About Me - Accolades

Pleasure is the flower that passes;

remembrance, the lasting perfume.

 ~Jean de Boufflers

My grateful thanks to Mr Stuart Robinson for creating this wonderful Blotanical community of Garden Bloggers around the world, and

Thank you very much to all Blotanists worldwide who have voted for me.

The Blotanical 2009 Awards:

I joined blotanical and started blogging in June 2009.
In Sept 2009, My Nice Garden was voted:

2nd Best Asian Blog

4th Best Commenter

5th Best Native Plants Blog

MY CHEST OF CYBER TREASURES

The following are prized possessions given at a time when I was a 'newbie blotanist' by my blogger friends from Blotanical which I will treasure and cherish for a long time. It is not the trophies that I wish to collect but the sincere gestures that inspires me most.

On 14th August 2009, Jessica of The Magical Mundane from Michigan, United States has passed along a Meme Award to My Nice Garden which is my first ever award. My grateful thanks to Jessica for giving this award to me. It is indeed very much appreciated and a great honour to me.

"Autumn Bell at My Nice Garden, located in Malaysia. Another spectacular blog that focuses on garden blooms but still adds in highlights of the region. Another tour guide in training" ..... Jessica

I have received this Honest Scrap Award from fellow Blotanist James Missier of Garden Chronicles on October 30, 2009. Thank you very much to James for this award and I am indeed very grateful to him for his encouragement, honest and sincere support of My Nice Garden.

"Its about her urban gardening adventures and personal stories. I often enjoy all the garden stories and the native plants she discovers and write about"..... James

1. On 22 Nov 09, My Nice Garden (MNG) has received a second Honest Scrap Award from Babara_elaine of Gardening in Mannheim, Germany. Her post is titled, "Proud to be an Honest Scrap. "

"Autumn Belle at My Nice Garden. Another blog I've become familiar with through Blotanical, a website where you can find all of these blogs and hundreds more, united by a common love of gardening"..... Babara Elaine 


2. On 23 Nov 09, MNG received a Best Blog Award from LeSan of Blue Gate Gardens. Her post is titled, "The Red Carpet Needs Shampooing".

"My Nice Garden by Autumn Belle is as lovely as she is and a pleasure to visit. She delights me with flowers that are wonderfully exotic to this Northwestern American. She shows me a world I have never seen and I would love to have her as my tour guide if I was ever fortunate enough to travel to her corner of the world ".....LeSan


3. On 27 Nov 09, MNG received a Best Blog Award from Wendy of Greenish Thumb. Her post is titled, "....... why someone would consider this blog "best".

"Autumn Belle (My Nice Garden) in Malaysia, is such an interesting person who will occasionally share cultural aspects that are sometimes very different, but sometimes remotely similar to my own".....Wendy

I would like to thank Babara, LeSan and Wendy for having me in mind when giving out the awards. It feels great to be appreciated.

My Press Articles

Thanks to the wonderful opportunity, I am now a guest columnist and writing fortnightly for News Straits Times Press Berhad's Life & Times Section, Garden Column, Saturday Edition. This was with effect from 12 March 2010. It would have made my parents proud for The New Straits Times was their favourite daily newspaper.

My Nice Garden was mentioned in the February 2011 Home & Decor Magazine, Malaysia edition.

In 2012, June was my anniversary month, so I am immensely thrilled to receive the above award. It is so nice to about other bloggers' views about me!

1. Thank you very much to James Missier of Garden Chronicles for giving me this award on June 15th, 2012. His post is here. James is an empath and plant rescuer who loves to inspire others and enjoys singing. He says,

"Autumn Belle from My Nice Garden. She is so rich with her passion with flowers and plants.She also blogs in My Garden Directory, Klang - Malaysia Daily Photo and My nice flowers. (Wow! that's Versatile".

2. Thank you very much to Aaron of Aaron's Gadening Blog for giving me this award on June 16th, 2012.

"Autumn Belle from My Nice Garden. She's an extremely versatile gardener, and her blog is very entertaining to read. She's very passionate in her hobby of gardening."

