sounds like some invasive Heliconia species, eh?

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Flowering plants, Tropical ornamentals

Tagged ,

Growing the Bush Long Bean

Posted on June 17, 2008 | 6 Comments

When we think of long beans, most of us would conjure a picture of beanstalks climbing up a trellis. Climbing beans are also called pole beans. But do you know there are varieties of beans that take on a bush-like growth habit?

Bush long beans plants.

Out of curiosity, I went to buy some bush long bean seeds and grew them up a long time back. The picture above shows how the plants actually look like. Bush bean plants do not send out shoots that would otherwise seek a support to twine around. Initially, when the plants grow, they do so by growing upwards. As they continue to grow, they get weighed down by their own leaves and the plants trail along the ground subsequently.

Flowers of the bush long bean.

Depending on the cultivar, the growth habit of the bush long beans I grew was quite compact and they eventually covered up the entire planting bed. I found them quite attractive with the mounds of leaves that grew on the ground. Bush beans also make very good candidates for growing on a sunny apartment balcony. They do not require support to climb on and hence are space-savers. Do try growing them on a long trough.

The long bean pods.

The main advantage of growing bush-type bean varieties is perhaps their space-saving characteristics when compared with the climbing types. However, I have noticed that bush-type bean plants actually do not crop as heavily as conventional pole beans. In addition, because the pods they produce are close to the ground, they become the targets of snails, slugs and even ants where they get eaten away!

→ 6 Comments

Posted in Vegetables

Tagged

Me at the Radio 1003 Studio!

Posted on June 15, 2008 | 2 Comments

I was at the Radio 1003 studio for the second time. This time, I guess I am more mentally prepared and hence felt less nervous and more confident compared with the first time when I was there last Sunday.

For those of you who are keen as to how it looks like inside the Radio 1003 studio located inside the SPH Building at Toa Payoh North, I have requested our show presenter, Wilson Ng, to take a photograph of me while I am talking on air. Take a look at the huge earphones that I was wearing and the huge microphone that I need to speak into!

During this second episode, I spent most of it answering the many gardening-related questions that listeners had sent via SMS to the studio. Before the radio show ended at 7 pm, an announcement for a gardening sharing session delivered by me in Mandarin that is due to take place next week was sounded to all listeners. The synopsis and details of the sharing session are given below:

From Garden to Kitchen Series (Part 2): “Vegetable Gardening for Beginners”

Vegetables gardening can be rewarding and wonderful experience, especially when you harvest your own crops! In this workshop, the speaker, Mr Wilson Wong, will share with the audience his experience in vegetables gardening and how you can start a vegetable plot from scratch. He will start by giving an introduction of what are the basic garden tools that one needs, tips on how to select a good site for vegetable gardening, ideas to design a beautiful vegetable garden, techniques required for land preparation and steps to construct your own raised beds for vegetables cultivation. He will also have a demonstration on how one can make seed raising and seedling transplantation easy.

This session is brought to you by the Community In Bloom Programme, in partnership with Green Culture Singapore and the National Library Board.

Date : 21 Jun 2008 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Venue : Geylang East Community Library (Merpati Hall, Level 3)

Fees: Free!

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Media Appearances

Tagged , ,

Root Awakening (14 June 08)

Posted on June 14, 2008 | Leave a comment

The Root Awakening column that was published on Straits Time Life! had been split over two pages. Also included was an announcement of a free gardening sharing session, brought to all Singaporeans who are keen in gardening at the end of this month. It is a collaboration between Green Culture Singapore, the National Parks Board and the National Library Board.

The session will be conducted by one of my Green Culture Singapore forum moderators, Mrs Cindy Ng. She is currently a moderator for the carnivorous plants subforum and is an experienced grower of these plants in the environment of a highrise apartment balcony.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Root Awakening in ST Life!

Tagged

The Portulaca – I love you and I dislike you too!

Posted on June 11, 2008 | 1 Comment

There was a time that the portulaca was so popular in Singapore that one can see them being sold everywhere and everyone seems to be growing a pot in their gardens! The craze for this flowering plant is quite easy to discern – the plant produces eye-catching flowers that can be single or double and are available in a dazzling range of colours. Some even have petals that are striped with another contrasting colour!

Besides being classified via the appearance of their flowers, portulacas have different leaf shapes as well – some have leaves that are small and broad while others are needle-shaped. I was told by a local nurseryman that the needle-shaped cultivars are more suitable for growing in the outdoors in Singapore as they are less liable to rot.

Look at the field of white ‘buttercups’ created by growing a bed of white, single-flowered portulaca at HortPark!

Due to its prostrating and trailing habit, the portulaca is often used as a ground-cover or a candidate for growing in window boxes. I also used this plant as a ground-cover in my Community Garden to conceal the bare ground under the Yellow Bells tree planted by Mrs Lim. It is grown in the then medicinal herb garden as it is reported to possess depurative properties medicinally.

Another plus point about this plant is the lack of need to water it. In fact, over-watering kills it as it is a plant that can be classified as a succulent. It, therefore, can tolerate some degree of drought. It is a sun-lover also. The plant needs to be grown under direct sunshine to keep compact and encourage it to flower profusely. Although often called the “ten o’ clock flower”, in Singapore, the portulaca seems to start opening its blossoms an hour before!

I love this plant for the reasons I have described above and planted a whole bed of it some time back. However, I have removed it too and replaced it with something else recently.

First, the Yellow Bells tree has grown bigger with a much extended canopy. This has cast excessive shade over the portulaca plants below, causing them to sulk. The plants became etiolated (very ugly) and flowered less profusely. This is the chief reason for its replacement.

Next, the plants, with time, will grow quite straggly with long, bare stems that are aesthetically unappealling. To rip of the whole bed and do the replanting is extremely tedious and time-consuming. Not many of my community gardeners are keen to do this. In fact, for me, I quietly dislike doing this! I am sure the same is felt by my fellow community gardeners… We have to actually take very short tip cuttings (at most 5 cm long) and plant them in small clumps on the bed. Because the bed is so big, we actually have to spend many hours, with our legs bent, to complete the entire replanting session.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Flowering plants, Tropical ornamentals

Tagged ,