HYDRANGEA

I saw this window display of an assortment of Hydrangeas within a boutique. Too bad the plants are all fake.

AGLAONEMA 'SIAM AURORA'

I saw this beautiful pot of Aglaonema against a beautiful mirror on the way to the washroom and took these two photos.

MIRABILIS JALAPA

I was totally in shock and apalled this morning when I saw this bed of fully grown Mirabilis jalapa removed from the site. What was originally a beautiful bed of plants was now completely razed to the ground, leaving behind a bed of young seedlings. The sight of the seedlings was my only consolation and I took one home for planting.

I can only hope that the authorities don't remove the remaining plants and let them fluorish although I seriously doubt so.

JAN DARA - THE BEGINNING

There are 2 parts to the movie, based on a well-known and controversial thai literacy work written back in the conservative 60s, and this is the first.

Mario Mauer was the lead as Jan Dara, Sakarat Ritthumrong as his father, Rhatha Phongam as Boonlueang and Chaiyapol Julien Pupart as his servant buddy Ken. 

I don't even know how to describe this movie but the following link gave an excellent account of the movie:

http://www.moviexclusive.com/detail.php?c=74&desc=J&p=1918&t=jan-dara-the-beginning-2012_1918

There were quite a bit of sex and boobs scenes but I was hardly surprised considering it was promoted for its explicit sexual content. Overall, I am not particularly thrilled by the movie although I do look forward to the second part to complete the story.

TAKEN 2

At 56, Liam Neeson sealed his position as an action hero since the 2008 predecessor movie "Taken" which took the box office by surprise. The Irish actor has made many movies since the 80s and filmed quite a number of movies in recent times such as "Clash of the Titans", "Wrath of the Titans", "The Grey", "Batteship". Unlike his younger contemporaries who became action heroes at a younger age, this seasoned and brilliant actor is convincing as a tough secret agent despite his age.

This time round, the movie was set predominantly in Istanbul, which frankly I didn't like. As the CIA Operative Bryan Mills who went to Istanbul on a mission, the fiercely protective husband and father had to single-handedly risked life and limb to rescue his ex-wife Lenore (played by Famke Janssen of "Ex-Men" fame as the character Pheonix) and daughter Kim (played by Maggie Grace) from a legion of his enemies, who were relatives of the men he killed in "Taken", away from his home ground. His job trained him to be a relentless and focused killer with an obsessive compulsive disorder and super-memory who, despite being blindfolded earlier, managed to retrace his steps to the kidnapper's secret hiding place based on his specific set of skills alone.

Seriously, he is not someone to trifle with or whom you want to make enemies of. Especially not after the famous line uttered by him in the first movie to the kidnapper Marko whom took Kim:

I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

With the success of "Taken 2", now there are talks of a third movie. If this is true, I am definitely looking forward to it since I am very impressed by his commanding voice and versatility in acting.

TAI CHI 0

I was so busy recently that I didn't manage to post much these few weeks. So here goes.

Directed by Stephen Fung and produced by him and Daniel Wu, this first part of a trilogy stars the newcomer Yuan Xiaochao, who is China's wushu gold medal winner at the Asian Games 2010, Angelababy, Taiwan's Eddie Peng, and Hong Kong's Tony Leung with cameos by Stephen Fung himself and Shu Qi.

I guess Stephen loves to make such light-hearted movies, as evident by some of his other earlier productions, but I prefer period martial-arts movies to be more serious. Hence, I wasn't quite bowled over by the story-telling although the animation scenes were quite interesting. I read quite a bit about her but this was the first Angelababy movie I watched and I do think she has a refreshing face.

Well, the second part starring Daniel Wu and China's Feng Shaofeng is coming out soon, so there is no need to wait too long for the continuation. 

ROOTS AND TREE PRUNING

I attended a seminar today on "Giving Tree Roots a Headstart" and "Importance of Formative and Structural Tree Pruning" by Professor Edward Gilman from the University of Florida.It was  fantastic and I learnt lots of stuff from the full day seminar.

