CNY acquisitions!

Didn't get to post this earlier, but I got a bunch of orchids for CNY 2011. It's my first try at orchids really, so I'll just have to see whether they flourish or die under my care :-)

GB may recognize his chairs! The orchids are doing fine so far. This photo was taken two weeks after I bought them, but by now it's been a month and a half, and they are still blooming. Quite surprising, cause I thought they would hate this part of the house (which is west-facing).

Not sure about the type of orchids, but they are pretty common here in Singapore:

Pulled my back!

Gardening has pretty much come to a stand still. Pulled my back while doing Garden Makeover Part 3.1, and pretty much had to take it easy. Garden is still in a mess, with unfilled holes... Sigh... Back was recovering for a while until I pulled it again doing WT, so am now very cautious. Will only go back to real physical stuff next week, I think...

Thalia geniculata - Update

This is what my ZigZag Plant looks like now! Well, at least before I dug up my garden...

It's actually too tall to capture the whole plant in one photo, so here are some close ups:

Love it!

Garden Makeover - Part 3.1

After digging up this corner, I let it "rest" for almost a week. The intention is to determine whether the water logging is really bad (which means the entire garden will have to be dug up) or whether there is a natural water table that my garden is sitting on. During the resting week, there was a huge bout of rain which filled up the hole and then some... it drained back within 24 hours to the level which you saw in my GM Part 3 post. Oh Kay! The diagnosis is that it is a natural water table. I now had a choice of broadening the hole, and create a natural pond, or planting plants that love water.

Since I had a large pond put in at the side of the house when we were building, I thought that another pond would be overkill. (However, it was still very tempting. How many people in Singapore can have a natural pond in their gardens...)

So this is what I did:

I took out a pot of Umbrella Plant (Cyperus Alternifolius) from my pond (it was due to be divided anyway) and stuck it into the ground, and surrounded it with a bunch of Piper Sarmentosum. Let's see if the water-loving plants will (1)survive and (2)help wick away water (3)grow large and gorgeously luscious... Wait for updates in a couple of months...