gejala pokok | symptomatic trees

27 May: Found out that mukaketupat’s b. liniflora germinated. Sulked for at least an hour.

28 May: Convinced that actually I’m a really bad gardener, and all attempts at germinating seeds and cultivating plants thus far has been a mixture of pure luck and failure. Feelings of doom and gloom compounded with helpful link from the garden web forum on how my sage seedlings are supposed to look like, instead of how they look like now

how they are supposed to look like

how they actually look like now

*sigh*

29 May: Sinking into depression. Quietly imagining how it would feel like to uproot and kill all existing cultivating projects.

30 May: Decided to fuck it and try again. Chopped up spanking new high quality sphagnum moss all the way from New Zealand. Soaked it in RO water. Filled clean plastic pot 1 inch to the top with spanking new branded peat moss (Horti). Gently layered top with sphagnum moss. Picked up remainder of seeds that have been soaking for a week and placed them on top. Covered with cling film, and stood it in a slightly bigger container filled halfway through with more RO water. Put the whole thing on the balcony, where mukaketupat’s B. liniflora now stands, reaching ever new heights, growing towards the sun in health and vigour, inciting pangs of bright green envy of the unhealthy kind.

Today: Nothing is happening….

…

…

………!

7 days ago, I came home during lunch and sowed some of our byblis liniflora seeds. 7 seeds to be exact! While pokokpenyu tried some methods found on the internet using glow lights, we also decided to just give it a shot using natural light. So I mixed part sphagnum and part perlite into a small pot. Soaked the soil mix so its slightly swampy and I scattered the 7 seeds on the soil. Covered the pot with cling wrap. I stood the pot on a bowl of distilled water and left it on our balcony railing where it gets 3-6 hours of direct sun daily.

Since I did a lot of research on this, it is expected to germinate in 3-4 weeks. So I only checked it once every 2-3 days. I always make sure the water on the bowl is always half full.

Yesterday morning, as I was changing the water, I checked the pot. And…WHOOPEE! Two seeds germinated!!!

I was totally blown away and you could already see the dews on the leaves.

They’re so so so tiny. I can’t wait for this to grow. We plan to give back some seeds to David. What an awesome awesome Sunday!

The pot is still covered with cling wrap to keep the humidity level consistent. I poked some holes for some air circulation. I think I will remove the cling crap totally when it gets slightly bigger.

5 May: Received a packet of Byblis liniflora seeds from David of Petpitcher.com

6 May: Put it in the fridge, as how David was keeping it

7 - 16 May: Research like crazy on how to germinate B. liniflora. Still no closer to truth. Wild exaggerations about the ease of germination and how hardy this plant is (some even likened it to *gasp* weeds!). Equally wild accounts of how it takes weeks and months (!) for germination to happen, at very low success rates. Stalling time because deep inside, just know that will mess up and waste all the precious seeds that is given.

17 May: Finally got The Savage Garden book from another petpitcher.com forum member (bless the generosity of CP lovers and gardeners in general). Got a boost of irrational confidence.

17 to 18 May: Brought The Savage Garden everywhere and read up all that is to know about byblis and its cultivation. Discovered that the best place to absorb complicated information is while having a poo in the toilet.

19 May: Decided to face fears. Drank coffee. Smoked 3 cigarettes.  Cleaned plastic take-away container. Cut a hole underneath the size of a 50sen coin. Chopped up dried sphagnum moss, mixed them up with perlite, then soaked mixture in distilled water. Put planting medium in container. Took out packet of seeds from fridge. Smoked another cigarette. Carefully tipped about 7 teeny tiny seeds onto palm. Scattered them onto planting medium. Put them under florescent light in tray of distilled water. Peered at them closely and muttered a quick prayer to the Swamp Thing.

20 May: Nothing is happening.

21 May: Nothing is still happening. Starting to lose hope.

22 May: Mukaketupat found multiple posts on germinating b. liniflora in terraforums. Optimism is suddenly returning.

23 May: Decided to try Pinguiculaman’s method. Printed out the forum post. Read carefully with blue highlighter. Boiled water. Waited for water to cool down. Smoked 1 cigarette and swept floor. Cleaned a clear glass bowl. Filled it with warm water (not too hot to touch). Took out packet of seeds from fridge. Carefully tapped out another 7 seeds.  Sprinkled on water. Panicked when they floated instead of being submerged under 1″ of water! Re-read highlighted notes. Realised seed must go in first before water. Stupid stupid. C-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y drained water over a piece of paper kitchen towel. Made sure did not lose a single seed. Pushed seeds onto bottom of (now dry) glass bowl. Poured hot water on another clean bowl — too hot. Mixed with cool tap water to the approximate temperature. Poured slowly into bowl. Seeds not floating. Hooray! Covered with clingwrap and put it next to the other (still nothing happening) pot of seeds.

