Category Archives: Houseplants

Grow some Botanical Butterflies!

Posted on December 25, 2010 | 3 Comments

The genus Christia contains two species of plants from the bean family (Fabaceae) that never fail to intrigue and make conversation pieces whether they are grown in the garden or in a pot indoors. The species include Christa obcordata and Christia vespertilionis. The interesting feature about these two species lies in their leaves – they resemble and flutter in a slight breeze like butterflies! As such, they are excellent candidates for planting in a children’s garden!

These two Christia species grow as perennials in the tropics (in Singapore). They are rather upright shrubs with slightly arching branches and grow to a height of about 60 cm. Like other relatives in the same family, Christa obcordata and Christia vespertilionis have a compound leaf with three leaflets. The leaflet in the center is roughly triangular in shape and has a size that is larger than the remaining two leaflets. Plants have rather thin stems and leaves are attached to stems via flexible, wiry petioles, which explains why the leaflets move easily with the slightest agitation. Leaves of Christia hang downward during night time.

Christa obcordata is known via a range of common names such as the Butterfly Stripe Plant, Swallowtail and Iron Butterfly. From Internet sources, the version that is grown horticulturally is perhaps a cultivar and has a cultivar name called ‘Stripe’, which has reddish brown stripes on a green leaf. The leaves of this plant are often larger compared to those of Christia vespertilionis. I have not witness it flower yet under local conditions.

The other species, Christia vespertilionis, is commonly referred to as Mariposa or Red Butterfly Wing. As the latter common name suggests, Christia vespertilionis has red leaves that are striped red. The leaves of this species are generally smaller compared to those found on Christa obcordata ‘Stripe’. The central leaflet has a concave margin which makes it look like a little boomerang. It has been observed to flower and the plant self-seeds.

Both Christia  species are best grown under semi-shade outdoors. They are best kept out of direct sunlight outdoors as plants dry out quickly and the colour in the leaves becomes bleached. In an apartment, grow them in a location where they can be exposed to filtered sunlight for 4 to 6 hours daily. Both species prefer to be grown in soil that is well-draining and kept moist at all times. One can propagate them via stem-cuttings. Some pruning can be performed to keep plants looking great and encourage a bushier growth habit. Under conducive growing conditions, both species are relatively pest- and disease-free.

To date, the supply of these two species is quite sporadic in Singapore. They are not the ”bread and butter’ plants that appear all the time in local nurseries here. Christia vespertilionis appears to be more commonly available compared to Christa obcordata.

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Posted in Houseplants, Tropical ornamentals

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SGF 2010 – My Home Garden Display – The Living Room

Posted on July 20, 2010 | 4 Comments

After looking at the DIY ideas in the Home Office, the visitor can walk through the ‘slanted door’ into the living room. The living room is the place at home where one entertains our guests and often people display plants in nice containers in an attempt to beautify the space.

Note that the living room can be a little dark to grow many plants. Remember to bring your display plants to a brighter place such as just before a sunny/bright windowsill or balcony to recuperate after a week or two worth of display inside the living room!

One unique plant display item designed by my landscape architect, Ms Abby Ng, was a series of wall-mounted containers that seem to ‘grow’ out of the wall as they ‘fall’ from the top of the wall to the floor. Each container has a shiny, metallic finish.

We have another vertical garden system on display in the living room. This unique vertical garden system is called the ‘Grass Mirror’ which is a product carried by a local company, Imaginative Growth. It is designed by a group of French architects, H2O Architects. The Grass Mirror is not made out of glass mirrors but out of polished stainless steel. Each planter is stacked one on another to make a larger reflective living wall.

Another very interesting product from Imaginative Growth on display were a series of upside-down plant pots, called the Boskke Sky Planter. Designed by Patrick Morris, these pots house plants that see to defy gravity and make conversation pieces among our visitors who come to our Living Room. Unlike conventional pots that sit on the floor, these pots allow one to grow plants without sacrificing floor space! Get one of these pots and you can figure out how watering is done as well as how you can pot that plant inside each Boskke Sky Planter.

