My Beautiful Flowers

About over a couple of years ago, our friends moved back to New York and passed some plants over to me. Sadly, with my lack of green fingers, I wasn't able to maintain their beautiful green foliage. After a couple of trimmings to encourage new growth, these plants finally bloomed. When both plants were flowering at the same time, I snapped this pic :)

Beautiful!

Jianguo Flower Market, Taipei, CNY

Pretty Pansies

Last weekend, we went to the Jianguo Flower Market (it's fast becoming one of my favorite places in Taipei), and I couldn't resist these beautiful pansies. I just love the pretty striking colours. I wish I could've bought more, but I wasn't sure how they'd do under my lack of green fingers ... here's hoping they will do well!

My Marigold!

The marigolds I grew from seeds have grown so tall and healthy that they actually started budding! One of the buds finally bloomed and here's my very first marigold flower!

Update on my Seedlings

The black cherry tomato plants seem to be doing pretty well ... hopefully they'll continue to get stronger, and maybe sometime in the near future, I'll be able to have my first "crop" of black cherry tomatoes :)

The Marigolds also seem to be happy, but the violas (in the middle) seem to be struggling to come up ... I really hope they survive and get stronger ...

One of the marigolds grew so fast that we transpotted it to its own pot ...

Another marigold also grew so well, it earned its own right to its own pot :) And on the right are some other smaller sprouts of the black cherry tomato plants which also seem to be growing pretty happily ...

And remember the bean sprout like flowers? They still look scraggly, but seem to be pretty healthy ...

Lastly, the sage mealycup ... there hasn't been much change since the last time except that some of them seem to have grown at least 4 leaves. However, they are still pretty short ... maybe they are just late developers?

Pics of the Survivors (IF they flower!)

In case you were wondering, here are some pics of what the plants I'm growing will look like if I manage to keep them alive and healthy!

Cosmos Bipinnatus

Viola

Marigold

Mealy Sage

The Fittest Survivors ... So Far ...

I just snapped these pics today ... the seedlings are now about one month old ...

Here's the Black Cherry Tomato plant ...

The Marigold and Viola (they are the tiny ones emerging ... these seem pretty delicate and hard to grow) ...

Cosmos Bipinnatus ... looks really like a scraggly garden of bean sprouts now ...

A close-up of the Cosmos Bipinnatus ...

Another pot of Marigold ...

These Mealy Sage took a pretty long time to appear, and their growth seems very slow ... I was beginning to despair that they'd not even take seed!

Survival of the Fittest ...

Ok .... so anyone who knows me knows I'm completely lost when it comes to plants. All plants that arrive in my apartment with their lush green foliage soon turn brown or go bald under my care. So, it was indeed lofty aspirations that possessed me to attempt growing tomato plants from seeds. I had salvaged the seeds from some black cherry tomatoes that my aunt in London gave me to try ... and once I munched on one, I was sold! Black cherry tomatoes taste like balsamic vinegar - with their vinegar sweetness!

This was my cherry tomato plant a few weeks ago ... I'll post some more recent pics later ....

Given that I'd not had any hopes of any tomato seeds taking root, when I saw the little seedlings appear, I was absolutely thrilled! And that motivated me to finally take out the seeds for "cosmos bipinnatus" which a friend had given to me last Christmas (yes ... it took me a whole year to get round to planting them), and look what happened in less than a week after sowing the seeds ...

I took all the above growth as encouragement to sow more seeds, so during the Floral Expo in Taipei (to which we had managed to get a special invitation to preview), I bought some seeds for Marigold ...

Some more marigold and viola. which at this point - a couple of weeks ago - had not grown much ...

I also planted some Mealy sage as I have always admired the beautiful purplish hues of the flowers ... but these took the longest to grow...

Garden Surprise

Look at the surprise waiting for me in my balcony garden this morning!

A double layer petal hibiscus in a most sunshiney apricot orangey-peachy shade ...

After days and weeks of anticipation and heart-wrenching bud-drops, this bud finally blossomed! And it was totally worth the wait ... this is one of my favorite plants in my garden.

Jianguo Flower Market, Taipei

Lately, I've been missing having a lil herb garden. Everytime I need some basil, it seems such a pity to buy a bunch and use only a third of it at most, whilst the rest goes to waste. So, I was eager to visit the flower market to pick up some potted herbs for my garden.

I bought a wrought iron hanging planter for the herbs ... isn't it pretty?

And here's my herb garden - basil, parsley, lemon thyme and mint ...

A closer look at my lemon thyme ...

I was also on the lookout for some fragrant flowers - particularly this plant below (Orange Jasmine), which I'd noticed outside some shops in the Xinyi area. They smelled so lovely esp at night. I hope I manage to keep it alive!

While I couldn't find any nice roses at the flower market, I did manage to find some at the market near my apt ...

And look at this pretty white hibiscus! The plant my friend D gave me finally flowered!

Plant Revival Part 2

I had posted about my water hyacinths here when I first got them. Shortly after I took those pics, the leaves started to turn brown (yes, again!), and one by one, they all started to die. Everyone who came over to my apt commented on their sad state. Finally, I moved them closer to the window ... more to remove the eyesore than for their good, and surprise surprise! They started to thrive! And today, I'm left with only 2 clusters (I started with 5) but they are both doing so well. Just look at their pretty purple flowers with a yellow accent!

Plant Revival Part 1

I've never been much of a gardener ... practically every plant I touch turns brown within weeks. Sometimes I wonder if the new plants I bring home whisper to each other "oh no!" when they see my older plants.

However, somehow or other, this begonia - the pink one in the centre, which my mom actually bought fm Yilan a couple of years back for about USD$0.35 - managed to survive and even thrive! It used to be in a little pot, then I had to repot it into a larger pot, and I even managed to grow 3 more little pots from it! Amazing!

And the purple flowers together with the same specie in red were on the brink of death, when I finally decided to repot them, and suddenly, they decided they liked their new home, and started sprouting healthy leaves and flowering! Oh such joy!

Even the ones my friend D gave started growing back their lush foliage and one even started to give little white flowers! I never even knew it was a flowering plant :)

Now, when I look at my little balcony, I feel so happy seeing all the pretty flowers and plants that I managed to revive over several months. Never really understood the joy of gardening till now :)

Happy Chinese New Year!

Happy Year of the Tiger!

In an attempt to make the apartment look more festive, I paid the flower market a visit and got these beauties:

First off, a shout-out to our dear friends D & K, who left us a lotus plant in this gorgeous bowl when they moved back to the States. Given my lack of green fingers, it was inevitable that the lotus plant faded away, so to replace it, I got these lovely purple water plants - water hyacinths! I sure hope they are easy to look after!

The flower market was full of these gorgeous purple bell shaped flowers. I have no clue what they're called - Bellflowers? They were so beautiful, I just couldn't resist.

Peonies!!! I love love love peonies! They are soooo beautiful! Look at all these gorgeous layers of petals! I had been looking for them for ages and ages, but for some reason or other, I never saw them at the market till now. I hope that doesn't mean they are hard to grow... never mind ... that's in the future... for now, I'm just gonna enjoy them ... while they last :)