My DIY Home Garden in Malaysia - GBBD Sept 2012

Earlier, I have posted a Youtube video for my GBBD post. Here's my picture lineup for Garden Blogger's Bloom Day - GBBD Sept 2012.

Tell me which do you prefer - Youtube video or blog post of my pictures?

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I didn't have much luck when I first started growing anthuriums.

They weren't growing well and they also didn't bear flowers.

I used to wonder why.

My DIY Home Garden in Malaysia - GBBD July 2012

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Here's my lineup for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - July 2012. First I have Hibiscus rosa-sinensis double flower variety. This vermillion red colour is very striking.

GBBD Oct 2010

Today is Garden Bloggers Bloom Day for October 2010, the time of the month where we get to show off what's blooming in our gardens. So, what are you waiting for? Let's head over to May Dreams Garden and join in the fun with Carol!

It has been raining almost everyday here for the past week or so. My Tunera ulmifolia yellow alder was completely drenched. Just look at those thin, delicate petals.

However, our weather has suddenly turned very hot today.

My pomegranate is ready to be harvested. This time I'll leave it on the tree because I want to see its bottom split open. Dad used to tell me that when a pomegranate fruit splits open it signifiies happiness and a smiling face.

My yellow hibiscus flower has a 'dirty look' because of rain splash.

I was overjoyed to see this tiny chili flower because I have been hoping to get some chilis from these plants which I had grown from some seeds I saved from the chilis I used in my cooking. But so far, no luck yet. Is there such a thing as male chili flowers?

Chili flowers always droop downwards, so I push up this beauty just to get a shot. I think the stamens in the centre look like purple diamonds. I wonder if jewellery designers get some of their inspiration from the chili flower?

Muraya paniculata flowers emit a very strong and nice perfume.

“GBBD Oct 2010”, a copyrighted post, was written for My Nice Garden blog by Autumn Belle @ http://www.mynicegarden.com/ on October 15th, 2010.

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.
.....Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), the only British Prime Minister with a Nobel Prize in Literature.

Sometimes I am amazed at what a weak vine can do. Just look at this Clitoria ternatea (butterfly pea) plant. Without support it can't even stand on its own but within a few months, it had managed to scale to the peak of my Lipstick Palm!

Hypolimnas bolina jacintha

Even butterflies like my butterfly pea plant.

I wonder if anyone knows the name of this butterfly?

The butterfly has been identified as Hypolimnas bolina jacintha aka Blue Moon Butterfly, Common Eggfly.

Caterpillar crawling, ouch! ouch! ouch! ..... This extremely hairy and prickly little fella can move very fast. It is taking a brisk walk going round and round my flower pot. It is also giving me some goose pimples. A few of them have finished up my lavender and blue Angelonia plants.

Angels? Definitely they are not!

 Hopefully, the cuttings I saved from the bare cut branches will sprout some shoots.

At the moment, this is still classified as a UFO (unidentified flowering object) in my garden. I just love its frosty pale green leaves. Hopefully it will flower again in December so that I can pretend that it is snowing here.

This Hibiscus Rosa-sinensis double petaled variety is full of surprises. The unopened buds are yellowish in colour but the blooms are a pale pink.

My Sansevieria trifasciata has started to bloom. I consider this a foliage plant so it makes me very happy when it starts to flower. The flowers have fragrance and last for a few days.

It has many common names which include Mother-in-law's Tongue, Snake Plant and Sharp Tongue. It's Chinese name is hǔwěilán (虎尾兰), meaning tiger's tail orchid. In Malay, it is called, "Pokok Lidah Jin" meaning gennie's tongue.

Because the leaves look like sharp blades, we do not place it inside the home. My late dad had always advised me to keep it outside the house or put it near the gate to ward of evil. He said the leaves resemble a sword that the masters use for ghost-busting and driving away evil spirits and charms. You can say that I have this plant as a fengshui protection. My dad gave it to me.

