TIBOUCHINA

I like this Tibouchina (Family: Melastomataceae), which I think is T. granulosa, compared to the more common T. urvilleana planted here. It's just gorgeous, isn't it?

SUNFLOWER

This sunflower is adorable. It even put up a leaf for me! It never fails to bring a smile to my face and make me wonder who the people are behind the mascot. I mean, how do they always manage to act and look so cute?

CLEAN AND GREEN SINGAPORE 2012

This model display of our island's key architectural buildings, made from recycled material, at November's Clean and Green Singapore (CGS) 2012 was amazing.

CHRISTMAS DECORATION

Christmas Day is over and these are the last few christmas decoration photos that I have. Enjoy it before they change the display for Chinese New Year.

ADORABLE

Oh my goodness!! Someone sent me this photo of this pretty, dressed-up, girly looking dog, which appears to be a Shih-Tzu to me. She looks so, so, so sweet and adorably beautiful!! Too bad princess will never look like that because she is a short hair breed.

BUNNY

When I first saw this at Balestier, I thought nothing much of it and thought it was just a display. Then something caught my eye. I thought I saw the bunny moved.

That was when I walked towards the "display" to check it out. And I swore the toy bunny moved slightly again. Were my eyes playing tricks on me, I wondered? Then it moved slightly again. So I took a photo of the cute bunny. And I took another photo again. And another.

Seeing is indeed believing! The adorable bunny looked so huggable but I know my little princess may just tear it apart.

BEAUTIES & MEN

When sleeping beauties meet the invisible men. Ok, I am being corny here.

CHOCOLATE LIQUEURS

I got these Anthony Berg chocolate liqueurs. Each of these dark chocolate bottles is individually wrapped in foil representative of the liqueur brand's bottle. They look so lovely that I can't bear to eat them.

MINI SINNINGIA

I have neglected my 3 small mini-Sinningia 'Rio Das Pedras' or 'Little Wood Nymph' for a long time now and I was recently motivated to try and resuscitate them for my terrarium.

So I am giving them more attention and light now and placed them under my T5 lights. I am not joking but two of my plants started to sprout new leaves although the top one (S. 'Rio Das Pedras') was in bad condition and may not recover. I am watching them everyday, so hopefully it would flower soon and put out more vegetative growth.

In fact, I feel tempted to try out some of our local weeds as terrarium plants. My Ruellia repens seemed to be growing well but I have yet to try to grow it in an enclosed container. Well, hopefully I have some luck with the Lindernia crustacea too.

LIVE SPHAGNUM MOSS

I was growing my live sphagnum moss in two terrariums but noticed  white patches appearing in both containers. Fearing that they could be a fungus, which seemed to be spreading, I decided to open up the containers to improve the air circulation instead.

Anyway, I am positive that the sphagnum mosses were growing because the threads were elongating. It's amazing how they can just grow without any medium. I just added some to my carnivorous plants terrarium and hopefully, it would provide a green ground cover for the plants in time to come.

HOUSEPLANTS

When I first saw the shadow on the leaves of my Hamelia patens, I thought the shadow of the flowers looked interesting. Then it occurred to me that the shadow looked familiar and reminded me of something, the pet lizard living amongst my plants. Fine, it wasn't my pet but it was a lizard alright. Just look at the two pairs of cute little palmate feet.

Separately, my Brugmansia was at a low recently because I cut off many of the branches to propagate it. I lost most of the branches the first time round because I put them in water to induce the root production but it failed. I used the young to old parts but it didn't work although I did manage to propagate it by this means in the past. Then I rooted a second batch in soil using rooting hormone and those older branches worked. I have 3 healthy cuttings now and I planted 2 out. This remaining mother plant was much reduced in size and at its peak, produced only 6 flowers. Hopefully, in time to come, I would have it growing at its optimum again.