The next display idea is a terrarium coffee table. Not something you can easily fashion easily by yourself, you probably need to engage a competent carpenter to make this coffee table terrarium! An idea inspired by existing coffee table aquariums, this terrarium allows the plant-lover to grow his plants nicely in the living room. There are fluorescent light tubes installed inside this coffee table so that a range of low-light houseplants can be grown. The glass top can be lifted and give access to one to maintain and water the plants. There is a small gap left between the coffee table base and the glass top and that allows excess heat given off by the lights to escape (hot air rises!).

Here’s another DIY plant display idea that is probably much easier to construct but may be a little difficult to replicate due to the rather unique glass container. When powered up, the lamp in the center has colours that transit from one colour to another and we though the plants planted in this garden would dance like they were in the disco! The lamp stand and circuitry were taken from a store-bought lamp and installed onto a styrofoam base.

The same concept was extended to make a tabletop lamp terrarium. The terrarium this time was a closed one. The base of this set-up is a clear glass container which originally came with a lid. To fix a lamp on top of it, my team members fashioned a base that fits nicely on top of the glass container using circular sheets of styrofoam. The lamp and its necessary circuitry were taken from a store-bought lamp that came with a lampshade.

Because such a terrarium lamp is not always lit in a typical home situation, you may want to grow the plant inside a pot which can be put in and brought out of the glass container base easily. This allows you to give the plant its vital dose of sunlight so as to keep it healthy rather than allowing it to languish inside the darkness when the lamp is not turned on.

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Posted in Events, Garden Hardware, High-rise Gardening, Houseplants, Recycling in the Garden

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SGF 2010 – My Home Garden Display – The Home Office

Posted on July 16, 2010 | Leave a comment

The Home Office area in the ‘My Home Garden’ display is a small one but it is packed with DIY gardening ideas that visitors can look forward to. Note that the office environment is often air-conditioned and that allows one to grow some cool-growing plants in the tropics. These include African violets, Pelargonium, a range of foliage begonias, hostas and even orchids!

One piece of furniture in this area is a work table with a clear glass top and below it hangs a platform that is illuminated with fluorescent lights. The lights, when turned on during office hours, can support the growth of a selection of low-light plants.

Much of the DIY ideas can be found on the hanging platform located below the glass panel! How about a hanging pot made from recycled Milo cans that is cladded with a cork board so each doubles up as a mini-notice board? You can pin notes onto it! Cheap and easy to make!

Marimo balls are quatic algae balls that hail from selected lakes around the world, the best known is Lake Ikan in Japan. These balls require bright light to grow and they make good candidates for displaying inside small recycled jam jars with laid with decorative mulch at the base! Remember to change the water of this mini aquatic garden once a week! This is another easy to construct bottle garden that serves as a very affordable gift idea.

The next idea is a rock bonsai which utilises brown volcanic rocks as planters. These volcanic rocks are easily available from local aquarium shops and often come with holes in them. These holes can be used to grow your plant. Shown here is a succulent plant that requires very little watering and little growing media to grow in. You can also use cacti species too. One thing to note is that there is a need to bring this succulent out to be exposed to direct sunlight periodically as fluorescent light alone is not sufficient to grow these sun-worshippers properly.

The next home office plant display idea is the ‘Mossy Landscape’. My team members bought square picture frames bought from IKEA, waterproofed the internal space of the frames and planted moss into them! What resulted was a neat-looking terrarium where moisture is kept in and all one needs to do is to spray some water to replenish the water supply every few weeks. Mosses are great candidates for this set-up as they do not grow too tall and thrive under bright light. The internal space is saturated with water vapour, making it conducive for mosses to grow.

The next idea is a product that was loaned to us by Candy Floriculture Pte Ltd, a local landscape industry partner. It would call this a very simple hydroculture cum aquaponics system that allows one to grow a range of indoor houseplants that require little nutrients to grow on a table top. Most of us would know what these plants are and they include common aroids and dracaenas which can virtually survive for long periods with just tap water! This system allows one to grow a plant as well as keep a pet fish in it! The fish’s waste materials serve as food for the plant, albiet in very small amounts only.

