Community in Bloom Friends Induction Programme

NParks’ Community in Bloom Team organised another CIB Friends Induction programme on 14th Nov at Hortpark. I was invited by the team to share my experience as a volunteer for the past year. It was held early in the morning and I am glad that many had rose early on a Saturday morning for this programme!

The induction programme is organised to new volunteers where friends get to know more about the Community in Bloom Programme and how they can volunteer their time to promote gardening to the public. The event started off with a walkabout around various plots and gardens in Hortpark and it’s a good ice breaker for many of us here. We left out as small groups of strangers but we came back to the function room as a whole group of friends that seemed to know each other for some time!

 

Next, Lily and Maxel, both from the CIB team presented more information about NParks and the CIB friends programme. There were several questions asked and I can see the enthusiasm in our new friends. After the two presentations, I am up next to talk about my experience. I done up a few slides to showcase some of the projects and events I attended and also plants that I had grown in my community garden. I also brought some bean and carnivorous plant seeds for our friends to try growing. The event then concluded with a simple but delicious lunch where we further discussed and talked about our gardening experiences! Thanks Eleanor from CIB team for taking photos of me!

CIB Friends is an initiative which provides individuals opportunities to share their gardening passion and help others. CIB friends can contribute in various ways such as facilitating the setting up community gardens, conduct tours and gardening talks or even promoting gardening during exhibitions. Anyone can be a CIB friend, things you learnt through these activities are rewarding and useful. It’s a good chance for one to reach out to more people and gain more knowledge. I strongly encourage anyone, especially young people to take some time and promote gardening. Don’t worry about your limited gardening knowledge or experience. Just like me, started off with only passion!

Self- Peeling Banana?

Oh yes, it is known as self peeling banana! I came across this banana plant on my recent nursery trip and it’s definitely a pleasant discovery. Musa velutina, also known as the Velvet Pink Banana, bear short and stout looking fruits which are very different from those we had seen in the supermarket.

But why does it peel by itself? A good answer would be to attract birds and other animals to disperse the seeds. Everyone enjoy convenience, isn’t it? This plant has a good advertisement strategy! The flowers and fruits are covered with short hairs which give them the velvety touch.

Many would ask “Are the fruits edible?”. The answer is unknown but probably not as it will not be a good experience as the fruit is filled with black seeds! It is not a tall plant and can be a fast grower, perfect candidate for an interesting community garden!  

Dwarf Pineapples…

Remember the dwarf pineapple i blogged about? Not long ago I visited my aunt’s place and saw the “mother” plant where the pups were passed to me a few months back. I was amazed and delighted to see the plant was flowering again. Not only the mother plant is flowering, even the two pups beside it flowered at the same time! Three flower spikes were arranged in an orderly straight line and bear some reddish colour!

 

 

From my understanding, this plant is grown along the corridor and exposed to only direct morning sun and bright light throughout the day with frequent wind.The leaves are longer and narrower than mine, which yet to flower under my direct afternoon sun and windy condition. My dwarf pineapple plant are greener and have broader leaves as compared to the mother plant.

It’s definitely a pleasant sight to see these unique flowers bloom along your corridor. As the dialect name “ong-lai”, which translate into chinese as 旺来, meaning arrival of prosperity, it’s definitely a good omen for many! Pineapple plants are generally easy to grow and suitable for most growing conditions. They can get fairly big even they are “dwarf” and be careful of their serrated leaves which got my hands painful stings when watering the plant. Ouch!

Pitcher Plants!

It’s been some time since I talked about pitcher plants. Being my main interest in gardening, pitcher plants never fail to attract attention of many people. The talks I conducted were very well received and many had lots of questions to ask about these exotic plants.

 

Pitcher plants are often mistaken as challenging plants to grow. In fact, they are much easier to grow than the usual garden plants! Carnivorous plants such as pitcher plants, do not need any fertilizing or pruning at all. They are mostly slow growers and hardy.

Pitcher plants (Nepenthes) are native to our tropical region, require high humidity and fair amount of sunlight to grow well. Some species can take full sun, but most of them will be happy to be in partial shade. However, they need to grow in nutrient free potting media such as sphagnum moss and perlite.

 

Nepenthes ampullaria is one of my favourite pitcher plant.  The red pitchers (Nepenthes ampullaria ‘Harlequin’) are speckled with purple and green and have a open lid, which resemble small water pots! Nepenthes ampullaria is one of the pitcher plants that can grow a carpet of pitchers on the ground, which is why it is the one of most popular pitcher plants gardeners wanted to grow. They also come in different colours, green with red “lips”, green with “black” lips,green speckled with red, pure red and many more!

I personally prefer red pitchers as they contrast very well with my other green plants. Nepenthes ‘Gardentech’ is one of them, which grow very red pitchers! This particular plant is a hybrid between two hardy species, Nepenthes ventricosa and Nepenthes ampullaria, and was named after the gardening event in Singapore, Gardentech. My plant is still a very young plant and its pitchers are elongated, whereas a fully grown adult plant can develop stout and rectangular looking red pitchers!

                                      

Unopened new Nepenthes ‘Gardentech’ Pitcher              Cute Nepenthes ampullaria

Pitcher plants make very good houseplants and can make your garden look more interesting. Also, these unique plants are also good education materials to show others that plants also eat animals!

My e-Book now available online! Any gardening questions?

I guess many had read an article about me in the Straits Times Life Section publish on 31st October 09. Thanks to all who had emailed or posted to congratulate me, without your support, I will never had opportunities to share my experience with all of you. Many had also emailed me for the eBooks that I have authored and I had uploaded one of the eBooks, “Starting your Gardening Hobby” on my website! This eBook is based on my experience, touch on basic gardening techniques and skills you need for your everyday gardening.

