Visit to an orchid nursery

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orchid nursery

Rows and rows of orchids at the Koh Keng Hoe Orchid Nursery off Adam Road.

Earlier today, a friend brought me to an orchid nursery near Adam Road. If you’re an orchid enthusiast in Singapore, you’ll know that this is the famous Koh Keng Hoe Orchid Nursery. The nursery owner, Mr Koh, is now in his early 80s and is one of the pioneer orchid experts in Singapore. He has been growing orchids for over 60 years and has created several award-winning orchid hybrids.

Mr Koh is very friendly and easy-going, and was happy to show us around the nursery. It was a little staggering to find out that he mans the place himself. There were easily hundreds of plants there!

I don’t have the names of all of the following flowers, but I found them very attractive:

purple orchids

Orchid at Koh Keng Hoe Orchid Nursery

red orchids

Orchid at Koh Keng Hoe Orchid Nursery

white orchid

Cattleya Kiyoto Obata orchid by Koh Keng Hoe

purple & white orchids

Orchid at Koh Keng Hoe Orchid Nursery

dark pink orchids

Orchid at Koh Keng Hoe Orchid Nursery

yellow orchids

Orchid at Koh Keng Hoe Orchid Nursery

Vanda orchid.

Vanda orchid at Koh Keng Hoe Orchid Nursery

I haven’t had luck in keeping orchids alive in the past – that was my dad’s area of expertise – so I didn’t buy any orchids from the nursery. What I bought were anthuriums. The variety that Mr Koh grows are rather small and dark red, and what makes them unique is the spadix – the cone-like protrusion from the centre of the flower. The variety that Mr Koh grows has multi-colours, like this:

Look more closely at the spadix of this anthurium and you'll see that its tip is yellow, followed by a blushing pink, then the usual white. How pretty!

Look more closely at the spadix of this anthurium and you’ll see that its tip is yellow, followed by a blushing pink, then the usual white. How pretty!

It’s not likely that I will grow orchids myself because their care clashes with the organic approach I’m taking with my veggie garden, but if you’re interested in visiting Mr Koh’s nursery – which incidentally is his garden – this is the address:

Koh Keng Hoe Orchid Nursery
19 Dunearn Close, Singapore 299586

It is open daily, and you will probably find Mr Koh at the back where he will likely invite you to have a cold drink. You may even get advice on looking after orchids, which I got, despite telling him I am a notorious orchid-killer! :)

© 2013 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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Glimmer of hope for a pumpkin

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The pumpkin fruit bud that looks like it's going to grow in the foreground, with the pumpkin fruit bud that didn't grow in the back...

The pumpkin fruit bud that looks like it’s going to grow in the foreground, with the pumpkin fruit bud that didn’t grow in the back…

There is one pumpkin vine still growing in our garden – formerly known as a butternut pumpkin vine, but now simply known as Novice Gardener’s pumpkin plant because she gave us the (incorrectly labelled) seeds. We have to wait for the fruit to develop before we pumpkin wanna-growers figure out what variety it is because we can’t identify the fruit from the bud alone. What we can say with certainty is that it is not a butternut pumpkin plant!

As usual, with my first time growing anything, I’m simply observing what the plant does and how it reacts to things. It didn’t like the excessive rain we had in November and December. In fact, the vine that had been happily branching out began to let some parts die off. When the rains eased up, it began to flower quite a bit – male flowers, of course. We had a few sightings of female buds, but they all aborted before they could grow to anything substantial.

Over the last weekend, I spotted another pair of fruit buds – both one leaf apart (pumpkin flowers bloom at leaf junctures). When I checked on them this morning, I saw that one had already started to abort. The other, however, was substantially bigger, shinier and greener. The flower bud also looked promising with that tight, conical look that petals have before they start to open. This is the closest we’ve come to having a pumpkin fruit flower, and firsts are always exciting. If it comes to anything, trust me, you’ll hear about it… ;)

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The Longevity Spinach plant

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The Longevity spinach plant.

The Longevity spinach plant.

We get many of our plants as passalong plants, especially those that are beneficial in some way or other. Last month, a family friend gave us a cutting of a plant that she called the “longevity plant”. Now, I don’t mind growing medicinal plants – just last month, the Indian borage I’ve been growing for about 2 years finally came in handy when I had a cough. The only problem was, I didn’t quite like the taste of it, but it did curb the cough a little.

So, the little cutting was placed in water where it rapidly took root and continued growing quite well until I potted it.

Our friend also kindly wrote out a description of the plant, so I can tell you that besides being known as the Longevity Spinach plant, it is known locally as Sambung Nyawa and Bai Bing Cao – I think that would be Malay and Chinese, respectively. An online search also produced the name Gynura procumbens.

The health benefits associated with this plant are reportedly that it:

  • regulates blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol and triglyceride levels
  • relieves general body and rheumatic pains
  • treats kidney problems, eruptive fevers, dysentery, migraine, constipation, rash, gastric cancer and HIV virus
  • stabilizes the menstrual cycle

I can’t vouch for all the above claims, but those were in the description given to me. Perhaps while the plant is growing in its new home, I’ll find out more so that I’ll know whether and when to make use of it.

© 2013 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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The Mongolian giant sunflower

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Our Mongolian sunflower - not so giant a sunflower, but definitely a tall plant!

Our Mongolian sunflower – not so giant a sunflower, but definitely a tall plant!

We didn’t have the sunflower for Christmas, but we will for the New Year. Our Mongolian giant sunflower has finally bloomed!

The entire Mongolian giant sunflower plant - all 9 or so feet of it!

The entire Mongolian giant sunflower plant – all 9 or so feet of it!

It has peaked at around 9 feet, or just over 2.7 metres high. The flower is smaller than I wish it would be, but it is still pretty and bright.

The centre of the flower is light green, and the tiny florets are already blooming, and I was glad to see, attracting bees, even at that height.

These young caterpillars decimated about a quarter of the leaf before we found and removed them.

These young caterpillars decimated about a quarter of the leaf before we found and removed them.

As with our last giant sunflower plant, the pests have tried to thwart the plant. A small horde of hairy caterpillars hatched and began feeding on one of the leaves. Had I caught them early, they would have been on just that one leaf; because I didn’t, I had to check the surrounding leaves because some of them had already begun wandering. I hope I caught them all, because I want the plant to have enough leaves to sustain the flower for as long as possible, and to possibly harvest seeds from the plant.

I hope this flower brightens the day of those of you reading from colder climates. :)

© 2012 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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