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!  

Gardentech 2009 Talk “Growing Carnivorous Plants”

Gardentech 2009, an event which exhibits horticultural technologies and garden plants will be held at Hortpark from 14th -18th August, which is a weeks from now. The event will not only showcase gardening technologies and equipments, but it will also a rare chance to get plants from overseas nurseries!

There will be lots of gardening talks held everyday and I am honoured to be invited to talk about carnivorous plants by the Community-in-Bloom staff of NParks. In the talk, I will share the basics of growing carnivorous plants and some gardening tips too.

                         

My 2 ebooks, “Growing Carnivorous Plants” and “Starting your Gardening Hobby” will be available during my talk. The first ebook I launched during my first gardening talk in March was a popular item and I have limited copies for my audience. I will bring along more of my ebooks this time round.

My gardewning talk will be held at the Multi-purpose Hall, Hortpark Visitors’ Centre, on 16th August (Sunday") at 2pm. Do come down early and visit the numerous booths at Gardentech 2009 too! For more information, do visit the Gardentech 2009 official website at: http://www.gardentech.com.sg.

Flowering Sugarcane!!

I was at Hortpark attending Wilson’s Easter gardening talk last Saturday. He brought me to see a flowering Sugarcane plant (Saccharum officinarum)! This was the first time I saw sugarcane flowering and was amazed by the thin inflorescence it put out. The flowers are very similar to many species of grasses, as it belongs to the Poaceae family.

 

 

Like grasses, the inflorescence is put out high up above all its leaves and the tiny flowers opened on the extended flower stalks. The flowers do not have any showy petals and and not very visible. The inflorescence is beige in colour and very eye catching when you can see it sway side to side in the wind!

Carnivorous Plants Talk at Hortpark!

Yesterday, I delivered my first full scale gardening talk on growing carnivorous plants. I was very surprised to see that such a big crowd turn up at Fruit Room despite the gloomy weather! I did not have enough handouts for all and thankfully Shirley from NParks, helped to print more copies for me. Thanks Shirley!

                                            

I was very glad that the audience there that day was a good mix of different ages. Over 70 people were there. It was very heartening to see children taking up gardening as their hobby and this really motivated me a lot. They are enthusiastic and inquisitive, asking me lots of questions and sharing their experiences with me!

Many thanks to my friends, Wilson, Xuan Hong, Uncle Eng Ong, Sandy and Elgin, all from Green Culture Singapore who came down to support me. I was very touched to see my colleagues from my attachment company, Ai San and Alicia with friend Kareen, make time to take photos and attend my talk.

                       

During the talk, I introduced various carnivorous plants which are easy to grow, like the popular Venus Flytrap, beautiful Sundews and Nepenthes.  I have prepared my ebooks to give out as gifts. The audience was amazed and “wowed” at many of these exotic photos taken by Sandy and Cindy.

 

Thanks for everyone’s support and hope to see you again in many subsequent gardening talks in the future!

Office Gardening

Wish everyone a Happy Lunar New Year!! It was a busy new year for me as there were so many relatives to visit! I have to go even when I knock off from my workplace!

I was serving my University industrial attachment in a research company where I met more “green fingers”! I was greeted with GIANT pots of African Violets on my first day of work! The office environment is very conducive for growing these beautiful plants, with big windows and great morning sun. The long hours of air-con brings the temperature down significantly.

                                    

                                                          Small office nursery

I felt so motivated that I brought my own collection of African Violets to the office and bought some new plants too! My colleagues were also very surprised to see an engineering student who is so obsessed with plants and they were very amazed with the wick-watering system I used for my African Violets.

                                                     Tasmanian Sphagnum Moss

Not long ago, I managed to get hold of  live Tasmanian Sphagnum moss, which is one of the most useful plant in gardening. The moss is a good indicator of nutrient fluctuations and humidity provider, therefore it serves as an early-warning system for the plants. Sphagnum moss cannot survive in mineral rich media and they absorb lots of water, making it the best candidate for growing carnivorous plants!

I am currently growing them in various conditions as part of my private research, to see how the moss will react and grow. It is believed that they do best in cool and humid conditions and growing in the office is the best place to carry out my experiments!

Community-in-Bloom Induction

I attended the first Community-in-Bloom Induction programme for CIB Friends at Hortpark. It was held early in the morning and we started the programme with a mass planting at the CIB plot. Participants got to try planting plants into the ground and it was a very good ice-breaker session!

CIB Friends is an initiative launched by NParks for gardeners who go for an extra mile to foster gardening spirit and bringing people together. CIB Friends enable participants to help out and promote gardening during events. CIB friends can also share their experience by giving talks or help others to start a garden.

                                             

After the mass planting, we went to the event room where we were briefed about the upcoming events and how we can contribute as CIB friends. We also have a networking session where we exchange ideas and contacts with like minded gardeners.

It was a very exciting programme and we learnt a lot from one another. Gardening is never just a planting and watering job but more of a friendship bonding and social activity! Those who are interested to become a CIB friend can sign up at NParks CIB website.

A trip to Woon Leng nursery

Before I start my post, I would like to apologize that I havent been posting for the past week! I am currently on Industrial Attachment and the first week was busy.

I managed to find time to make my way down to Woon Leng Nursery, at Jalan Lekar. With my Green Culture Singapore founder, Wilson, we are heading there for our new-found addiction – Hoya!

