Category Archives: Flowering Plants

Despite the heavy rain in December and lack of tender care on my part, my ylang ylang (kenanga) plant has been doing well.

I was amazed to see a lot of buds coming out and none of the white pest problem mentioned earlier. After some reading, I got to know that the kenanga plant will flower year-round, but mainly during the rainy season.

It took me a while to see the flower turns fully yellow.The yellow-green flowers are highly fragrant. I read somewhere that the flowers are used for production of Chanel No.5 perfume.

Kenanga or ylang ylang belongs to the family of Annonaceae. Its scientific name is Canangium odoratum. The normal tree can grow up to 30-35 metres. However for home gardening purpose, there are hybrid plants that can start flowering even when the height is less than 2 metres.

Maybe what I have in my garden is actually the dwarf variety known as Cananga fruticosa, Cananga odorata var. Fruticosa, Cananga kirkii.

The seller at Floria told me that the Malay name for this plant is mayang sari. Later I found out it is called fiddlewood or also known as Spiny Fiddlewood.

Here are some details taken from burkesbackyard.com.au

Fiddlewood

The fiddlewood is a lovely West Indian native tree grown for its attractive foliage and fragrant flowers. Both the genus name citharexylum (from the Greek – kithara, lyre, and xylon, wood) and the common name of fiddlewood refer to the use of the tree’s timber to make sounding boards for musical instruments.

Common name: Fiddlewood

Botanic name: Citharexylum spinosum

Description: Fast growing tree to 10-12m (30-40′). In spring the bright green leaves turn an unusual salmon-orange colour, and in cooler areas about half the foliage falls. In tropical climates fiddlewoods do not lose as many leaves. Creamy white sprays of perfumed flowers appear at the branch tips from about midsummer to early winter.

Best climate: Tropical and subtropical zones, and also warm microclimates in cooler areas with protection from frost when young.

The plant has sweetly perfumed flowers which I love so much. Reading more about fiddlewood, I also found out that all parts of the plant are poisonous if ingested.

Upon further reading here – Fiddlewood, it seems that the plant has seeds that are edible. The flowers look the same as what I have in my garden but I am yet to see any of such seeds on mine. Maybe because it is Citharexylum fruticosum while my Fiddlewood species is undetermined. (How to determine whether it’s spinosum or fruticosum?)

I almost didn’t realize that the purple cattleya has bloomed again. It has been raining almost every afternoon till evening that I hardly went out to the yard to check on my plants. And when I realized that there were flowers coming out, I quickly took some pictures.

I think the last time my cattleya bloomed was in February. Despite the extreme negligence on my part for the past few months, I was glad that I let my son played around with the fertilizer spray. We used seaweed extract mixed with plain water bought at Floria last year to fertilize most of the plants in the garden.

To read more about cattleya, check out my previous entries here – Cattleya Orchid and Repot Cattleya.

All the pictures of bunga kenanga plant I have in may garden were actually taken in July. I was watering all my plants that day when I noticed that two ylang ylang flowers have bloomed. And then I noticed the white infestation on the flowers..huhu!

Afraid that it might infect the rest of the plant, I decided to pluck out those two precious blooms. I still couldn’t find what the white thing is. Since I have had bad experience with butterfly caterpillar eating the whole plant of curry leaves last year, I didn’t want to take the chance and let those white things manifest.

A few days ago I noticed the same white things grow on my roses and bougainvillea branches..sigh! This time I sprayed with water from the hose and they fell down from those branches. Next time I think I will have to dissect and see what it is, just for the sake of knowing..haha!

Anyone know what the white pest is actually is? Is it harmful to the plant?

I found these pictures in my May 2011 folder.

It has been a while since I have any good gardening material to write about. I think the Kesidang plant I have at home will only bloom like once a year..haha!

I am not sure whether I have mentioned that I got another pot of Vallaris Glabra or bunga kerak nasi from a nearby plant nursery.

When I bought the second bunga tikam seladang plant, it was flowering. Now I am still waiting for it to bloom again. I have tried using the tut lentur technique (propagate by layering) to propagate the first Kesidang plant I have many years back, but it failed.

I love the sweet scented smell of pandan leaves that come from the blooming Kesidang flowers.

They are such a joy to my heart, see even the ants love them.

I hope I will be able to grow a tall and big plant of Kesidang in years to come so that one day I would be able to make bunga rampai for my own son’s wedding using the flowers..hehe!

