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!

Video Blog #3: Wick Watering System

Many members from the Green Culture Singapore forum use the wick watering system for their plants. It is a hassle free, easy to make system which eliminates the need for regular watering, which is very suitable for busy gardeners in the office or home.

In this video, I will share with you the steps of building your own wick watering system.

 

Video Blog #2: Propagating your Rosemary Plant

In this 2nd episode, I will share how to propagate rosemary plant by stem cuttings. There are various ways to do stem cuttings and the way I shown here has been very successful for me.

 

Rosemary plant is an easy to grow herb. As long as the soil is draining and fertile, it will grow very well in various growing environments. Hope you enjoy this video blogs. More to come!!

My First Video Blog

I have uploaded the first episode of my video blog! The first video is still a trial and pending improvements. It is filmed in my newly set up garden in my alma mater, Tanglin Secondary School. The main theme for this community garden is Herbs and Spices. These plants are educational and some never seen before by the students.

 

 

 

More video blogs will come and I hope it will help in your understanding and promote interest in gardening. Enjoy your gardening!!

Dendrobium Orchids

It seems like the flowering season of orchids has arrived! Two of my Dendrobium Orchids are putting out numerous flower spikes, turning my garden from a lush green setting to a colourful and vibrant garden! Both are hybrids and available at many nurseries around Singapore.

 Dendrobium hybrid with “antelope” flowers

Dendrobiums orchids are much easier to grow than their cousins, as they are more hardy and less fussy about their growing environment. Being epiphytic in nature, there is no need to worry about potting media! They typically enjoy lots of sunlight, although some may develop “burn” spots if introduced suddenly to high amount of light.

Flower spikes emerge from the pseudobulbs, usually between or at the sides of the leaves. Flowers that around 2 week to open and they will last for another 4 to 6 weeks.

Dwarf Pineapple

Ananas nanus, commonly known as Dwarf Pineapple, can be an interesting plant to grow. Gardeners grow them for their flowers, which resemble  “mini” version of pineapples! I got mine as a baby pup from my Aunt’s flowering plant and it has been growing very well. I have put up a photo of this very plant in my earlier post. See how big it has grown!

 

Being in the same family of Bromeliads, they have rosettes of very stiff leaves with sharp edges, and therefore not suitable to grow beside a pathway. They are best grown under full sun and still do very well in bright light with occasional sun.

                      new pup!                                           New leaves in rossette arrangement

They produce offshoots, which emerge from the base, and these shoots can be separated to form new plants. Just like any other bromeliads, the plant will die away slowly after flowering. But in most cases, they have already produced many pups which are soon flowering!