How the Mighty (Frangipani) are Fallen

In my last post I told you how Fabulous our Frangipani looked.

Well, it unfortunately got a bad case of orange rust and when I came back from holidays with Mummy, she realized that orange dust was all over our driveway and the underside of the frangipani’s leaves were furry with orange rust!

Guess what she did (no prizes here)?

Bare bones. But guess what? New leaves grew back. Mummy says the wicked flourish like the rusted frangipani tree. Just for the record, this is the frangipani’s last chance to stay rust-free. It is going to be composted and replaced with 2 squat happiness trees that Mummy has been hankering after.

 

Fabulous Frangipani Foto

Nice, huh? It’s the sort of flower The Big Sister might put in her hair, except she’s afraid of creepy-crawlies… anyway she is away at summer school for a month, but she comes back next weekend, hooray!

Pandan Flowers

I like my wonderful dentist very much but lately I have been afraid of going to her house. Not because of her 2 huge dogs (very huge, one is even heavier than The Big Sister). But because everytime I go, she yanks a loose tooth out! She says it will save Mummy a trip to her clinic.

Anyway, one night while we were there, apparently Mummy smelled a most wonderful pandan perfume. It turned out to be a beautiful climber called Vallaris Glabra, or the bread flower plant, or the pandan flower plant. I never noticed it or smelled it because I was trying to make myself invisible inside the house (it didn’t work, I still got a tooth yanked out before we went home).

Anyway again, here is a link to NParks’ website that will tell you more about this plant.

Guess what? Our wonderful dentist delivered a whole plant for Mummy a week ago! Here is an artistic shot of the upper part of the plant:

And here is an even more artistic shot of the underside of one of its leaves:

Just for the record, it is a miracle I have any teeth left at all. Even though the Tooth Fairy gives me $50 per tooth, it’s not worth the yanking out. Daddy says $50 is outrageous, but Grandpa says it’s just inflation.

Enjoying my Camera

I had a nice time at sunset taking photos of my garden.

A red okra sword (above)

 

 

Colourful Clusters (above 2)

 

Signs of Life

I have been under a lot of pressure to blog again. Some people do NOT understand that 2 English compositions and 2 Chinese compositions a week are enough torture for an 8 year old (almost 9).

Anyway, I am back again by popular demand. So this blog is showing Signs of Life. My garden always shows Signs of Life. Here are some examples:

The Old Faithful Long Beans

Finally! Successful No-Mealy (touch wood) Chillies. Unfortunately we cannot remember if they are meant to stay green or turn red!

See? My spring onions have sprung!

 

 

 

 

And even the frangipani is budding!

So all is well in the garden, and I will post some more later tonight if I catch my breath!

 

Oops I forgot about the red okra, from our American seeds. Here it is. It produces very, very well.

Pruned Frangipani

The Paid Gardener finally decided to follow Mummy’s instructions and prune back the frangipani. It had grown ferociously and was overhanging the driveway. This meant we all had to squeeze out of the car and under the low lying branches. The Big Sister said it was like doing the limbo and Mummy said she was too old to be a limbo bimbo.

Anyway. The tree took its revenge by producing huge bunches of flowers that are also hanging over the driveway. Plus, with all the rain, Mummy now has to do the limbo bimbo to pick up the fallen flowers. She does not like an untidy driveway.

 

Aloha!

My favourite TV programme is Hawaii 5-0 (the olden days series) which I watch in Australia. We don’t have a TV in Singapore, you see. In Hawaii 5-0, the ladies wear grass skirts and flower necklaces called leis. They look very itchy. They use frangipanis for leis. Look at my frangipani – it would be perfect for a lei!

Mahalo!

Visit to Hawkins Nursery

Hawkins is one of the biggest nurseries in Brisbane and I went there this morning for breakfast at the cafe and then to look at plants. There were a lot of plants. Unfortunately a lot were just flowers (I don’t remember their names, sorry):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can you see the “Hawkins Nursery” label on the bottom right photo?

I also took a great photo of some azaleas:

There was an even bigger lavender stand but some bees chased me away!

We went to Hawkins to look at meyer lemon and lemonade trees for Novice Gardener and our garden, but the trees were about 4 feet tall and so Mummy refused to carry it onboard the plane. Instead we bought 2 succulents called Hen and Chicks – you can see them at Gardens by the Bay too. They are desert plants.

 

Strawberry Fields

I love tic tac and they just came out with a new flavour called strawberry fields. Grandpa has strawberry fields – kind of – or strawberry beds. He uses the plants as ground cover. His strawberries don’t have pointed ends, their ends are rounded like acorns!

Here are the fields and here is a flowering strawberry plant.

A Rose by any Name

I picked a yellow flower for Mummy today. Grandpa called it a wild daisy. Mummy called it a stinking roger. I think wild daisy sounds better.