Going away from the table, we now focus on the displays on the window. If sunlight streams into your office desk, why not make a simple screen that doubles up as a mini vertical garden? Shown in this example, you can even hook on test tubes that hold water for some beautiful flowers! If you don’t fancy cut-flowers, you can attach various small airplant (Tillandsia) on this DIY curtain.

The last idea is to help plant-lovers create more space in a office to grow one’s plants (can also be extended to a home environment too!).  What you need is a ladder and you can hang a series of containers onto its rungs using metal container holders widely available from local nurseries. It is recommended to secure the upper end of the ladder onto the wall.

Locate plants that need more light in the middle so that sunshine that streams through the window can directly hit them. Those that need less light can be situated higher or lower along the length of the ladder. As you can imagine, by hanging potted plants on a ladder, you are actually constructing a vertical garden!

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Posted in DIY Projects, Events, Houseplants

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Boon Kiat’s Talk on Cacti & Succulents at HortPark

Posted on April 18, 2010 | Leave a comment

Boon Kiat, one of my most supportive Green Culture Singapore forum member delivered yet another talk on a group of plants that he has much experience growing on 17 April 2010 at HortPark’s Fruit Room. Entitled ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Growing Cacti & Succulents’, the talk covered the five elements of cultivating cacti and succulents, namely sunlight, soil, water, pest management and fertilisation.

Boon Kiat also introduced to his audience to 10 easy to grow cacti and succulent species. Not all cacti and succulents can be grown in tropical Singapore and this can take years to discover and realise. So going to Boon Kiat’s talk is a really great short-cut to skip all the problematic species. He also shared with all the reasons why some species from this group of plants can be that difficult grow here.

Last but not least, Boon Kiat brought along a Rebutia that has been grafted onto a Pereskiopsis rootstock. As revealed by Boon Kiat, this grafting method was a tip that was shared with him via a fellow Green Culture Singapore forum member. Some challenging cacti species, such as Rebutia that normally do not do well here can be grafted onto Pereskiopsis rootstock and the resultant plants have been observed to show more vigour and perform better in the lowland tropics.

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Colour your kids’ world with Fittonias (Singapore Child Magazine, Feb 2010)

Posted on February 10, 2010 | Leave a comment

My colleagues, Joyce and Pearl, from the Hort Outreach section of Hort Excellence division of the National Parks Board contributed an article to the February 2010 edition of the Singapore’s Child magazine. The article shares some tips on how one can use colourful fittonia plants to get them acquainted with plants and start them off with gardening hobby at a young age…

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Fittonias Galore in Lifestyle Magazine (Feb 2010)

Posted on February 8, 2010 | Leave a comment

I am happy to announce that an article written on fittonias was published in this month’s issue of the Lifestyle magazine! Authored by myself and my colleague Pearl, we shared with readers of the magazine how they can use various colourful fittonia cultivars which come in a range of striking foliage colours and interesting leaf features for decoration for the Chinese New Year festival as well as gifts for Valentine’s Day.

Fittonias are seldom regarded as decor plants for the Lunar New Year. However, the leaf colours seen in newer cultivars that come in bright red and greenish yellow (almost like gold) may spur interest in some of us to buy them and turn them into alternative, non-traditional plants for display or floristry purposes this festive season. What’s most important is that they don’t die after the Lunar New Year like many of the imported festive plants.

Each pot of fittonia is quite affordable and they make colourful gifts for one’s best friend or valentine this February 14th! They are quite easy to care for and can be grown inside a terrarium. If you are looking high and low for an attractive and unique gift, why not come up with a fittonia terrarium?

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Tillandsia Talk by Green Culture Singapore members

Posted on January 19, 2010 | Leave a comment

Last Sunday, airplant growers gathered at HortPark’s multi-purpose hall to listen to the first gardening talk in 2010 entitled ‘Airplants – Plants For The Modern Gardener’. It is the first in a series that have been planned to take place in odd months of the calendar year that will not just be a talk but more of a gardening talk show that encompasses interviews and demonstrations involving hobbyists and landscape industry partners.