3. Thank you very much to Adam of Growing Paradise for giving me this award on June 17th, 2012. His post is here. Adam who speaks Cuban Spanish and Cantonese, cooks, gardens and love nature, cats and living in the tropics says,

"Nice garden - a beautifully-done blog about gardening in Malaysia. The author is a lot like me in that she finds it hard to not plant what others don't want!"

4. Lynn of Lynns Garden, thank you very much for giving me the "One Lovely Blog" award for garden blogs. I am very honored! - 29 July 2012.

5. Malar of My Little Garden, thank you very much for the Versatile Blogger Award. I am very honoured!

Malar says, "Autumn Belle at http://www.mynicegarden.com - If you want to know more about plants, visit her blog! It's so informative!" - 24 July 2012. 5. The Liebster Award and Beautiful Blogger Award.

 6. I would like to thank Ash and Stiletto for the following awards:
(a) Ash of Houris In The Garden blog (Liebster Blog post) and (Beautiful Blogger post).
(b) Stiletto of STileTTo blog (Beautiful Blogger post).

"...Your blogs are a treasure trove of information. Recently I discover that it is so easy to verify plant ID through your other blog, The Plant Finder. I have high regards to you as the sifu."

Stilleto, thank you very much for these inspiring words!

About Me - My Cameras

IN THE EARLY YEARS - We don't have a camera!

I'm the one sitting on the left of this dragon boat during our first family holiday at Batu Ferringhi Beach, Penang, Malaysia. There are some fishing boats and fishermen behind us. Dad paid a photographer money to take our pictures. We then had to wait a few weeks for the photos to be developed in a dark room and then mailed to us. I wore a bright red dress and the boat was also very colourful but technology in those days could only manage a black and white.

Today I salute this year 2010's Nobel Prize for Physics winners, Mr Willard S. Boyle and Mr George E. Smith for inventing the charge-coupled device (CCD) which forms the basis of the digital camera's electronic eye and Mr Charles K. Kao for the fibre technology. With these technological advancements in digital photography and the www internet connectivity, life has become so much more colourful, brighter and global.

 Penang or The Pearl of the Orient has remained until today one of my favourite holiday destinations. It is a beautiful island.

My first digital camera is an Olympus C-300 Zoom which I purchased on 18 Dec 2002 for RM 1,350.00. This is my biggest investment todate. It is very reliable, giving me sharp images and it lasted until now. The only problem with age is that whenever I tilt the camera, it shuts down. This camera which was unveiled on 8 May 2002 is an archived item now.

Specifications: 3mp, 2.8X optical zoom., uses 4 AA batteries

This camera takes clearer pictures than the Olympus FE-45 and FE-4000,12mp compact.

I used this Olympus FE-45 for 1 round of about 295 photos in September 2009. I am not satisfied with the pictures quality and I find that using 2 AA batteries to be very inconvenient since the battery life is very short. I upgraded to the model below within 7 days and paid the difference.

Money Invested: RM 499.00

Specifications: 10mp, 3X optical zoom, 2.5" LCD display, 2 AA batteries

With effect from October 2009, I am using this entry level point and shoot camera, Olympus FE-4000 digital camera for my photo shoots. A micro SD card of 2 + 2 GB storage comes with the camera. Each card can accommodate up to 300 photos. This camera was launched on 27 July 2009 and available in September 2009. I am very satisfied with the macro shots but the scenery shots are not up to my expectations and as for the night scenes, I rate it NG = Not Good!

Money invested = RM 599.00

Specifications: 12mp, 4X optical zoom, 26mm wide angle, 2.7 LCD display, Lithium Ion battery Li-42B

Exactly 1 year and about 10,000 pictures after purchase, my camera started to shows signs of wearing off.

With effect from 23rd October 2010, I shall be using the Casio Exilim EX-A16, another entry level point and shoot digital camera. It comes with a 4GB SD card. This model was launched on 20 Sep 2010.