Recently a neighbour asked me for some leaves which he would make medicinal herbal drinks or soups. Frankly speaking, I have never tried consuming it yet, neither have I ever heard that the leaves can be eaten, so I told him to be careful but he was adamant that it was the correct plant as the leaves have a yellow edge.

This is the result of my second attempt at growing the highlands wild sunflower from seeds given by a friend. My Miniature Sunflowers post link is here. I have followed the advice of my commenters and placed the pot under full sun from germination to blooming stage. I think the solar energy helped a lot even during this period of rainy weather and cloudy days. Here's my sunflower's new vital statistics:

Height = 2 ft (60cm)
Sunflower head diameter = 9 cm, centre = 3 cm
Stems = 0.5 cm thick.

This is an improvement from my first attempt. Now the flowers look more like sunflowers.

This is my Cat Whiskers plant with purple flowers. The white flower variety is easier to grow and more hardy. I am now trying to propagate some of these from stem cuttings.

To participate and/or view what other gardeners have for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - October 2010, please visit Carol at May Dreams Garden, the link is here. Thank you very much to Carol for hosting GBBD!

I am also participating in Fertilizer Friday. To enjoy the season of Thanksgiving, do visit Tootsie here.

For Blooming Friday, this week's theme is "Wild & Beautiful". Hopefully my flowers can fit in. To view more wild and beautiful blooms today, please visit Katarina at Roses & Stuff here. 

I would like to welcome my new follower, Leovi from Spain of Abstract Photos blog to My Nice Garden. Leovi, thank you very much for being my 202nd follower!

TQVM to Andrea for being my first commenter! Hope that your laptop will be up and running smoothly soon! Goodnight and sweet dreams!

Butterfly Pea Clitoria Ternatea

My post today is about Butterfly pea flowers.

Earlier in the day today, I was feeling very brave. So I tried meddling with the HTML code of my blog template. Halfway through, it hanged. When I restarted my computer, I found that I was unable to access my blog! Google has listed my blog as a spam blog and quarantine it. Now I don't know when they will return it back to me. Hah, me a spam blogger? No way! How I wish I have the IT intelligence of a spammer. These people are geniuses. Luckily, luckily, dear sweet Joanne of Joanne's Cottage Garden had thought me to use a test blog to try out these 'stunts' , otherwise if My Nice Garden disappears, I don't know what to do next. I don't even know how to backup my blog. I only know how to backup my template. Please be warned. This HTML code thing is scary stuff.

First, I'd like to dedicated this post and the blue plumbago flowers to Ms Lona of A Hocking Hills' Garden, who was the first commenter of my previous post, Wordless Wednesday - Rangoon Creeper. The plumbago flowers are from my garden and it is grown by yours truly.

Next, I have another bunch of plumbagos for Ms Kiki of Awake With Charm & Spirit. Today, I am a blue inspired blogger, participating in her Blue Essence Invitation.

Botanical name: Clitoria ternatea

Family: Fabaceae

Common name: Butterfly Pea, Asian Pigeonwings, Blue Pea

Origin: tropical equatorial Asia

Malay name: bunga telang

When you look at the shape of the flowers, I'm sure you can guess how the latin name for the genus, 'clitoria' came about.

"Ternatea", the name of the species, comes from Ternate, a location in Indonesia.

The solidary flowers are indigo with a patch of white and light yellow towards the centre.

This perennial climber blooms the whole year through. Propagation is by seeds and cuttings. Growing from seeds, it is expected that the plant can bloom in 6 weeks. This plant need a rich, moist soil with full sun to partial shade. It tends to get leggy quickly, so pinching helps to keep it bushy. When growing from seeds, it is advisable to soak the seeds overnight in water before sowing. Seeds will germinated in 1-2 weeks. Cuttings root easily in moist sand or vermiculite.