I decided to kick-start this special talk show series with airplants as they are small, relatively ‘clean’ and easy to grow by most gardeners who live in high-rise apartments. The ease of their cultivation makes them good for modern urbanites who are often too busy to find time to tend to a garden where space is also a constraint for many. Commonly called “airplants”, these plants are members of the genus Tillandsia, which are mainly epiphytes that literally live on air. They are relatives of the pineapple and hence make an equally auspicious symbol for the the Lunar New Year which will fall in mid-February this year.

The 2h session was not all talk or demonstration by myself. I have invited three fellow airplant enthusiasts from my Green Culture Singapore discussion, namely, Kevin Cheong (greenhorn), Benedict Tay (benetay) and Lynnette Terh (Velvetine) where they shared their varied airplant growing experiences which range from an outdoor community garden, high-rise apartment window/balcony to the rooftop garden. Near the end of the session, I also demonstrated to participants on how they can construct a unique 3D vertical garden using a range of epiphytic plants which included airplants, antplants, ferns, Dischidia and Hoya.

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The fragrant Tillandsia duratii

Posted on December 8, 2009 | 3 Comments

Tillandsia duratii is one of my favourite airplant species. This species is named after an Italian named Durat who was the first person to grow this airplant species in Europe.

This plant has a growth form that is quite unlike many other Tillandsia species. It is a caudescent epiphyte that develops a distinctive stem and has long silvery leaves that bend downwards to the base of the plant. One will notice that the older leaves, as they dry up, form ringlets that coil around a branch or any support that they come in contact with. This is how Tillandsia duratii supports itself in its native growing habitat. From afar, this particular Tillandsia species looks as if it was a bird resting on a tree branch!

Tillandsia duratii is a xeric species that is native to drier parts of Bolivia, eastern Paraguay and northern Argentina and grows at elevations of 200 to 3500 m. It is a species that thrives in Singapore’s climate and particularly suitable for growing in Singapore’s  highrise apartment balconies where the environment can be rather windy and dry.

I grow several Tillandsia duratii plants on my balcony where they receive bright reflected light for at least half a day for half a year and direct sunshine in another half, as the sun shifts its path every half a year here in Singapore. Regardless of the intensity of sunshine, this species seems to thrive. At 14 storeys up in the apartment block, their growing environment is relatively windy and dries the plant out promptly. I water this plant by spraying water on it every other day. To date, it hasn’t succumb to rot like some other species do. 

I would say that this is one hardly and fuss-free Tillandsia species to grow in Singapore. Just a word of warning is to not grow Tillandsia duratii in an area with high traffic or very strong winds. As this plant grows on a long stem, one can accidentally break the plant into two quite easily if he/she is not observant. I reckon a gust of very strong wind can do similar damage if a plant is not well secured to its support.

This Tillandsia species is reported to be able to grow up to 40 cm in diameter and a meter in height when conditions are conducive. Do you know that it also produces flowers that are fragrant?

Tillandsia duratii is one of the few species of airplants that produces flowers that emit a pleasant fragrance. Each flower has three petals that are lilac in colour. Flowers are produced on a long inflorescence that takes months to develop. An inflorescence in a well grown, healthy plant can reach as long as 1 m in length!

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Posted in Flowering plants, High-rise Gardening, Houseplants, Tropical ornamentals

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The variegated Gardenia – for flowers or leaves?

Posted on November 28, 2009 | 2 Comments

Gardenia jasminoides (also known as Gardenia augusta) is a fragrant flowering  shrub with attractive shiny green leaves and produces fragrant white summer flowers. It is a widely cultivated garden and houseplant and can be grown in pots or outdoors in the ground as a fragrant hedge. Many varieties are now available – there those that are compact and low-growing, flowers are available in both single and double forms, as well as, plants with variegated and non-variegated leaves.

