Category Archives: Gardening

Gardening

Home Garden – Zinnia

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The Narrowleaf Zinnia is a seasonal flowering plant. I got this one early in March and it bloomed recently, with a few other flowers on the way.

Zinnia
My Narrowleaf Zinnia

This is a perennial plant which blooms late spring and stays in bloom for a few weeks (I hope it stays this way over the summers).

Bloom!

This plant requires almost no maintenance except occasional fertilizing.

I keep this in direct sunlight.

I water it between twice a week during peak winters and every day during peak summers. I fertilize it every 2 months or depending on when it shows signs of growth.

Here’re some good tools which will help you with your gardening.

Gardening

Home Garden – Flaming Katy

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The Flaming Katy is a very hardy flowering plant. I recently started with a pink coloured one and then got a red one followed by a yellow one. Here’s a good website with more information about this plant.

Flaming Katy
White-Pink Katy

This is a perennial plant which blooms late winters and early spring and stays in bloom for weeks at end (Mine are still going strong after 2 months now).
The colours are vibrant and look very beautiful.

Red Katy

These plants require almost no maintenance except occasional fertilizing.

Red-Yellow Katy

I keep the Flaming Katy in direct sunlight.

I water them between twice a week during peak winters and every day during peak summers. I fertilize them every 2 months or depending on when they show signs of growth.

Here’re some good tools which will help you with your gardening.

Gardening

Home Garden – My Shrubs

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I inherited some small/sickly shrubs from my parents when they moved to to a different city. I re-potted them into a bigger pot and it grew tenfold in a span of a few weeks and bloomed.

This, below, is a Crown of Thorns. Very hardy shrubs, they don’t care where you put them, how much sunshine they get or how frequently you water them.

shrubs
The mother shrub

The best part is, you can cut off any of the branches and pot them and they grow into full-sized plants. Some of them are part of my plant wall (bottom row).

The flowers are in perpetual bloom all year round.

Bathroom Desert Rose

The 2 above are on different bathroom window sills.

These plants require absolutely no maintenance.

The first one is kept in partial shade, the other 2 get direct sunlight via windows 3-4 hours in the summers.

I water them once a week or less. Although they don’t require any fertiliser, I fertilise them every 2 months, which encourages leaf growth.

Here’re some good tools which will help you with your gardening.

Gardening

Home Garden – Fenugreek

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I grew the common Fenugreek from seeds that my daughter brought from school. I planted them around an inch deep of moist soil and within days, they sprouted.

Fenugreek
Common Fenugreek

The first few inches of the plant are a bit soft/weak and require some support. The top part is quite rigid and self sufficient.

This plant requires almost no maintenance.

I keep this in direct sunlight.

This plant is a vociferous water drinker and its leaves start drooping if you even miss 1 watering session. I water it between twice a week during peak winters and every day during peak summers. I fertilize it every 2 months or depending on when it shows signs of growth.

Here’re some good tools which will help you with your gardening.

Gardening

Home Garden – My Palms & Dragon Tree

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My Palms are perhaps my most favourite plants of all. As a guy who loves the beach and tropical climates, I find that the Palms bring a bit of the tropical paradise in my home.

Palm
My favourite Palm

This Parlor Palm above is my favourite. It is in good health, growing steadily. I love watching its leaves sway gently in the breeze from my window.

Another Parlor Palm and a Dragon Tree

Shown above is another Parlor Palm on a different balcony along with a Dragon Tree.

These plants require some maintenance, basically only troweling the top soil once in a while, clipping off brown leaves. Although these plants are meant to be kept indoors, I prefer to keep them on my balconies, partly because of space concerns and especially because I love their leaves swaying in the wind.

The first one is kept in partial shade, the other 2 get direct sunlight 3-4 hours in the summers.

I water them between once or twice a week during peak winters and alternate days/everyday during peak summers. I fertilise them every 2 months or depending on when they show signs of growth.

Here’re some good tools which will help you with your gardening.

Gardening

Home Garden – Plant Wall

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I got this expandable plant wall from Amazon. It was relatively cheap and I had an empty wall outside my balcony.

Plant Wall
My Plant Wall

Took me an hour to install, and a quick shopping trip to the nearest nursery to get plants for it.

The top row has 3 Dumbcane plants.

The middle row has 3 Crown of Thorns.

My Money plants

The bottom row has 3 Golden Pothos (A Money plant with light coloured leaves), the middle one also has a Heartleaf Philodendron which is a different variety of money plant with bigger & darker leaves. Also, their tips are a vibrant orange/red before they spout leaves.

All the plants are in partial shade.

All the plants are very low maintenance, but especially the cacti, which require next to no water or maintenance. Still they bloom all year round with pretty little flowers.

I water them all between once a week during peak winters and alternate days during peak summers. For the shrubs, only a few ml at a time.
I fertilise them all once every 2 months.

Next on the list would be to expand it a bit during the summers. Maybe alternate the small and big plants so that the bigger ones get more sunlight.

Here’re some good tools which will help you with your gardening.

Gardening

Home Garden – Foxtail Fern

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The Foxtail Fern is the second most favourite plant I have at home. Here’s a good website with more information about this plant.

Foxtail Fern
My Foxtail Fern

This plant requires almost no maintenance, maybe clipping off yellowing branches once in a while for aesthetics. The most time I have spent on this one is when I transplanted it from a plastic pot to this ceramic one.

I keep this in partial shade.

I water it between once a week during peak winters and alternate days during peak summers. I fertilise it every 2 months or depending on when it shows signs of growth.

Here’re some good tools which will help you with your gardening.

Gardening

I am into Gardening now

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I am officially old; in the last few months, I have grown increasingly interested in gardening, having plants in beautiful pots and watching them grow (most of the time).

There’s nothing as peaceful as watching the fruits of your labour flourish and sway in the wind.

Anyways, below are a few tools I recommend everyone doing casual gardening to have.

  • PictureThis (Plant Identifier) – This is a terrific and useful app which uses Machine Learning to identify plants from their photos. I found the accuracy of this app to be very high. After identifying a particular plant, it shows you information about the plant. It is especially useful when buying new plants because in many instances, I have seen that a seller is not able to explain details about a plant. The basic version is free, but there’s a subscription which allows you unlimited identification and also lets you diagnose plant problems or diseases.
  • Trowel – This is a must have for everyone, is useful for loosening the top soil of plants periodically, mixing fertilisers etc. Buy different sizes depending on the size of your pots and requirements.
A trowel
  • Water Spray – These come in different varieties. You need to fill water, pump the top handle to compress the air inside and then you can use the trigger to spray water out.
Water Spray

Most of these have an adjustable nozzle which can spray a fine mist or shoot a thin jet of water. It is especially useful to spray water on plant leaves (cleaning and moisturising them) or watering smaller pots without making a mess.

More detailed posts coming up.