Happy Dong Zi

It has been a long while since I posted on my blog. As it is Winter Solstice (Dong Zi) celebration today, I would like to take the opportunity to wish everyone Happy Dong Zi. May you have a joyous reunion with family & friends. My eldest sister has made a big pot of Lemon Grass & Sweet Potatoes 'Tang Yuan' (dumplings) that my nieces & nephews rolled out last night. This is a tradition whereby Chinese family members from near & far would return home and gather to make this round glutinous rice dumplings. The word round is 'yuan' in Mandarin & the word sounds like reunion (which is also 'yuan'). It is very similar to Thanksgiving celebration. The photo above shows a bowl of Tang Yuan. I have placed it in front of a pot of my mom's blossoming red balsam plants. Wish all of you have a wonderful gathering on Dong Zi day, just like me.

 

Bunga Kerak Nasi

Sweet fragrance of Bunga Kerak Nasi permeates my backyard now.  My plant now has 6 clusters of blooms. This is my first time having so many blooms at one time.

We didn't transfer our Bunga Kerak Nasi from our old place when we moved 2 years ago.  I craved to grow Bunga Kerak Nasi, commonly used in making 'bunga rampai' (potpourri) in my hometown, Melaka.  Eventually I got us another pot of plant from a nursery in Sg. Buluh.

The plant grows better on the ground than in a pot. I trimmed it often to control it from creeping messily.  I am not certain if the regular trimming actually helped to make the plant bloom profusely.  But I am very happy looking at those blooms and enjoying the perfume fragrance in my backyard.

Happy Earth Day 2012

Today I had a delightful time visiting a nursery in Sg. Buluh with some of my neighbourhood friends. It was always nice to visit nurseries and I grabbed lots of photos of beautiful blooms and foliar plants there.  Here is a compilation of some of the beautiful shots. Let's hope this beautiful plants will remind us to care and love our nature well so that we can continue to enjoy them and so can our future generations!  Happy Earth Day, everyone!

Under the Peach Blooms

I was under the spell of the peach blossoms!  They were in bloom!! A glorious display of pink blooms!!  Under the thousands of blooms, I became heady!  Ha ha...heady with the festive spirit that these peach blossoms bring.  The peach blossoms were part of the Pavillion Mall's Chinese New Year decoration!  Let us walk together and fall under the spell of these beautiful blooms!!

In case you wonder, these peach blossoms are artificial flowers.  Our weather in Malaysia is too warm to grow peach trees. Isn't it great that we can get the trees to bloom beautifully in time for the Chinese New Year celebration! Ha ha ha....

Kalanchoe, the Preference

A friend posted these words on his Facebook and I think it is an appropriate quote for gardening enthusiasts like us:

A friendship can weather most things and thrive in thin soil;
but it needs a little mulch of letters and phone calls and small, silly presents
every so often - just to save it from drying out completely.

-Pam Brown-

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Continuing my posting of decorative plants for Chinese New Year, here is a combination of flowering red Kalanchoe and foliage plants in various green and patterns making this attractive spot for shoppers to feast their eyes as they rush through the festive shopping.

I notice that Kalanchoe is often used in Chinese New Year decorations as its bright, colourful blooms that come in clusters are very attractive. Now I wish I have some Kalanchoe in my garden.

What are the plants in your garden that you usually use to decorate your home during festive season?

If you are familiar with the foliage plants in the photos above, please leave me a message. If I am not mistaken, the one right in the centre is the Dumb Cane. I do not know the name of the plants on both sides of the Kalanchoe. Please enlighten me if you do. Thanks ahead!

Ideas for Chinese New Year Decorations

It's time of the year where many of us are busy cleaning up and decorating our houses in preparation for Chinese New Year (CNY) celebration that falls on 23rd January. While visiting the mall, I find many inspirations from the decors that outlets in the mall created in conjunction of this festive season.

I found some very interesting designs in this bubble tea shop. The combination of plants and some CNY decorations such as red ribbons, peach blossoms & fire crackers are simple, yet they produced very fascinating decorativepieces that we can also do with simple plants that we can easily find. A combination of different types of Dracaena plants with Pussy Pillow and Lime are used here. Usage of auspicious Chinese words that carry the meaning of Prosperity (福）, Abundance (满) and Spring (春) can also be seen here. Chinese believes that these auspicious words will attract positive energy that these words carry, similar to the Law of Attraction's principles that Rhonda Bryne wrote in her book, The Secret that 'like attracts like'. Probably Rhonda and all the other writers on Law of Attraction gained this wisdom from this Chinese New Year practice! Ha ha ha...who knows!