Last week my gardenia – Cape Jasmine or as Malays call it bunga cina has bloomed again. This time there were 5 flowers altogether.

I was so busy inside the house and didn’t realize that the gardenia has bloomed and missed taking pictures of the first 3 flowers.

As mentioned in my previous entry about gardenia, my favorite picture of gardenia is when it is not fully bloomed like the picture shown above.

This is the picture of the last flower for this month. I already pruned the plant today and hopefully it will bloom again next month.

I was looking for other pictures to write a blog entry when I found these cattleya images. They were taken in February 2011. It must be one of those days that I managed to snap some pictures of my plants.

It has been a while since I fertilized my cattleya. I think the last time was in 2010. Sometimes I just didn’t have the time and chance to go out to the lawn to water them..sigh! Luckily most of the plants including cattleya are still alive and standing..huhu!

As you can see the new flowers of cattleya come from the new ‘pseudobulbs’. I’ve quoted about this in my previous entry – Cattleya Orchid.

Each year a dormant bud at the base grows into a new shoot. This thickens to produce the current year’s pseudobulb.

The flowers arise from the axil of the current year’s leaf where a protective sheath usually develops.

I will try to make time to fertilize the cattleya one of these days and see whether it will bloom again. As they say, some cattleya could flower twice yearly.

I found more info about this kemuning flower as I do some research to write this entry.

Apparently, it can be grown to form a hedge or topiary as shown in iGarden – Murraya paniculata.

It is also known as orange jessamine or mock orange in Hawaii. They say its strong and divine fragrant smell like orange blossoms (which I wouldn’t know because there’s no orange tree in Malaysia..huhu!)

Oh, it also has a bigger variant and a dwarf one. What I have at home is perhaps a dwarf one. A tall tree can grow up to 10-15 feet while the dwarf one to 2-4 feet.

This tropical plant originated from India to Malaysia (South East Asia).

And some claimed that they have successfully propagated the cuttings of this plant by putting the trimmings in potting soil (which I will try soon). Just imagine how fragrant my front porch will be when 3-4 pots of these lovely plants bloom altogether.

I’ve been waiting to write about this cempaka putih for so long. At last it blooms in March 2011 and I get to take a few pictures to share here.

I used to plant a pot of cempaka telur – Michelia Pumila or dwarf magnolia. But it doesn’t live long so I got another type of cempaka during Floria 2010. This time it’s a grafted plant of Michelia Alba which means it will bloom even though it’s small (not even 1 metre in height). I read somewhere that Michelia Alba or Magnolia Alba is a hybrid between Michelia Champaca (yellow orange flower) and Magnolia Montana.

Its name is in honor of Florentine botanist Pietro Antonio Micheli.

Another common name for it is white sandalwood. It is native to the Yunan province of China, grown for its exotic and beautifully fragrant flowers esteemed in China and around the world. Some say that the flower extract is one of the main ingredients for world’s most expensive perfume “Joy”.

From toptropicals.com,

Michelia alba has good antimicrobial properties, especially the leaves. It also has an antioxidant character with moderate effect.

It is also best to note the many names of this Michelia Alba in different language : White Champak, Pak-Lan, Banana Shrub, Cempaka Putih, Bai Yu Lan ( white-jade flower), Bai Yu Lan, Safa.

For my future reference, here is the link for article about Tropical Magnolias.

I hope my Michelia Alba will last long this time. Maybe I need to re-assign its spot to a place where it can get more full sun to make it blooms all year round. I will do that next time I do my gardening and see whether it makes any difference.

Note: Another great entry about Michelia Alba – The Kings of Fragrant Plants.

I think the last time I wrote about my Gardenia was in December. Luckily this time in February, a new flower has bloomed.

The gardenia or as some call it Cape Jasmine is such a fragrant flower. However it doesn’t last very long. For those who like to read about the botanical aspect of it, please read my first entry here – Gardenia-Bunga Cina.

It seems that I still can’t understand the temperament of the Cape Jasmine I have. The buds you see in the picture, most of them didn’t manage to bloom.

I hope I get to see some, or at least one flower for the month of March. I really have to check the fertilizer for azalea as suggested for gardenia. For now I have been spraying the Gardenia plant on weekly basis with seaweed based fertilizer I bought during MAHA 2010.