The Constant Gardener

Err. this is not at all about Ralph Fiennes :) one of the most respected actor in my good book as I love his actings especially as the English Patient. I did watch recently his movie the Constant Gardener, but I don’t like Rachel Weiss .. a bit overdramatic for my taste but off course I love Fiennes and his brooding way.

I am an unfortunately one of those constant gardener, albeit, a poor one at that.

Everywhere I go, outstation, overseas, etc.. all I can see are plants. Wherever I go my souvenirs for myself are plants that I find interesting. Either dried and flattened among my guidebooks or as seedlings I will smuggled home. Err. I have dried mountain flowers from Sintra, Vienna, the Swiss Alps, Tuscany and Montemarte, lilac and red poppies from Caesar's grave at Pallatine's Hill.. in between my Lonely Planet guidebook :)

My family diplomatically tried to discourage me by mentioning that perhaps my hands are “too warm” and I should wear gloves. I told them next time I am gonna chilled my hands with some ice, if that is what it takes for some of those darn plants to like and live on me ):

If people hear me talking about plants, they wud think I have a nice beautiful garden on some ground corner lot somewhere. But the fact of the matter is, so far I can’t find a nice corner lot house I can afford in the neighborhood I want. The house on the hill overlooking the Banjaran Titiwangsa I fall in love for the past few years which recently I braved up to ask the family that rented it, costs over a million ringgit…so that switched off my dream on that house at least for now... So in the meantime I have to fit my dream garden in the two small balconies of my hillside apartment.

I was pretty successful with my miniature water garden with its cascading pool, waterfall and fishs in the terra cotta pots I went to get with Elida in Sungai Buloh and the one Uda donated to me. I actually learnt how to assemble and landscaped a mini waterfall, with pumps and colorful tropical fishes and all. Eventually.. I couldn’t keep up with the fishes and its maintenance though. When I had that awful accident playing paintball for the company and broke my elbow in March 2004, it was a horrible end for those poor fishes. They all died, as well as my beautiful water plants. I had to start over from scratch. The new plants are thriving now but I no longer keep fishes..as beautiful as they and soothe me when I come home.

All my beautiful expensive rare and common orchids also always gave up on me. As well as those darn petunias.. I lost counts already. I must have tried at least 30 pots of orchids and over 30 pots of petunias…hundreds of ringgit down the drain.. I can quite understand those orchids being rather finicky and died on me.. but I don’t understand petunias being so finicky!!! It drives me crazy..

Do they need more water or sunlight or what??? I know they love the sun and I gave them the best hangs on my sunny balcony. They get all the sun they want, yet they still prefer to die on me ): The longest they will keep alive is 2 to 4 weeks. I know I shud give up by now, but heck I think I am gonna drive again all the way to Sungai Buloh to get a few more pots of the petunias, and stop by at the Orchid garden at the Lake Garden to get some beautiful orchids again. This will be my last trial and maybe then I will give up, at least until I have my own house.

As my mom been advising me for some time now.. “I know you are pretty good at most things you set your heart into.. but perhaps it is time to stop torturing those poor plants already..”

The hyacinth and tulips I bought at Keukenhoff, Amsterdam Europe and traveled with with me on the train all the way to Bonn, shuffed at some left-luggage in Brussels while I was doing the town, and then on the Thalys all the way back to Paris and smuggled via Singapore and finally KLIA.. dried out in a month time..well that is quite understandable :) While some years ago, I made an American fren of mine sent me some cuttings of the cherry blossoms from Washington DC Tidal Basin and that as expected didn’t grow here. Way too advance of a plant for me anyway.

But the saddest gardening moment for me was when my beautiful thriving fragrant kerak nasi or kesidang plant that gives this beautiful Dior perfume died on me. That was a beautiful cutting given by Pak Ya and it took him 4 or 5 months to cultivate for me. He had to import his brother a horticulturist from Perak to do the cutting. It was doing very well and flowering several times..giving my balcony a most surreal ambience with its little flowers that gives such aesthetic value. Fortunately, my stock of fragrant Jasmine plants supplied by Mok and Chik of Bukit Payung, Terengganu is still thriving and flowering almost every day. The Jasmine plant I planted at my father’s grave, also from Bukit Payung stock is thriving very well, as is the white and fuschia big Japanese roses, growing beautifully when we visited my father’s grave recently. My bunga sundal malam is recuperating on the ground at a neighbor’s yard so that it can get enuff sun and rain, while my pokok tongkeng is recuperating and thriving well at my mom’s garden. My mom was reminiscing her beautiful tongkeng plant which was hard to get and was accidently pulled when my neighbor was weeding their side of the gate..that was when I was still little! So when I found out my Sg Buloh nursery has them, I got a beautiful plant and divided it for her garden and mine. Both are thriving well.

But the plant that almost never give up on me are my big beautiful Japanese roses..some are thriving beautifully at my balcony .. eventhough I lost most of my collection of Japanese roses varieties when I was at the hospital and my sister Ida the plant-murderer.. forgot to water them both when I was at the hospital as well as when I was away in Europe. Eventhough I e-mailed her from every part of Europe to remind her to water my plants, she couldn’t care less ):

As it is my water plants are doing well.. I have a lotus, water lily (from the Kijal area), kiambang, water cabbages, this beautiful white flowering water plant that gives me lots of zen, the giant pegaga as well as some other plants on my shady balcony such as bird nest ferns, daun pandan.. setawar, money plants, etc... I think the lemongrass is gonna die soon, but some chilli and tomatoes as well as pumpkin plants grow on their own in some of the pots! I actually even get to pick a chili recently :)