Saturday, September 5, 2009

Nestled in the heart of Kuala Lumpur's Lake Garden is the Kuala Lumpur Hibiscus Garden. I have heard of it for quite sometime but only recently did I visited it.

Our visit was on a weekday, thus there was no entrance fee charged. The entrance fee is only RM1 on weekend. At the same time, we found very few visitors at the garden and we were like having the whole garden to ourselves!

Seen here is the Hibiscus Fountain and the building in the background is the Garden Gallery. There is an exhibition gallery and during our visit it featured award-winning photographs from a contest that was recently held.

Hibiscus Rosa-sinensis, the Queen of Tropical flowers is Malaysia's National flower, locally known as Bunga Raya. It is also known as shoe flower. It belongs to the cotton family Malvaceae and consists of 300 species. It is a shrub that can grow to a height of 3 to 5 meters. Its flower is among the world's largest and most beautiful bloom growing to 25cm in diameter. The flowers are very colourful and come in various sizes, shapes and forms.


At the Hibiscus Species Collection section of the garden, we saw hibiscus that are grown as 'single planting' ~ like a tree. Many a time our local hibiscus are grown in the form of hedge or border shrubs or screen. The 'single planting' hibiscus are rather tall, as can be seen in the photo below. I noticed that our local council, MPSJ, has recently started landscaping the dividers on our streets with such hibiscus.

Hibiscus can be planted from seeds or propagated vegetatively by stem cutting and marcot (aerial rooting).

An unusual pink hibiscus

A coral-coloured hibiscus

We saw some monkeys busy plucking fruits from a tree. When we were kids, we used to have this tree behind my parents home in Melaka. We simply called it 'cherry tree' as the fruits look like little red cherries. Birds love the fruits. Would anyone be able to tell me what is the right name for this tree?

Below is my best monkey shot so far!! This little fella just stared right into my lens and turned me into a happy photographer. I had a great time taking his shots. Oddly, the monkeys over here aren't afraid of humans at all! They were chasing and pulling each other, totally disregard our presence.

An uncommon white hibiscus.


I like this vibrant orange-coloured flowers that are climbing over the pergola. They are so attractive. Again, I don't know the name of it.




A huge hybrid hibiscus in white and pink. It was bigger than my palm.


Golden shower orchids hanging from the top of the pergola


Tumbergia Bengal hanging from the pergola







Beautiful structures in the Hibiscus Garden





Entrance to the Garden Gallery



Interestingly, I learnt from the gallery that hibiscus floral plan is always five. Thus, every hibiscus comes with 5 petals, 5 stigmatic lobes, a 5-celled ovary, 5 teeth each on the calyx and the epicalyx. However, multiple petals forms also exist.

6 comments:

islandgal246 said...

I am in awe of your gardens in Malaysia. This a very beautiful and interesting post.Thank you for sharing it.

FJL said...

I like the pink and white hibiscus. Wish I can visit it one day.

Muhammad khabbab said...

what a beautiful garden it is. and the variety of hibiscus flowers just awesome. i also liked the way thunbergia was hanging.

Your monkey shot was right spot on. thanks for sharing this wonderful garden with us

James David said...

Hi, just browsed the blotanical and found your lovely blog.
Really enjoy your write up.

The red flower plant is known as Bauhinia kockiana (Kock’s Bauhinia, Red Trailing Bauhinia)

But not sure about the cherry tree friut name.

Blur Ting said...

You take beautiful photos! Yes, that is a Bauhinia kockiana. I used to grow this in my garden. They take forever to grow but when they mature, they're just awesome.

ibo said...

beautiful garden. I'm planing to visit it when i'm KL.

Very nice post & pics.. Great blog.


-Ibrahim

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