What is interesting is his research work is backed by years of extensive studies and experiments and is not merely based on a few isolated experiments. It shows the amount of forward and detailed planning that was done before he launched into executing the projects. There were a lot of take home messages and I have summarized the key ones briefly as follows:

• A recommended root system has roots that grow straight out. Such a root system has a more desirable wide network of fine roots and root hairs and gives the tree more stability to withstand external forces e.g. strong wind, that may damage it.
• When re-potting a tree in the nursery or planting a potted tree out into the site, it is pertinent to shave away the roots on the outside to remove root defects e.g. turning roots, to enable the roots to grow properly.
• Laying gravel and adding reinforced bars above a tree's surface roots before installing a concrete footpath over it reduces the incidence of the roots lifting up the footpath compared to just merely installing the concrete footpath over the surface roots.
• Laying mulch on the rootball does more harm than good to trees. Mulch should be laid outside the rootball instead.
• The desirable attributes of a tree include a single dominant leader, distinct root flare with straight growing roots, right-angled branches and an even distribution of leaves throughout the crown.
• Formative and structural pruning to remove co-dominant trunks, included bark union, girdling roots, upright branches, lion's tailing and to reduce the branch-trunk aspect ratio is essential to achieve the above desirable traits and to maintain the tree's longevity in the landscape.
• Horizontal branches are stronger than upright branches.

HARRY E. LUTHER

It is with great sadness that Harry Luther from Florida passed away on 17 Oct 12. 

He is a renowned American botanist known for his expertise in bromeliads and who described hundreds of new bromeliad species and cultivars. He published the book 'Native Bromeliads of Florida'. In addition to bromeliads, he is also very passionate about epiphytes.

He had only been here for about 2 years and was instrumental in the introduction and planting of the numerous bromeliad species and cultivars in the Bay South gardens, particularly on the Supertrees. 

CITY SQUARE

I remember trying to take a photo of this display and was stopped by the shop's staff. I'm not trying to copy their design but rather I am capturing the green display, which I like and hope to encourage.

DURANTA

These are various species or cultivars of Duranta. See what happens when they are not pruned? Some of them grow into shrubs about 2 m in height and they are still growing.

EUCROSIA BICOLOR

The unknown plant put out a lot of broad leaves and flowered recently. Viola, it is a Eucrosia bicolor and not a Eucharis grandiflora.

Whilst there were about 8 buds altogether, I wasn't particularly impressed by it because the size of the small red flowers just does not commensurate with the leaf size. I would have preferred it to be the large, white flower Eucharis.

I will be giving it away to someone who appreciates it more.

THE ASSASSINS

I watched the epic Han Dynasty movie "The Assassins", originally named "Bronze Sparrow Terrace", starring Chow Yun Fat as the warlord Cao Cao, Liu Yifei in dual roles as Diao Chan and her daughter Lingju, Alec Su as Emperor Xian, Hiroshi Tamaki as Mushun and Annie Yi as Empress Fu Shou.

It was a good movie of recent times with excellent acting by the cast. Chow Yun Fat was imposing as the treacherous Cao Cao who trusted no one. Alec, the former idol boyband member of "The Little Tigers", put up a funny performance as the cowardice emperor who has two faces in front of and behind Cao Cao.

The pace was fine with me and the acting was credible. While Alec looked increasingly more manly with age, Annie Yi looked aged with her thick makeup and sagging skin. I keep imagining her singing the song "悲伤茱丽叶". It was interesting to watch how Cao Cao maintained till to very end that he did what he did for Emperor Xian with the hope to unite the three kingdoms at war with each other as one to give all a better life.

BRACHYCHITON ACERIFOLIUS

The Illawara Flame Tree (Family: Malvaceae) with acer-like leaves in the background recently shed all its leaves to take on a fiery red colour. The flowering wasn't very impressive, unlike how it would look in its native habitat., but the clusters of small red flowers do look amazing.

GREY HERON

This Grey Heron flew across the water and landed on the concrete column footing. Too bad I couldn't get a better photo of it.

TURNERA SUBULATA

Amongst this bed of White Alder, there were these flowers with a pale eye, instead of the usual black eye. 

HOUSE GARDEN

I know the name house garden sounds a bit strange but I didn't want to use the words Home Garden to confuse with the theme garden at HortPark.

The Cyclamen is one of my favourite exotic shrubs and I got hold of this corm for planting. Let's see whether it grows. The second is a big Gloriosa tuber which I planted out recently too.

The others are photos of the Pelargonium xhortorum, one of my other favourites, that I bought recently. I am trying to see how this plant performs under my care without any air-conditioned facility. It is receiving afternoon light but the leaves have apparently turned a bleached colour. Some of the leaves began to have brown edges and the flowers are few. I water it once in every 2-3 days by soaking the pot in water, the way one waters African Violets. I will fertilize this plant with a high nitrogen (N) and potassium (K) soon to see how it reacts to the fertilizers.