Aerides odorata

 I have been trying to write this post when the "Aerides odorata" on the biggest durian tree on our yard bloomed that has been in line "draft" post. I am feeling much better, lose a bit of weight (burn the baby fat), enjoying motherhood and watching the kids growing up. Still totally passionate and busy in the garden. How time flies, and I have not written any post this year yet. It has always been in my mind to fullfill my promise for showing this orchid to Sean when it bloom last February. Believe me , I have missed you all. Thank you so much for the sweet messages.

This orchid plant perked Sean interest when he visited end last year. It was not even forming a long flower stalk yet but Sean seems to sense what it is. 

 Kind of interesting to watch how the flower buds look like before it blooms. As you can see sometime I can't catch up with the garden and they do look unkempt with scattered dried leaves all over the garden.

 I was really surprised when this type of orchid bloom, The shape kind of remind me of Rhino or Elephant? How about you, what does it remind you off? This type of orchid is so fragrant you can smell them metres away. No need to sniff at them at close range. I really enjoyed hanging the washed wet launrdy every morning when the Aerides odorata was blooming. The scent is really nice greeting you each morning even 3~5 metres away.

 At first I did not know there was a plant of the same species of Aerides odorata on the Jujube tree on the frontyard until the plant also produce flower blooming almost simultaneously with the ones on the Durian tree.

Vagina Bulbophyllum

 Hope the first word in this plant name will kind of alert that after a long break from this blog that I have finally write a posting after almost 6 months. Sean the author of 'Half a pound of treacle' helped me identified this orchid species when he visited our place last Wednesday with Bob who came all the way from South Australia. The flower picture is not clear because it was drizzling when I noticed that some weird looking thing pop out from the bark of my mother favourite red bottlebrush tree when the rain season started again in Klang valley.

 I will leave it to your imagination why this orchid is called 'Vagina bulbophyllum'. Before it flowered, with the leaves condition or physical attributes I thought it was some kind of a parasitic plants. Lucky, I did not get rid of it. According to my mother, the plants were taken back from her hometown (forest) in Borneo island. When Sean visited these plants were not flowering, but he is really an orchid expert, he knew exactly what kind of species it is by just looking at the plants without its flower.

 One of the main reason, Sean and Bob came to visit us was to give a home for 2 fig plants (Double Happiness never thought of receiving 2 plants). Surprised me they did and we are very happy. Especially that these plant cuttings came all the way from Adelaide giving more a special feeling because I gave birth to 2 babies in Adelaide. I did not expect the plants were already this big after looking at the pictures in Sean ' A Long Figgy Tale'.  Furthermore, after I came back did not realised that 'Growing Fig' has a become boom in Malaysia. If you a newbie in the fig world and want to grow fig in Malaysia I would advise reading Sean thorough review first.

 At the moment I am thinking of planting one of the fig plant between the Murraya paniculata and the outdoor chair (What do you think Sean, Bob?)

 I kept on forgetting that my husband had brought me a White Genoa fig from his business trip to Japan last month. I planted the White Genoa fig near a night blooming jasmine plant. Then I realised those 2 fig plants will be facing each other, planned unconsciously. 

 The main reason I had a long break from this blog is that I could not make myself open my email account which is the same with this blog until today. I still have problem with panic attacks connected with my 'PhD' related things. I stop contacting my supervisor since last June and lost the courage to reply his last email to me. A few days ago, I was sorting some mail, I found one mail for me got mixed up with my parents, posted all the way from Bulgaria. The seeds and the wonderful hand-drawings from Annie and her family made me so happy that almost made me drop tears of happiness. So sweet of you Annie. It gave me the courage to finally get in contact with my supervisor again today. Reminded me to keep pursuing my childhood dream. Thank you to Liz at suburbantomato.com also has kindly shared some of my favourite seeds that I used to grow in Adelaide. This year I was also happy that seeds that the Aquilegia we grown before bloom in Mark's Veg Plot. When I opened my working email, I had email from Sue 'Our Plot at Green Lane Allotment' giving me more support to try my best to get in contact with my supervisor again.

 So after I replied Sue email. I tried my best the overcome that not nice feeling of having panic attack, feeling the red flush on my face, labor breathing and so on. Took me almost an hour to write just a few sentences to my supervisor and clicked send. Then I had my dinner. Checked my email again, yes my supervisor has replied :) . 

 The kids are growing up very fast and made me busy. It has been a year since we came back. Abby had straight hair when in Adelaide, but after we returned her hair slowly became natural curly. I had few strangers approached me and asked which saloon I went to get her hair perm. How time fly fast. Next year Ilhan will start going to primary school.

