FINALLY! I have reached my 1 millionth page views. Nothing to shout about. Many have done that and been there but for me, this is my "first", hehe. It was a lot of hard work since the day I started blogging back in Jun 2009. It's going to be 5 years of garden blogging soon. I guess this is a passion which has not died down despite the many ups and downs that I have experienced and sometimes I was so close to calling it quits. But then again, I guess I am "Once a gardener, always a gardener", like the famous quote:
"The love of gardening is a seed
once sown that never dies"
..... Gertrude Jeykll
What have I done to my garden?
Well, I'm a DIY gardener who love native plants of Malaysia and Southeast Asia. This year my interest and challenge is in "Frugal Gardening" . In my country, prices of so many things has shot up, so I'm going to learn to make do with what I have and tone down on my spending. There are quite a number of plants given by my gardener friends in the form of cuttings, rootings and seeds from plant exchanges and meet-ups, so I am actually quite satisfied with what I have now. I'm going to improve on my plant propagation skills. I'd also be looking at growing plants from kitchen discards.
I plant gingers like torch ginger, galangal, turmeric and common ginger plants and treat them like ornamental plants. I grow pineapple plants from the crown of store bought fruits. I also plant herbs like cat whiskers (Orthosiphon aristatus), lemon balm, pegaga (Centella asiatica), hempedu bumi (Andrographis paniculata). They grow like weeds in my garden but these weeds are edible and have medicinal values. Native plants are low maintenance plants, perfectly suited to my busy schedule.
The ixora plants attracts butterflies to my garden while my favourite little sunbirds love the common Hibiscus rosa-sinensis (bunga raya). If their young are born on my citrus plants, I'll give them a home, raise them and release them as the lovely butterflies that they are meant to be. Moth love to perge on my bamboo tree. Frogs, toads, spiders, lizards and dragon flies help me take care of the dreaded mozzies. Flies and ants? Well, they gotta be careful of my carnivorous Monkey Cup (nepenthes) plant. Tailor birds can sew a nest with only 2 hydrangea leaves while other birds build their nests on my Lipstick palm trees (Crytostachys renda) the whole year round. Besides the usual sparrows, mynas and sunbirds, magpies also come here to 'play' in my garden. So, can you imagine how nice it feels to wake up to the sound of birds twitting, chirping and singing?
My cattleya orchid last bloomed in December 2011. There were no flowers for 2 years from 2012 and 2013. So it was a pleasant surprise for me when there it bloomed during Chinese New Year from Jan 31st 2014 (first day) to Feb 8th (9th day). There were only 2 flowers but how wonderful!
“My Feb 2014 DIY Garden in Malaysia and My First Million Page Views, a copyrighted post, was written for My Nice Garden blog by Autumn Belle @ http://www.mynicegarden.com/ on February 18th, 2014.
Does this flower look like Mickey Mouse?
It was planted from seed collected from a roadside plant in January 2011. It bloomed for the first time in July 2013 but there were no seeds. This time, it bloomed again in January 2014 and now I have seeds.
To my fellow gardener bloggers and blog visitors, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