Happy New Year 2012!

2012 is knocking on the door.

Remember:
Life is short, break the rules,
Forgive quickly, love truly,
laugh uncontrollably, and
never regret anything that made you smile. 8-)

Happy New Year everyone!

Pink Delights

Pink represents sweetness, playfulness & gladness.
Pink flower conveys youth, innocence & joy.
The charm of pink flowers will always turn
the occasion of life into a memorable moment.

Here are the pink blooms gracing my garden now
~ Hydrangea, Adenium & Periwinkle.

Yellow Warmth

It's sunny yellow, bright and warm! This is the colour that is gracing my garden now!

Ixora

Gardenia Pfordii - Beautiful & Fragrant Yellow Flowers

Colourful Portulaca

It has been very hot recently. Despite rain in other parts of Klang Valley, Subang Jaya remains dry and hot! I have to check on my Hydrangea daily upon returning home as it is the most susceptible to the scorching afternoon heat.

Recently I bought 5 packs of Portulaca from Danny's stall at Amcorp Mall's Sunday Flea Market. The plants came in various colour. I decided to put all 5 packs in one pot. They turned out lovely when they all bloom at the same time. And the Portulaca plants have bigger blooms too.

Here is my pot of Portulaca:


Beautiful Salmon Pink colour.


A fuschia colour bloom.


A white bloom.


An orange bloom.


A peach pink bloom.


An incidental Cockscomb plant that grew from seeds of my earlier Cockscomb plant that has since RIP.

Adventure at Gasing Hill

On Sundays, my friends and I would try to spend our mornings hiking at Bukit Gasing (Gasing Hill) in Petaling Jaya. It is a small hilly forest smacked in the middle of a suburb. It's nice to be able to enjoy a natural surrounding without having to drive a long distance.

Recently, I led 2 friends for a hike there. We took an unusual trail and ended up an an eroded part of the hill. We got lost and found our way out. But it was the wrong way out. We ended up in Kerinchi Hill (the other side of the Gasing Hill) and had to hike for another 45 minutes before we managed to get back to where we parked our car. I found it being quite a nice adventure even though one of my friends got grumpy and was complaining all the time when she found out that we were lost. Ha ha....it makes me realized that different people deals with problem differently. I was glad that I was able to see it as an opportunity to find the trail that lead to Kerinchi Hill.

While trying to find out way out, we managed to stop to take photos of the unusual, beautiful flowers we saw along the way. All 3 of us are gardening enthusiasts so it was really fun that we were also enjoying the beautiful wild plants we saw. We couldn't resist taking out our mobile phones and snapped away.

At the entrance of Gasing Hill. It says on the arch that this is an educational forest.


Signages at the entrance to this forest reserve

At the entrance of Gasing Hill Forest Reserve, there are various beautiful flowers and foliages planted by volunteers. These are some of the plants we saw.


I don't know the name of this plant. But the bright-colored, big blooms easily drew attention of hikers.




Fuschia Zinnias are aplenty too.


This is another bright colour plant that I like. Would anyone know the name of it?


Mother-in-law Tongues lining the trail at the entrance, welcoming visitors to Gasing Hill.





The eroded part of the hill that we came across. We had to cross this section of the hill to get to the other side.


My friend (in orange coloured attire) was crossing the eroded hill.


This photo shows the other side of the forest where we came from before crossing the eroded hill.


Flame of the Forest on the branch


Flame of the forest


More Flame of the Forest blooms


I don't know the name of this violet bloom but I find it attractive.


Nice white wild flowers form a carpet in this section.


A ball of wild, fluffy pink.


I found out from an article on Hijjas Kasturi's famed garden named, Rimbun Dahan (The Laden Bough), that this is the yellow bloom of the Deillenia (Simpoh).






The yellow Simpoh bloom will turn deep pink as it matures. The seeds within ripen and become food for insects (as seen here, the ants) and birds. The leaf of Simpoh is traditionally used to wrap food, and you can still find tempeh (fermented soya bean) sold wrapped in daun simpoh.

This is when all the seeds have dropped off.

All in all, it has been an educational outing for us ~ in terms of learning the local wild and cultivated fauna of flora and also how to cope in the forest when we got lost! Looking back, I had a good time during this outing!