13 Sungai Buloh : The Nurseries and Growing Passion for Plants

Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.
~ Hans Christian Andersen

And he is right. It's food for the soul. The Sungai Buloh Nurseries is a great place to "stop and smell the flowers". I enjoy journeying into this floral wonderland, which I take as a form of meditation by the way.

Meet Mr. Gnome. "Hi!", greets he.

Welcome to Happy Land!

See why this place is a haven for gardeners? The plants are enthusiastically green. The flowers look like they're singing in chorus. Lush! As a friend always puts it.

Rows of green!

If this be my garden, I'd be ecstatic!

These purple flowers are called "Mona Lavender". From personal experience, easy to maintain. All it takes is a bit of watering and trimming. I've had mine for two months and it's flourishing. In fact, it's flowering again, just weeks after the first blooms went!

A pot of mona lavender costs between RM5-RM8 at the nurseries.

Mona Lavender

The rose and its thorns are often talked about and inspire poetic words of wisdom. A couple come to mind ~ There's no rose without a thorn and A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Beautiful, isn't it?

Beautiful Red Roses

But if you want a plant that isn't too challenging, try a cactus. I have two which have crossed the ten-year mark and continues to grow passionately.

Cactuses and Succulents

You won't just be attracted by the plants in Sungai Buloh. There's a large variety of pots, soil, fertiliser and decorative items on sale.

Coconut shell hanging baskets

An exciting selection of flower pots!

Sneak a peek behind the road stalls. You never know what you may find. I discovered rows of .....Christmas trees! Don't mind me, I'm terrible with plant names. I've generally labeled all cone-shaped greens with pine-like features as Christmas trees.

Behind the nurseries - Christmas Trees!

There she grows. O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree..

That's about it. Hope you enjoyed reading about my walkabout in plantdom.  I'll be posting more of these as my interest grows.

To get to the nurseries, just follow Jalan Hospital and look for a left turning into Jalan Lembah which is somewhere after Sungai Buloh Hospital (on your right). View in wikimapia.

12 The Revamped Garden

This is it ~ the unveiling of my new gardening initiative.

I've been very low key about it. The jitters, you know - a confidence sucker. If plant murder is a crime, I would have been convicted many times in the past. But my new garden is three weeks old now and it's flourishing.

I'm really quite proud of myself, thanks to huge encouragement from gardening enthusiasts in the My Nice Garden Chat  Facebook group.

Small Balcony Garden
(Colourful Coleus - Potted plants on bamboo poles, Mona Lavender - Purple flowers below)

For ideas, I scoured the nurseries along Sungai Buloh, finally settling on a crisscrossed bamboo stand which can be stretched wide to fit perfectly between walls.

The idea is to hang potted plants up to save on floor space.  

Excitement ~ keyword of the day, of which without, there would be no spark of passion and no fruition to dreams. 

These colourful leafy plants (shown below) are called coleus. I've read that it needs good drainage, moist soil and lots of sunlight. It is also advisable to clip off the flowers because it overworks the plant leaving the leaves less vibrant.

I'm quite curious to see how it goes if I keep the flowers.

I hope you have nine lives Mr. Plant because I intend to learn things the hard way. In the meantime, there are new shoots popping out and the plants have grown taller. I wonder if I should just add more pots and replant those...

Coleus

I have no idea what this pretty pink flowering plant is called ........yet. I water this the most using a spray bottle, almost to a point of addiction. It flowers non-stop and I'm completely mesmerised by it. I'm enthusiastic to see many new shoots growing out.

I'll get back to you, pretty Miss

This is aptly named the Purple Shamrock. I've had this before - kept it in a shady corner for years before the hanging coconut husk pot which was holding the plant gave way. I'm still keeping the coconut husk because I love it so much. It has holes at the bottom. Everytime I water the plant, soil flows through too. I fixed that with a couple of pebbles. Hah!

This was one of the plants that never died on me although I paid very little attention to it. I water it once in awhile. It's no surprise why I like it. So I thought to myself, "Why not again?"

I'm planting it in a different corner this time and in a pot weaved out of branches. It is now exposed to late afternoon sun for a couple of hours everyday. My fingers have been crossed for three weeks now. It has kinda spread out beautifully.

Purple Shamrock

I end my plant post with a quote :

Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet.
~ Jeremy Bentham

8 Fraser's Hill - Flower Power

If I could rename Fraser's Hill, it would be called the "Land of beautiful flowers". I don't grow flowers in my apartment because I've never been successful at it.

Greens, I have..mostly the money plant. I've given it so much of my attention that it's grown out of my little pot and crawled up to the ceiling. The leaves have flourished bigger than my palm. It's also all over the place *grin sheepishly*

I am no match for the gardeners who tend the flowers at Fraser's Hill....sigh..

Worse, the only flower I can name below is the Hibiscus. That's because it's our National flower. Aahh..but is it important that I know it all. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet?

Hibiscus

I think this is called the "Bottlebrush" plant ..