 Thank you very much for the warm supports. I hope I will be able to push myself to get that 'thing' underway soon and some progress.

Pink Curly Hair

 This month of June this orchid has been continuously blooming one by one and I find this orchid species very attractive with its curly pink hair and red stripe inside. I don't really know much about orchids, so I lack specific terms to name the parts of the orchids structures. I grew fond of this girl with pink curly hair. Any gardeners can help me identify this type of Orchid?

 This orchid leafy part of the plant look like this. They really like to cuddle onto tree trunks. This type of orchids plants adorned quite a few tree in our garden. I have been wondering how the orchids will look like since I came back last year and now around the garden one by one the flowers starts the bloom. It must have been something that triggers them to bloom, the weather or some kind of other switch mode. I have noticed the flower stalk appears before I went for my first trip to Sabah this year. It took a while before the flower bloom.

 Red ants seems to like wandering around the flower bloom and I wonder what attracts them.

I am tempted to cut some flower stalk and bring it inside.

 At my mother's place in Sabah state, this white orchid is currently blooming. Don't know which category of orchids it belongs to as well. This one is comfortably living high on the coconut trunk since I was still in secondary school. The picture above was taken earlier this month when we were in Kiulu while below photo was taken yesterday by my mother in full bloom.

 This orchid was taken deep in the forest by one of my son ex-babysitter sister. They live very faraway from the closest gravel main road, they had to walk at least 3 hours to the main gravel road. This orchids has a long blooming season. Not sure what is the name. Not the type to multiply quickly.

 Personally I don't think orchids take much space to grow in the tropics and they don't need to be grown in pots unless they participate beauty pageant. So many to choose from which does not need to be grown on soil in pots and can save money from spending to buy pots. It seems that orchid and coconut has a good relationship. Not only the orchids can live together on the coconut trunk but often the coconut husk is also used to grow them. You can even set the orchids to live/grow/bloom at your eye level so you don't need to strain your neck looking up in the hanging pot or look down in pots.

 The orchids can naturally grow by their own on a old wooden plank as well.

This crafty one seems to be making its home on an empty can. 

"Antelope" Dendrobium

 After I returned back from my stay with my parents at Borneo Island, I got very upset seeing how the edible garden became like when I left it on my husband to look after it. I can't say my blood pressure when up since I never had problem with my blood pressure. But the colour red was very significant. So I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me when I saw this orchid/dendrobium species blooming at first. Why are the orchid flower petals has horns? Is it because I was getting really mad and growing a pair of invisible horns myself made me started to imagine things. So I got closer to the blooming orchids and inspected. I have never knew that there were orchids species with a horn-like African Antelope petal flowers before.

 Sean owner of Half A Pound Of Treacle helped me again to identify this dendrobium. I think this flower is so cute like some animation characters. It does really look like an African Antelope face.

 I think I will have to put a tag on the plant, it might be easy to get it mixed up with other orchids in my mother collection. I don't think she even remember what type of orchids she has and which is which. This is the tree that my mother has train the "Antelope" Dendrobium plant at. I don't think there are only one type of orchid but several variety on the same tree. 

 One of the reason, I have not started getting any new orchids is that I might bought several plants that is already in our garden just waiting for its turn to bloom. At the moment, I think it is best if I just record the orchids we already have in the garden collection for future reference. I also need to increase my knowledge in the Dendrobium world.

Cymbidium finlaysonianum

 I am not very good with orchids and my knowledge about them is close to nothing. But my mother likes to collect them if any caught her fancy. Once she had a spot in the garden especially for orchids. But now none of her orchids are growing in pots but attached to tree barks all over her garden. She said it looks best this way more natural and I agree with her. The main problem is now that I am the caretaker and the boss meaning 'mama' not around since she is living in Borneo island currently. I have no idea which type of orchids she is growing on which tree plant unless they bloom. This orchid has started blooming the second season since I have been back and caught my eyes. Thank you to Sean and Sophie Mohd for identifying this orchid as Cymbidium finlaysonianum.

 Living on a tall plant, makes blooming flowers of the cymbidium as falling from the sky. My simple and naive observation compare to other orchid type plants around the garden is that this one had longer and bigger leaves. I should cut off the spent stalk but will need a tall ladder to be able to do that. Another task list will be dividing some plants and allocate to other plants in the garden (with labelling).

 Buds and young blooms.

 Lacking knowledge in the world of Cymbidium, I did not know that some actually produce fruits until Sean informed me about it. So here one dried up fruit of the Cymbidium finlaysonianum that I managed to find. Fresh fruit will be greener and a little bit fatter I suppose. Length roughly guessing about 5cm~ 7cm.