Hoya is a genus of plants that are tropical climbing and belong to the Apocynaceae. Also commonly known as Wax plant, some Hoyas produce flowers with overpowering fragrance!

 

                                                                         Hoya lacunosa

At Woon Leng nursery, the place was crowded as people came here to purchase the Chinese New Year plants and we headed to the quiet area of Hoyas. Immediately we were greeted with the pleasant fragrance of the Hoya flowers. The flowers are formed in umbels, and some almost spherical shape!

                                                

                                                                       Hoya nummulariodes

Some of the Hoyas with strong fragrance are Hoya nummulariodes and Hoya lacunosa. Hoya nummulariodes can produce more than 50 umbels on a single plant! As we scanned through rows and rows of Hoyas, I finally found a Hoya nummulariodes which was flowering, and indeed bears numerous umbels. Without a second thought, I took it down into my shopping cart!

Hoya lacunosa flowers resemble a local delicacy, the “Tu-tu kueh”. Small disc-shaped flowers are arranged in a uniform manner and give out a very strong fragrance. The plants are not very big but they have the ability to produce several umbels.

                                                      

                                                                             Hoya archboldiana

Another beautiful Hoya we encountered was the Hoya archboldiana. The flowers were big and look like inverted bowls, have pink stripes on white background which resembles the strawberry ripples ice cream! It took us some time for us to track down that very plant which put out the long vine with flowers!

                          Taiwan Raddish                                                    Miniature Apples

Woon Leng nursery have brought in numerous Chinese New Year plants, like the new Taiwan Radish, which is red in colour and believed to bring good luck! There were also miniature apples and they looked delicious!

"Children Only" Garden

Do you know that there is one garden where you just can’t access it if you are more than 12 years old? Situated in the Bukit Timah Core of the Singapore Botanic Garden, Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden is a place “only for kids”. This is the first time I heard of a “only children garden”. But do not fret adults, as long as you bring your children along, you can enter this kiddy garden!

I visited this garden with some of my younger cousins today and the garden is extremely interesting! We are greeted by a large sculpture “Children’s tree” at the entrance to the garden. Once you step into the garden you can see that almost everything are catered for children! Benches, tables and steps are all “miniaturized”, even the toilet bowls become “kid” size!

There are a lot of interesting plants in the garden, vegetables and fruit trees are planted for our younger ones to know where their food come from. Gardening themed playgrounds give the children a chance to try out their green fingers. There is even a maze made up of the “national hedge”, Syzygium Campanulatum!

There is also a suspension bridge and a tree house within the garden, and my cousins were having lots of fun! The garden also included a “storybook” garden, made up of trees creating a tunnel to the other world. Children not only enjoy themselves there, they also learn a lot from the garden. How to water the plants, different types of plants and how photosynthesis works were presented in a very interactive and interesting way!

Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden is a must visit place for the younger ones and if you want to walk to the garden via the Tanglin Core, it might take a way to reach the other end of the Botanic Garden. The alternative and faster access is by Bukit Timah Road, right beside the NUS Bukit Timah Campus.

So remember to bring (or borrow ) children there or else you can’t get to see the amazing plants in the garden!

Singapore Latest Reservoir

On 31st October, Singapore added a new reservoir into her water catchment reserves. The opening of the Marina Barrage was held in the evening with the beautiful Singapore skyline as the background. The place was neatly designed, which resembles the Beijing’s Bird’s Nest oval architecture.

            

The special feature of the barrage building is its green roof. Spiraling from ground level to 3rd level are patches of lush green grass! With water feature in the middle, it is a good place to relax. You also have a breathtaking, full panoramic view of the Singapore city skyline!

I was there during the opening and the launch of Clean & Green Singapore 2008, where my Green Culture Singapore Administrator, Mr Wilson Wong, received the Community-in-Bloom Ambassador Award from PM Lee Hsien Loong. Exhibition of clean energy recycling campaigns was held there by various schools and organisations.

When the Barrage was officially opened, the gates of the barrage opened and water gushed out into the open sea. The view was so majestic but terrifying too! The Marina Barrage is new place to visit and serve as a visitor centre as well as a garden. In the next few years, the new Gardens By the Bay will be right beside the Marina Barrage!

Fruiting Tree!

Remember the post on “Flowering Tree”? The same tree (Syzygium Campanulatum) I blog about recently, started to fruit a few weeks ago! The unripen fruits are conical in shape and green in colour. Only after a few weeks, the fruit then turn red in colour and they look like delicious berries!

After I saw the flowers fade away a few weeks ago, I was rather disappointed as there were no sign of fruiting on the tree. The green ovaries remained small over a few days and I thought they will not grow anymore ad would dry out soon. I was rather surprised to see those ovaries still remain on the tree when I walked past it not long ago. Some of these ovaries grew larger and some start to turn pink!

I was delighted and pulled out my camera to snap photos of these developing fruits! Most of these fruits are red in colour  and rounder in shape when I took the pictures this morning. Some of these fruits have purple specks on it! They certainly look delicious.

I guess these fruits are usually food for birds and their seeds can be propagated when the birds leave their droppings somewhere else. Another thing I notice today is that the tree stop producing new leaves. Young leaves are red and yellow in colour but now the tree is totally green.