WEEDS

These white flower weeds are clamouring over the Murraya shrubs at my neighbourhood park. It would be gone someday. But meanwhile its spreading across the shrubs like a carpet.

SPIDER

I was checking out this Murraya paniculata with severe nutrient deficiency when I saw these two shiny and reflective spiders. I wonder what is the purpose of the spiders adopting such a coloration?

KIM SENG PARK

I have not been here for years now. It looks too shady at some areas and some trees need to be removed or transplanted out to let more light in. Due to the heavy shade, some parts of the ground become bare.

Even the Calliandra tergemina var. emarginata and Cordia sebestena need to be transplanted out to a sunnier location for it to grow and flower well. Some of the Murraya paniculata were also terribly chlorotic with few and reduced leaves and I do not know how long they have been so. Some of the older leaves looked normal sized and healthy green. There is a need to pump in a lot of fertilizers to enrich the soil to rejuvenate these plants.

IKEBANA

Yesterday and today, I attended the second and third lessons of the Ikebana course and tried out 2 other ways of arranging the shin, soe, hikae and junshi.

I don't really comprehend the ikebana well because they focus a lot on space, depth, assymetry, imbalance etc. I don't get the rationale behind the arrangements. But anyway, I tried my best in arranging them and the japanese lecturer did not pass any negative comments but she did help to re-arrange some of the displays.

The 1st photo was done by the lecturer. The Tulips were used for the hikae. The 2nd and 3rd were from me and the clump looked too dense. By the way, the interesting blue flower that was used is an Eryngium from the Apiaceae Family. A link is attached below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eryngium

I don't know what the purple flowers are called but they looked pretty. In the next photos, I used the Eucalyptus leaves as the shin and soe. The Eryngium was also pruned slightly to create the space and depth.

The last 2 photos were the arrangement I did this morning. The Murraya paniculata was used as the shin and soe and the rose was used as the junshi to fill up the space.