This plant can be grown as an ornamental, or trained on an arbor or chain link fence. It also look great on a hanging basket. I am not sure if the guys will get excited looking at the flowers but these flowers are a favourite food for butterflies. This plant is not invasive.

This is the model for today's outdoor photo shoot. This plant was grown by the lady who sells cut fruits at the stall under the tree. Can you see the owner's wooden table ? She is just going to set up her stall this morning. This plant has been grown from seed. She call it the blue flower plant. Actually these 2 plants are growing from a hole in the middle of the roadside concrete pavement. To train this climber, the lady had used a string to tie the branches to the small tree. Now it looks like the butterfly pea plant is hugging the tree.

This is how the vine, flower, seed and ripe seed pod looks like at close-up. It seems that the young seed pods are edible.

In Thailand, butterfly pea extract is used in hair shampoos for the prevention of falling hair, and to make the hair thicker and more shiny.

Owing to the flower's similarity to a female body part, this plant was used traditionally to cure sexual ailments, like infertility, gonorrhea, to control menstrual discharge, as well as an aphrodisiac. (Information obtained from Wikipedia)

In Malaysia, the flowers are used as a food colouring. The flowers are pounded to extract the juice to get the blue colour. It is used in peranakan (Straits-born Chinese/ Baba Nyonya) cooking to make pulut tai-tai or blue glutinous rice cakes. A tai-tai is a chinese word for a wealthy man's wife who does not need to work or earn money but has lots of leisure and money to spend. This dessert is a peranakan wedding specialty. The blue stain comes from the flower. The cakes are usually served with kaya (coconut egg jam). Kaya is a jam or sandwich spread made from coconut milk and eggs, flavoured with pandan leaves and sweetened with sugar. We also apply kaya on toast.

Please click here for the pulut tai-tai and here for kaya recipes from kuali.com

Malay dishes using this flower include kuih tekan (quite similar to pulut tai-tai) and nasi kerabu Kelantan (blue Kelantanese styled rice).

It is also used to make nyonya chang (glutinous rice dumplings). The recipe is here.

In Thailand, it is used to make a sweet syrupy blue drink called nam dok anchan. If you add some lime juice to the blue solution, it will magically turn to purple!

In Burma the flowers are used as food where they are often dipped in batter and fried.

Now, my final blue picture for today. In Malaysia, secondary school girls wear blue uniforms to school. The sky above is quite clear and blue too. Look at the sign board here. Nowadays, school children are so lucky. They even motivate you to go to school. During my time, if we absent ourselves without a valid reason or play truant, we will get a spanking or canning, sometimes both, from the school teacher as well as our parents.

Until then, have a wonderful weekend!

This is my entry for Blooming Friday, 3rd Week of November. My grateful thanks to Katarina at Roses and Stuff for hosting Blooming Friday. To see what others have posted or to participate, click here.

This is also my entry for Fertilizer Friday. My grateful thanks to Tootsie at Tootsie Time for hosting Fertilizer Friday. To see what others have posted or to participate, visit here.

This is also my entry for Today's Flowers #67. My grateful thanks to the TF folks: Santilli, Denise, Pupo and Valkyrien for hosting Today's Flowers. To participate or view other floral displays around the world, click here.

P/S: Update to my post.

1. My blogger friend Ms Andrea, a Horticulturist (Postharvest Physiology) from the Philippines has a similar flower that looks like the double flowering clitoria ternatea. Her post "Flowers With Interesting Names" dated November 18th and the link is here. Can you, my dear readers help her to identify /verify the plant? Thanks a gazillion! She also has a pale purple similar looking flower but it actually has a different botanic name, "Centrosema pubescens".

2. Kanak Hagjer of Terra Farmer has a picture of the double-petaled variety of the butterfly pea in her lates post dated November 26th, "The Blues Don't Get Me Down". Please click here to view the flower.

3. My New Straits Times article about this plant "Flowers to Dye For" dated 19 June 2010 is here.