My Home Tropical Garden

When we move to our new house, I really wanted to have a garden of our own. It costs a lot of money to hire someone to do the landscaping. So I decided that I shall learn how to DIY. Now, after 4 years of sweat and labour, trial and error and not to mentioned the long weekends I spent at bookstores and browsing over many many books for ideas on gardening and landscaping, I am finally rewarded with a beautiful garden.

I guess nothing can describe the sense of satisfation and fulfillment you feel whenever the 'babies' grow up, start to blossom and bear fruits. There were many times that I had encountered difficulties trying to nurture a young plant but soon my memories will drift back to those days of young when I used to help grandma and dad in gardening. It didn't occur to me then but those useful and happy moments will be remembered and relived many many times long after they are gone. Their methods are still useful today. I remember how they have taught me about life and living in harmony with nature, recycling, going organic, etc. I can still remember my grandma's voice telling me what to plant, what to pluck, when to water, apply fertilizer... and father's pride and joyful expression whenever he came home with some new plants that he obtained from his gardener friends.

In this garden, I work alone as no one else in my family is interested. I have found solace and inner happiness in tending to my babies whenever time permits. Isn't it wonderful that in this busy city life, one can stop to smell the flowers, listen to the birds singing, enjoy the beauty of colourful butterflies, bugs and bees. Its really a whole new world out there in my DIY GARDEN!

These marigolds are planted from seeds purchased from the hypermarkets. It is so easy. Just sprinkle the seeds on to the soil and it will grow. Marigolds really loved the bright sun and they smell nice too.

I bought this pair of porcelain ducks at a bargain price of 'buy one free one' during a Chinese New Year Sale from one of the pottery shops along the highway road that leads to the Sungai Buloh nurseries.

The grass is actually pearl grass or cow grass. I find this grass very easy to grow, I mean practically not much maintenance except that you need to water it twice a day and theres not much weeds to pull. One thing, I learnt it the hard way when I tried to apply fertilizer on my beautiful juicy grass. I used to dissolve the urea in water before applying it to the grass and it was okay. So I became more adventurous and experimented with those green chemical fertilizer granules that people used to promote vegetative growth on plants. I sprinkled these granules directly onto the grass and follow through with some watering. I expected the grass to turn very green soon but guess what happened the next day? There were yellow patches everywhere and soon these patches dried up and became dead grass! Luckily a neighbour's grandmother who was visiting came over to my garden for a chit-chat and when she saw my grass, she adviced me to 'letak sikit-sikit saja, tak boleh banyak-banyak'. Nowadays, I apply chicken organic fertilizer and all is well with my grass. However, I have to bear with some faint fowl smell of chicken droppings immediately after applying, especially when there is a breeze blowing.