24 May: Patiently waiting for 24 hours. C5 came, distracted by mushroom, one blissful day of non-worry.

25 May: Checked on soaking seeds. One appears to have something white-ish coming out of it! Does this mean it’s going to germinate? Should I try the bleach? I’m a little freaked out, but happy to experiment on a couple of seeds. Mmm…. risky risky….

The bowl of seeds where I’m starting to imagine germinating things happening.

The pot of seeds where imagination is almost futile. But you never know…

I didn’t think the time will come where I will leave for work in the morning without watering my plants. Stupidly stare at them for a long time. Think of them. Or find something to prune. At least not so soon in life.

But I did. I am a terrible terrible person.

Some updates on the CPs (yet again!). Purchased a drosera adelae from pisceslim for rm20 per pot. It arrived in 2 days. Theres two in a pot, one big one (leaves about 5-8 inches) and a mini one. They’re dewless at the moment, from the travel (they came down all the way from Penang), so hopefully they will produce dew soon.

This sundew prefer mostly shade.  But the leaves are pretty with red hairy tentacles.

Hopefully they will survive on our balcony.

Here’s our burmanii that was infested with aphids a few weeks back.

New leaves are opening up, but sadly they’re producing dew very slowly.

There was a silent intruder on the bryophyllum pot yesterday evening.

When mukaketupat watered it in the morning, it was simply a weird, aggressively-growing pot of pure bryophyllum. When I showed it off to C5 at 4pm, it was still simple a weird, aggressively-growing pot of pure bryophyllum. When tukangkebun came over last night to check out our CPs, it was not longer so pure and simple.

What did we see? Mushrooms!

Where did it come from? How did it manage to grow so fast? Are they aliens? Will they invade all the other plants and spread their spores far and wide? Are there smurfs living in the mushrooms? Can they make magic? What will happen to the bryophyllum now?

Should we panic?(!!!)

In tribute to Louise Gluck, Pulitzer Prize winning poet who uses plants as metaphors, here’s an:

Ode to the Magic Mushroom

Suddenly and without warning you appear
into my life, like the Spice Girls;
Reluctantly I find myself humming
your tunes, seeing
your hues, admiring
your gestures;
I didn’t sow you, or carefully tend to
your needs for survival -
Yet there you are, invading my
peace, my space, my
Emotions.

Oh mushroom, you’re magic,
You almost make me frantic
with weird imagination.

The End

*ahem*

p/s: They have died today (aww…) and no other plants seem to have been invaded. I wonder what else gardening would teach me!

Deployed broccoli army with great success.

Have seduced some friends…Anita, Natasha, Nana, Rob, Paula, Head Chef, Sharpe & little Charlie (only 3 years old!)… to name a few… to be proud broccoli owners and spreading the vegetable love.  Will attack more unsuspecting victims…in the week to come…..

My special army from the regimen of Early Purple Sprouting Broccoli are one of the most hardcore of the broccoli family and what’s more it has phytochemical sulphoraphane which prevents cancer - super cool, or what??!! It’s also full of other goodness including Vitamin A & C, calcium, fibre….and it’s really yummy too! Have not had time to take photo of broc.babies…but will do soon.

In the meantime…grow my little babies…GROW!…muhahahahaha…. 

So, hey - wherever you are…why not help in spreading the lurrve too…make someone else happy…and healthy(!) …give them a vegetable plant!  

Broccoli … a way of life.

*peace*

Spent last Saturday making a half day trip to Sg Buloh and back. Only 20 mins away from our place. How very convenient! Sg Buloh, the haven of nurseries.

Printed directions to Hee nursery, apparently, that’s where they sell all the kool CPs. And I am looking for some Sarracenias. Saw them at some of the CP grower’s place and they’re really something else. Tubular leaves sticking out of the pot, how freakin weird.

Got there quite easily. As I was driving there, saw bits and pieces of  the space and land. Remembering how Sg Buloh used to be (20 years ago). Nothing but trees and plants and houses acres away from each other with pretty terraces and porches,  retro artdeco-ish architecture.  Lots of childhood memories with my mom and aunties and grandmother, many weekends spent at the nurseries just looking browsing and window shopping on muddy roadsides.

Now…well. Yea. Well…

Found Hee nursery quite easily. With only 100 bucks in my pocket. I told myself NOT to spend ALL of it. This is the only way to have some sort of self control. To only bring some or very little money to spend. Its good that the atm is at least 30 mins away.

Found some kool sarracenias. Got ummm….3 pots. rm16 per pot.

This is the Purpurea I think

Unsure about these two..
Close up of their mouths…

Check it..! Happily snacking away!

Something weird is happening to this one. The leaves looks like its melted. And their mouths are all glued up.  Hope to revive them back to life.

Pretty arent they? Also got a packet of dried green moss (rm10) and a mini nep for pokok penyu (rm10). Left Sg Buloh with about 30 bucks left. Heh.