Money invested = RM 500.00

Specifications: 12mp, 3X optical zoom, 4X digital zoom, Lithium Ion batteries (NP-80)



I have since change to a Panasonic Lumix DMC FH-1. The offer price of this Lumix DMC FH-1 camera in Malaysia now is RM 599.00

Reason: It is the same 12 mp with intelligence auto (iAuto) mode and stabilizer but the colours are more vibrant. The macro shots are clearer and can be taken at a nearer distance. The wide angle (28mm) is larger, zoom better (5X optical) and clearer. It has HD movie recording feature and uses Leica (German technology) lens, which My Dear has high regards for. The rechargeable Li-Ion battery can last about 200 photos. I first saw a higher end Panasonic Lumix FZ-100 camera that I like from Diana of Elephant Eye. Then I was very encourage with positive feedback by commenters of my previous post, e.g. Bom of Plant Chaser blog, my daughter and also a few anonymous blog readers who wrote to me.

My next target will be the Canon Powershot S95 or S90, a high performance compact camera. The Canon S90 price has dropped to about RM 1,200 with FOC extra battery and comes with 8G memory card, waranty 1+2 years (until 31 Oct 10) due to introduction of new model S95 at RM 1,500 but it has exceeded my current budget.

About Me - Part 1

My real name is Elaine Yim.

I'm a DIY gardener living in the city in the tropics. I come from a family of avid gardeners.

Life at the temple
I had a happy childhood growing up in a small town in Perak where my free time after school was spent helping my grandmother pottering around the compound of our village home or the temple grounds when she was the caretaker. We reared free range chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys for our own consumption. We had dogs; "Lucky", "Wong", "Lassie", "Spunky" and "Kopi" to help guard the house and cats; "Spots" and "Tiger", "Tan Ngan Chai (One-eyed), "Short Tail", "Fatso" to keep the rats population in check. All of them were strays or newborn giveaways adopted during different time periods of course. Sometimes even tortoises (turtles) and pigeons wander into our kitchen but we didn't slaughter them to make delicacies and herbal soups! You see, some people believe that "fong sang" or releasing animals in captivity was good for the soul, hence tortoises, pigeons and other types of tweety birds were released during birthdays and festivals at temples. Whenever there was a heavy downpour, the water from the pond nearby would overflow and fishes would be washed off to the drains that flow into the temple grounds. My siblings and I would be happily fishing - i.e. scooping fishes; mainly fighting fish, sometimes snakeheads (ikan haruan) or Clarias batrachus (ikan keli). We liked to rear the fighting fish in used glass jars.

My grandma was an avid gardener. She never went to school but she was already well equipped with much of the necessary living skills when she married my grandpa at the age of 16(?). Her specialty was ornamentals like bougainvilleas and dahlias. Whenever there was an important event in town, e.g. a singing competition or fund raising, my grandma's colourful and blooming, potted bougainvilleas would be used to adorn the stage and venue.

Life in our home, then,
My father was an orchid enthusiast and loved the challenge of taking part in orchid competitions. We were very proud of his gorgeous orchids and most of my evenings were spent watching him painstakingly tending to his prized orchid collection. Friends and visitors from far and near came to our house to view his flowering orchids.

We also had a big compound around our house where we grew fruit trees like jackfruit, custard apple, guava, papaya, rambutan and mango. Believe me, yes! we had a mini 'farm' and an 'orchard' within our house compound. We composted the dead leaves, collected rain water and recycle our rinsing water for the plants. Excess rice, vegetables and cooked dishes were shared with our chickens, ducks, turkeys, dogs and cats. Dad's idea was to save cost but now we know that he was already helping to reduce our carbon footprint!

Mom was a great cook. She grew aloe vera, tapioca, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, pandan, chili, lemon grass and the curry leaf plant. With so many fresh ingredients at hand, Ah Ma was never short of supplies for her beauty regimes and culinary adventures.

This is how I learnt most of my gardening, cooking and home living skills.

And now,
Currently, I have a small garden plot where I try out many different types of plants, vegetables, fruits and flowers. My references are from gardening books, magazines, TV, public gardens and the internet. I also regularly visit The Secret Garden on the rooftop of 1-Utama which to me is like a 3-in-1 mini encyclopedia, self-learning institution cum showchase of live flowering and foliage plants. I also visit MPH Bookstore to update myself on the latest information. I am actually a Bookworm who loves Gardening.

However, I do strongly believe that what matters most is the personal, hands-on experience gained through the years of working on the soil. Each garden plot has its own unique micro-climate and hence requirements pertaining to sunlight, shade, soil, temperature and water, therefore we have to adapt ourselves in order to succeed.