The Rumah Puteh Garden Update

I wrote about our family home garden (on 12/10/2012) as it was during our balik kampung raya 1432/2011. This is an update of the garden, during our recent balik kampung raya. The first thing I noticed was, there are no petunias like last year. But there are the very cheerful Cosmos; the yellow and purple flowered annual herb. The purple Cosmos caudatus leaves we know as the fragrant ulam raja, so I had a handful picked to eat with sambal belacan, yumm! The yellow Cosmos sulphreus leaves are not fragrant, but may also be eaten as ulam or cooked as a vegetable masak lemak (so the Bibik tells me, but I have yet to try it myself).

Cheerful Cosmos sulphureus (CNB 2012)

Another cheerful plant - the Gloriosa lily (Gloriosa superba), which flowers all year round. The tubers underground enable the vine to survive almost 'forever'.

The glory of Gloriosa  (CNB 2012)

This time around there are many potted Crown of thorns (Euphorbia milii) of many colours - pinks, white, yellows. I especially like this pink and white bracts.

One of several potted Crown of thorns (CNB 2012)

The Coral vine (Antigonon leptopus) usually exhibits pretty pink flowers all the year round but this time it was all leaves. My eldest Sis SP says that this vine, now growing profusely at the back wall, originally was grown by our late father who had brought it back from Ipoh on one of his many work trips there.

The Coral vine this Hari Raya (CNB 2012)

The Coral vine in bloom last Hari Raya (CNB 2011)

Several other plants like the Asian rosebay (Tabernaemontana divaricata), rose, hibiscus (Rosa-sinensis), kenanga/ylang-ylang (Cananga odorata) are doing well. Bro MN brought back some potted plants from Kelantan, including red Kemboja. You can bet I took a cutting to try my luck again at growing this red variety which I have failed at so far. As for the ylang-ylang flowers, I picked some to put under my pillow and believe me, the fragrance makes for a very good night's sleep.

The dwarf variety of the Asian rosebay (CNB 2012)

The fruit trees grown around the house have been quite 'fruitful'. The durian tree in the front bore more than 140 fruits recently and my sister SP had some fruits frozen for us to partake when we balik kampung during this Hari Raya break. I had quite a few (I mean quite a lot, really) and they were very delicious. (Thank you Sis SP, hope you do the same next year!). We also had cempedak, fresh from the tree. The rambutans are just fruiting and there are only two old trees remaining. I remember there were many more trees, but some had to give way to ... parking spaces for cars! Oh, well, such is life!

Young fruits of the rambutan (CNB 2012)

There are quite a few banana trees and again (like last Raya), the bunches of pisang Awak, Tanduk and Raja, were not yet ready to be harvested, shucks! They looked so enticingly good on the trees.

Pisang Tanduk, not quite ready for harvesting (CNB 2012)

Pisang Awak glistening in the morning sun (CNB 2012)

This time around there are many Manihot esculanta treelets. That's the humble ubi kayu or tapioca/cassava. The young shoots of these plants made it to our dinner table, blanched with some sliced onions and eaten with sambal belacan. Again, yumm! Other herbs still available include the kadok, serai and chillies, etc. You would never go without if you till whatever piece of land you have...

The tapioca/cassava treelets (CNB 2012)

Flowers and fruits of the Belimbing (CNB 2012)

The keladi and some gingers (CNB 2012)

20 August 2012