I also propagated our first venus fly trap. The pot was getting too crowded. Divided them into 3 pots. Part sphagnum moss and part perlite. The last pot is by leaf cutting propagation. Not sure how it will turn out. Its been 5 days and it looks fine when I checked on it this morning.

A weekend trip to Sungai Buloh ended up with 3 new additions to the balcony mini-jungle. A baby nepenthes  for me, a venus fly trap for us, and a weird little cactus for uhm… not sure whom.

so cute no?

So after finally getting the ‘bible of carnivorous plants-enthusiasts’ - i.e. the Savage Garden - I started reading up on the nepenthes. It’s one of the CPs that has given us most headache in terms of not wanting to pitcher or do much else except grow more and more leaves.

According to Peter D’Amato, the writer of Savage Garden, the name comes from the imagination of some Swedish dude who got a little over-excited when he first saw some dried specimen of the plant. He started waxing lyrical about Homer’s The Oddyssey, and likened the plant to the intoxicating effect of the ‘Nepenthe’ drug that Helen of Troy doused into soldiers’ flasks of wine to cheer them up. A little like the modern day ‘E’ maybe

This is what Linneaus said,

“If this is not Helen’s Nepenthes, it certainly will be for all botanists. What botanist would not be filled with admiration if, after a long journey, he should find this wonderful plant. In his astonishment past ills would be forgotten when beholding this admirable work of the creator!”

Not bad for a botanist hey? Apparently he was so adept at language that even Goethe and Rousseau were avid admirers.

(Sorry, I am also waxing something or other here)

So then, the chapter goes on to detail who’s who in the history of nepenthes’ naming, ‘discovery’ of new species, cultivators, thesis-writers etc.

What annoyed me was that this plant is mainly local to South East Asia and nearby regions, but all the names listed were predictably male, predictably European/’North’, predictably irritating.

Reminded me of the ridiculous claim that some white, male doctor ‘discovered’ the clitoris. We all knew about it all along, thanks very much, and have an intimate knowledge that does not necessarily need conquering or colonisation.

Grr…

I guess while the ‘natives’ were busy cataloging tulips and pine trees, the europeans were equally busy with their documentation of ‘exotic’ plants! Heh.

Anyway, I’m quite glad that I live an age where there is the internet. So found an updated list with at least some South East Asian sounding names for the species.

Okay, moment of rant now over, moment of rave about to begin!

So this cute little nep that we got has pitchers barely the size of my thumb. I don’t know what species it is. Too tiny to tell properly. And some of them don’t look so great also, with brown spots here and there. I’m putting it behind the flower box at the balcony, so it gets some sun and some shade.

According to the ‘bible’, most neps enjoy bright light, diffused with some shade. So hopefully this location would make it happy. We moved the bigger one to a shady spot, but I’m not sure it’s getting enough light. Hanging it back on the balcony where it gets direct afternoon sun for half of the day. Hopefully this wouldn’t cause it to burn!

So general requirements for neps are:

• Bright light, either diffused or with 50% shade (can get some of those black netting cloth things in green houses).
• Lots of water that can drain through the pot, and frequent misting on the leaves.
• Temperatures from 15 - 21 degrees celcius at night, and mid-20s to 30s degrees, depending on the species.
• High humidity
• And a curious reference to a possibly useful, or not, product called SUPERthrive

It’s bad enough that I live 10 mins away from my office. It’s bad enough that I blog during office hours and now this!

That’s right folks….I drove home, had some lunch and did some GARDENING and drove back to the office in the span of one hour!! I really couldn’t help it. It was so sunny and the seeds were calling out for me (from the fridge!).Who’s the lucky little ones? Well, its the byblis liniflora (courtesy of David of Petpitcher.com). The sun was too sunny to resist and to be honest, I think this is the first plant I’ve ever ever planted. Pokok Penyu sowed some last week and she is using glow lights and I’m going to leave these buggers outside and see if it works out.

More later.

Finally collected The Savage Garden by Peter D’Amato last night from Tarence of Pet Pitcher. So far, I’ve only read the intoduction. Who would have known that I could actually enjoy a book written ONLY about plants. But not just any plants, but carnivorous plants.

There are quotes throughout the book, referring to CPs. So far, the one that caught me is the one on sundews (drosera)

“Evil little things they are, with their carnivorous habit. One wonders what crime the past lives of Drosera can have held, that now their race should be compelled to draw so ominous and unpleasant a (career) of murder and fraud. When will Sundews be free of the burden, through some self-sacrificing individual plant who shall starve to death rather than take life, and so redeem his race into happier paths of peace and virtue?” Reginald Farrar, Alpine and Bog Plants, 1908 

Wahh so drama…But I must say, it is extremely stressful taking care of CPs. We purchase one last night from Tarence. Drosera Spatulata.

This morning I noticed 2 insects on the dew. Woohoo. Really fascinating. I still can’t get my head around it. This new world of carnivorous plants. Sometimes I get so stressed out not knowing what to do what they need, that I want to quit and give up CPs.

But too late now, I’m addicted.