Count Your Blessings!

With love and passion, everyone can have a nice garden...Elaine Yim

Count Your Blessings!
Count The Garden By The Flowers, Never By The Leaves That Fall.
Count Your Life With Smiles And Not The Tears That Roll.
..... Author unknown.

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Malaysian Flora USDA Zone 11
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Wednesday, February 15, 2012

My DIY Home Garden in Malaysia - GBBD February 2012

1. Angelonia biflora 'Rose Pink'

During the Lunar New Year in January 2012, I was so busy that I didn't have time to visit nurseries to buy more specialty plants and flowers. I did get hold of some kalanchoes, chrysanthemums and lucky bamboos during my shopping trip in December 2011. Other than that, I had to rely on the performance of those already planted in my DIY garden. Luckily they didn't let me down.

My citrus limes and the little pineapple fruit stayed throughout the 15 days of celebration. The most wonderful was the Phalaenopsis orchid which I featured in my GBBD post in Oct 2011. Well, it bloomed throughout the season too - lasting a total of more than 90 days!




2. Loropetalum chinense var. rubrum 'Burgundy' - Chinese Fringe Flower

There were many blooms on my Chinese Fringe Flower plant. I love their leaves which start a maroon/burgundy colour, then turn to olive green later. The leaves are a glossy and grayish-silver in colour on the underside.

Today is Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day hosted by Carol at May Dreams Garden on the 15th of every month. To participate and/or to view what is blooming in gardens around the world, please visit the link here.

“My DIY Home Garden in Malaysia - February 2012”, a copyrighted post, was written for My Nice Garden blog by Autumn Belle @ http://www.mynicegarden.com/ on February 15th, 2012.

3. Euodia ridleyi - Bucket of Gold

This is my "Bucket of Gold", the auspicious name for Euodia ridleyi, common name: Evodia. This plant is our native plant. It is named in honour of H.N. Ridley, the father of Malaya's rubber industry.

I purchased the plant a few months ago i.e. just before the seasonal price hike. This plant grows wild in the jungles of Southeast Asia. The leaves are 3-pronged, hence no surprise that they are also known as 3-claw golden dragon, 3-claw tiger and even chicken feet.

I love the way their foliage turn a bright yellow and shimmer under the sun, just like a pot of glittering gold.

4. Lagerstromia speciosa - Pokok bungor raya

During the dry season in early January 2012, this Crape Myrtle (Lagerstromia speciosa), a public tree in front of my house has dropped all its leaves. Yeah, this time, I saw the leaves turn a bright yellow, then orange to reddish brown before falling to the ground leaving the tree completely bald. Hence, it looked like "winter or fall" in my place, hehe.

The light green shoots are reappearing after the rain has returned. The tree behind is my neighbour's longan tree.

5. Desert Rose
My Desert Rose is giving me a head of flowers.

6. Common Mormon (Papilio polytes) 
This Common Mormon butterfly loves to perch on my Champaca and Kesidang (bread flower) trees. This butterfly is very shy and difficult to photograph. Maybe it was deep in thought which explains why it is perched upside-down on my clothes line. Oh perhaps, it was admiring its own image being reflected on the mirror-like stainless steel bars. I could only take 1 shot before it flew off.

7. Dendrobium
Whenever the dove orchid blooms, you'll know that there was quite heavy rain a few days ago.

8. Anthurium
My pink anthuriums are blooming continuously and there are new shoots and healthy green foliage after I moved them. They were not doing well in my porch area perhaps due to the heat of the daily sun.

9. Torenia

Cute little pink torenia. Now I don't have to buy torenia plants anymore.
They just appear in my garden, sprouting unexpectedly anywhere, anytime, like magic! 

10. Blue wings Torenia fournieri
This torenia plant is sharing a pot with my purple angelonias.

A tiny bee was busily sucking nectar from the flower when I aimed my camera at close range but alas, the photos were captured without any bees. I guess it was too quick for me. The bee was not meant to be... here!

11. Pink pentas
 I have removed the spent flowers and my pentas has rebloomed.

12. Angelonia biflora 'Purple'
Angelonias are very easy to propagate. After pruning, retain the stems, cut into short lengths and poke into the soil. The mother plant also grow back easily even after some hard prunning. They like a lot of water.

13. Torch Ginger and Vinca
I grow these red-eyed white vincas among my torch ginger (bunga kantan) plant. You can see the tiny dark red flowers on the torch ginger inflorescence on the right. Once in a while, I do see a little sunbird visiting the flowers but they have yet to set seed. Sigh, no seed even after more than 7 years of growing.

14. Red Rose

I am really very happy that this red rose started to bloom on the eve of Valentine's Day. My other roses that are blooming today are the pink one, the miniature red and yellow. I love it even when they wither and the petals fall on the ground.