There are no “standard” gardening skills or procedures to follow, my eBook will serve as a basic reference for you to begin your gardening journey. From there, you can come out with your unique gardening skills which suit best for you and your garden. So email me back with your success stories!

Click on the image to download the eBook! 

I had decided to dedicate a weekly post on answering your gardening questions. Every week, I will select two questions from my readers and post my opinions and suggestions for everyone to read. Hopefully everyone here can benefit from these questions! Once we had a good database of questions and answers, I will author another eBook and compiled all the frequently asked questions to share with everyone! So if you have any gardening question, do feel free to email me at DreamNGrowit@gmail.com.

I am now a CIB Ambassador!

I am honoured and pleased to announce that I have been nominated as one of the Community in Bloom (CIB) Ambassadors 2009 by National Parks Board. I received the award from Singapore Prime Minister Mr Lee Hsien Loong at the launch of Clean & Green Singapore 2010 on 30th October 2009.

Five other ambassadors, some are my good friends, contributed to community gardening in their very own community garden and activities. The Community in Bloom Ambassador Award is presented to individuals who have contributed through activities and events to foster the love for gardening to people from all walks. Ambassadors are passionate in gardening and go an extra mile to spread the gardening bug and help others to realise their green fingers.  They contribute time, effort and resources regularly and actively in gardening events.

I was extremely nervous to receive my award and I almost walked away without a photoshoot with Prime Minister Lee! Its definitely a proud moment when I saw my parents, who were there, had tears in their eyes.  The Award trophy is made of lead crystal and with words and my name etched inside it. The trophy weighed almost 3 kilograms and many joked that it is “ a heavy responsibility” of the future work for us!

I am very happy that my efforts and contributions during gardening events and in Green Culture Singapore forum have been recognised. Being the youngest Ambassador, I hope to attract more young people to take up gardening hobby, which can be of any scale and can be done anywhere! I would like to express my sincere thanks to teachers of Tanglin Secondary School and my ex-colleague Ai San for their nominations and all my friends who congratulate me on facebook and here in my blog, NParks and CIB for confeering me this prestigious Award, not forgetting my friends and members of Green Culture Singapore, especially my mentor, also CIB Ambassador 2008, Mr Wilson Wong for his guidance and support over the years!

Harvest time!

Are you thinking about harvesting fruits or veggies? Not this time, I was harvesting the seeds from my carnivorous plants! My small humble pot of sundews (Drosera burmanni & Drosera intermedia) produced lots of seed pods the last few weeks. There would be easily hundreds of seeds I have collected!

Specks of dust or seeds?

Do you wonder how sundew seeds look like? The seeds are literally the size of dust specks! And yes, dust specks! They are black in colour and so tiny that a sneeze from you will send the seeds flying all over the place and cannot be recovered.

Each seed pod can contain 50-80 seeds!                        Two week old seedlings

Carnivorous plants are generally slow growing plants. Their seeds can take 4-6 weeks to germinate and so small that you think these  are green moss! Only after a week or so before they start growing dewy leaves. They will take around 6-9 months to grow big enough to flower.

Pruning Adeniums

In order to induce branching, many gardeners do pruning of their valued Adeniums. Pruning itself intimidates many gardeners as can be a tricky issue where many things can get a bit too complicated to handle. So make sure you get all the details right before you actually start pruning! As many will know, Adeniums flower at the growing rosette of new leaves. Therefore, having more branches would mean more growing tips which will produce more flowers!And also, pruning make the Adeniums look more compact the leafy.

When you start pruning, make sure you use a sterilized scissors or shears. This will ensure that a diseased branch you pruned will spread over to the other plants. Make sure it is sharp too, sharp blades make cleaner cuts that heal faster. Make a straight cut to minimise the exposed area of the branch and at an appropriate height, not too low or it will hurt the plant and not too high which make the plant look very weird.

Depending on the growing conditions, Adenium plant will produce one or more (if you are lucky you can get even four!) new growths. You will see new leaves started to emerged and soon enough, you have a good looking Adenium. Don’t just throw away the cut branches, as they can be rooted to become new plants! However these cut branches will not have the large caudex the seed grown Adeniums have.

Green Culture Singapore 5th Anniversary

The #1 Gardening Forum in Singapore, Green Culture Singapore, celebrated its 5th anniversary in a function room of a condominium. More than 70 members turned up at the event and many brought plants for exchange! Members also brought their home made food for potluck session. Everyone enjoyed the event and I believe many of us had gained more tips and ideas of growing plants!

Below is the video which shows the enthusiasm and support of Green Culture Singapore members:

 

A Beautiful Community Garden!

Today, I was honoured to be invited by the NParks’s Community-in-Bloom team to visit and judge a community garden. When I first reached the garden, I was very amazed to see how beautiful the garden was! There was a huge variety of plants grown in the garden, by the very enthusiastic gardeners in the neighbourhood.

There are more than 50 plots of well maintained plants which made our judging very difficult. Every plot is so well done and I can see a lot of effort were put in to the garden. Some gardeners came out with innovative ideas of putting up bamboo structures to grow their vines in different levels or tiers, reminding me of double-decker beds!

I was also told that some gardeners are maintaining more than one plot and some have up to four plots! As a community gardener myself, I know how difficult it was to keep a small plot of garden well maintained. I am very impressed of the hard work they put in to create this wonderful garden! 

I hope to see more of such community gardens being set up in neighbourhoods all around Singapore and get more people to try out their green fingers!