HOUSEPLANTS

I couldn't stand the unkempt peacock-like Plumbago anymore and decided to give it an extreme haircut. I headed back the entire plant so it was almost leafless. 

As for the Lime plant, it has grown considerably taller but didn't seem to attract anymore Lime Butterflies and instead hosted so many white flies, so I brought it to the garden.

The Periwinkle was also suffering from the drying effects of the current weather and it's almost bare stems hung limplessly over the wall. So I had to prune back most of its stems. If it's not recovering, which I thought so, then I would harvest the seeds and chuck the plant away to make room for the younger seedlings.

Finally, the variegated Aptenia grew so much but there were only a handful of flowers and a number of scales pests. I suspected it took up a lot of my soil fertilizer nutrients. I ended up collecting more than a kilogram of it and brought it to the garden for planting. 

The straggly Periwinkle

The variegated Aptenia cordifolia

HOUSE PLANTS

It appears that my red flower Crossandra is producing seeds. I shall see if the seeds can be harvested for germination.

Meanwhile, my variegated Aptenia cordifolia was also growing so well that I harvested a few kilograms of it back to my office for planting.

Hopefully it produces viable seeds

This is such a shy plant

HOUSE PLANTS

I was pruning my Aptenia cordifolia (variegated) when I saw 3 flowers. Strangely, this plant hardly flowers on me and yet this sprig sent out 3 flowers in close proximity of each other.

I also bought the Tradescantia fluminensis 'Albovittata' recently and planted it into a shady corner of my corridor. I love the striated green and white markings on its leaves. It is truly a handsome plant.


In addition, I decided to propagate some of my shrubs in the plastic container I bought from NTUC Fairprice. Amongst them are Fittonia, Pilea and Fuchsia. The Fittonia was propagated earlier and have rooted and the others were just added in. At the same time, I planted some of the other Fittonia and Achimenes into another container so that I don't have to keep closer tabs on its watering. Let us see how well they fare.

HOUSE PLANTS

In the earlier post, I showed the plants from the living room window but in this post, I am showing the plants and view from the inside along the corridor.

These are a Dendrobium and a Bulbophyllum that I bought at a potted flower shop across Queensway Shopping Centre. That was 20 days ago and yet the bunch of white flowers with an orange throat on the Dendrobium are still looking good, except for one flower that wilted. In fact, the Bulbophyllum also flowered and I will post about it separately.

As I took the photos, I noticed this strange colour from the corner of my eye. To my surprise, it was a pinkish flower of the variegated Aptenia cordifolia. In fact, I felt bewildered because I know this plant needs lot of sunlight to grow well and flower. And yet, this flower on the trailing plant bloomed under the shade of the monster Mirabilis stems. There was not a single flower in sight along the other stems that were cascading over the concrete wall and exposed to the most amount of sunlight. Well, I don't have any answer on this at the moment.

HOUSE PLANTS

Enough information was posted on these plants along my corridor, so I shan't write anything more on it other than just listing the names of the plants here:

• Antigonon leptopus
• Aptenia cordifolia
• Dissotis rotundifolia
• Hamelia patens
• Lantana camara
• Lantana montevidensis
• Mirabilis jalapa (the monster)
• Plumbago zeylanica
• Vinca rosea

HOUSE PLANTS

I don't know what is this plant on the top with small leaves with a decussate arrangement and trailing stems. I like the flowing effect it provided and was keen to try out a new plant, so I ended up with impulse buying again. I planted it in my tall planter and allowed the long stems to trail over. There was a beautiful garden weed in it, which prompted me to buy this plant too.

I mentioned about some of the other house plants e.g. Lantana montevidensis, Dissotis rotundifolia floral bud, variegated Aptenia cordifolia leaves, Impatiens walleriana and Qisqualis indica new leaves in a post yesterday, so I took their photos when I was free earlier and here they are. In the photos are also 2 Impatiens balsamina (common name: Balsam) plants that I grew from the seeds collected from the Carpark Garden. They are quite big now and should be flowering soon.