Commonly known as the cape jasmine or garden gardenia, Gardenia jasminoides is a temperate plant that is native to southern China, Japan, Taiwan and possibly also Sri Lanka. In the tropicals, it is reported to do better at altitudes of 400—1200 m. In Singapore’s hot and humid tropical climate, I noticed it prefers to be grown in a semi-shaded location outdoors. Direct sunshine in the tropics is a little too harsh for this shrub. Heat- and water-stressed plants can shed their leaves or their foliage can sometimes taken on an unhealthy yellow colour. 

In the tropical lowlands, this shrub flowers sporadically with a few blossoms each time. It thrives best in fertile and properly drained soil that is near neutral pH value. Do not let the soil dry out and the root zone should be kept moist at all times. Note that the flowers of this shrub are easily damaged by heavy tropical rains and hence it is better to try grow Gardenia jasminoides in a container which can be easily moved around during the rainy season. Interestingly, this shrub tend to flower during the rainy season and that is not surprising, as that is when the weather is much cooler. Bring a potted flowering specimen under shelter to appreciate the flowers so that the flowers don’t get damaged.

When not in flower, the dark leaves of this plant are glossy and makes an ideal foliage plant. This is achievable only when the plant is grown under semi-shade. There is a variegated version and one can see a colony being grown in HortPark’s Floral Walk. The attractive leaves of this cultivar are splashed with random swirls and patches of yellow. Unforunately, I faced much trouble trying to find and admire the flowers produced by the variegated version Gardenia jasminoides. The white flowers do not contrast well with the variegated folige backdrop. 

Not commonly produced here in Singapore, the fruits of the cape jasmine are used in China and Japan for colouring food yellow. Some extracts are commercially available in Japan and they are used to colour boiled beans, fish eggs, hot cakes, liquor, sweets, ices, noodles, candies and imitation crab. The colouring matter in the fruits contains a glycoside, which is identical with the compound called crocetin found in saffron (Crocus sativus L.). The colouring matter is a type of carotenoid pigment. However, more research is needed to prove the harmless character of the dye. The dye is also used to colour textiles yellow or scarlet.

Do you know that the fragrant flowers yield fragrant essential oils and are used in perfumery? In China, they are used for flavouring tea like the common jasmine (Jasminum sambac). Several parts of the plant are used medicinally. The roots are used against headache, dyspepsia, nervous disorders and fever while the leaves are applied in febrifugous poultices. Besides yielding colouring matter, fruits are also used against jaundice and diseases of kidneys and lungs. The seeds contain starch and an oil which is principally composed of palmatic, oleic and linoleic acid.

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Posted in Flowering plants, Herbs, Houseplants, Tropical ornamentals

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The Great Tilly Gathering @ HortPark

Posted on November 24, 2009 | 1 Comment

Last Sunday, HortPark’s Fruit Room was packed to the brim with gardening enthusiasts who came to listen to Paul T. Isley III’s talk on Tillandsia, a group of plants commonly called ‘airplants’. Paul is President of Rainforest Flora which is the oldest Tillandsia nursery in the USA. We are privileged to have Paul here  in Singapore to give a talk and I must thank my members of the Green Culture Singapore discussion forum who informed me of his visit.

This is his maiden visit to Singapore and many of us felt ‘we have finally met up with the man’. The talk can be likened to be a gathering of sorts as many of the participants of the talk are well-known Tillandsia enthusiasts in Singapore, as I recognised a large handful of them. In his talk, Paul treated his audience to a colourful slideshow of many Rainforest Flora’s Tillandsia hybrids and shared with us the parentage of each one of them as well as their interesting background information.

 

Paul also revealed the news of his latest publication, Tillandsia II, which is a long-awaited and updated sequel to the book that many Tillandsia enthusiasts  grew up with. I remember seeing Paul’s earlier book, Tillandsia I, back in 1990 which was when airplants made their first appearance in Singapore. Participants of the talk also took this opportunity to bring their volume of Tillandsia I for his autograph.

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Posted in Events, Houseplants, Gardening People in Singapore, High-rise Gardening

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