15. Pink rose.

My son was born today on February 15th, just one day after Valentine's Day.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SON! 

30 comments:

  1. Such a fabulous show of blooms. So many are familiar to me as I grow many of the same plants. I do love those Torch Gingers, and as yet have none in my garden. I think I will have to start looking for some.

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  2. So beautiful flowers ! Greetings from Finland.

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  3. Lovely blooms for you now. Site to behold right now with our weather and not much going on.
    Cher Sunray Gardens

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  4. Beautiful series of flower and butterfly !

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  5. hi. this is my first visit to your blog and i must say those pictures of flowers in your garden are beautiful. i love gardening and over the years hv managed to landscape my 4' x 6' "plot of garden" into something that i am quite proud of. i will be sure to visit your blog again. i live in klang too.

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  6. First of all a big Happy birthday to your son and what a lovely lot of flowers that are out to celebrate with you.

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  7. Your desert rose is one of the loveliest I have seen. I love that deep red and it is quite ruffled too. Nice to see the second angelonia for the evening thriving in a warm climate. I will definitely try my luck with one of these.

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  8. So many pretties in your garden that it is hard to pick a favorite,but I do like that torch ginger.

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  9. My goodness, you have some wonderful blooms, some I've never seen before. What joy to have all that beauty surrounding you.

    FlowerLady

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  10. I'm envious of all your blooms! You always have such an amazing display! Thanks for sharting them with us, you brightened my day today!

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  11. Lovely blooms. That's right. The torenias are hard to keep down. They turn up here and there.

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  12. How do you do it??? Reading your blog bring a smile to my face when I see a flower or a plant from my childhood. I miss Torenia especially those deep purple ones. For the longest time I remembered them from my earliest childhood when I was younger than 9, before I moved to Klang but did not know their name. I am going to naturalize them in my garden like the do in yours!

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  13. aloha,

    what a great collection, thanks for giving us a beautiful tour :)

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  14. Z radością patrzyłam na Twoje piękne kwiaty w ogrodzie. U nas biało, a u Ciebie kolorowo. Pozdrawiam.*** With joy I looked at your beautiful flowers in the garden. We have white and color with you. Yours.

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  15. Wow...stunning, sooo wonderfull flowers,
    it is succeeded a great photo series
    Love Greetings , Karin

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  16. Beautiful!!!! I love the Torenia- a new one for me. Both are so pretty!!! I always think it's so interesting to see things blooming on your blog that we have here as well. But so many we don't!!!!

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  17. Oh my goodness...those are incredible blooms! I don't know which is my favorite--they are all stunning. I'm envious of your zone--what gorgeous flowers you have! Thanks for sharing!
    Happy GBBD!

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  18. Desert roses are beautiful.

    Those big caterpillars hide among the leaves always agree.

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  19. Happy birthday to your son. Your DIY home garden is stunning...the blooms seem to go on and on...wonderful!

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  20. Wow!! Your plants are thriving & blooming happily...you must have super greenthumbs! :) I used to grow Angelonias-pinks & purples, but find that mealy bugs always attack them. That Desert Rose is really lovely!

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  21. Happy Birthday to your son!
    Lovely flowers in your garden! Have a great weekend!

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  22. So wonderful! I totally love that blue Torenia...just stunning!

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  23. Your garden is like a flower show or shop. So many diverse and beautiful specimens. Thanks again for the online tour, I enjoyed it so much.

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  24. Happy birthday to your son! So many beautiful blooms! I love the "Basket of Gold"! Interesting that you adorn it with actual gold. Thanks for sharing all your colorful blossoms!

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  25. Lovely tour of your garden. I especially liked the torenia and desert rose.

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  26. I started planting Angelonias and found that they are quite hardy compared to Pentas & torenias.

    Its good that the hot "oven" season is slowly fading away by the occasional rain.
    Most of my plants suffered the heat and some got terribly burnt.

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  27. I couldn't take my eyes off those pretty flowers! One is prettier than the other. :-)

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  28. Happy b-day to your son! You have all kinds of beautiful things blooming. I always love that torch ginger.

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  29. Bernie, Mini, Cher, CW Wong, Yap, Cathy@Home, Marisa, Donna, Flower Lady, Christine, Keats, Mom on Blog, Noel, Giga, Karin M, Kacky, Julie, Rainfield, Sage Butterfly, Tanntoot, Kitchen Flavours, Scotweberpdx, Solitude Rising, Plant Postings, L. Ambler, James, Asha and Wendy.

    Thank you very much for coming here to visit my garden. So glad to share my happy blooms with you all. So glad it brings a smile to your face and thank you for sharing your ideas, thoughts and gardening experiences with me.

    Yap, Welcome to MNG! I wonder if I have ever met you before in real life, haha.

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  30. What a lovely bloom! I love flowers that bloom all year round.

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