I was successful enough to grow this vanilla plant and made it flower hoping I will get the vanilla beans that comes after flowering. But unfortunately, no matter how I tried to pollinate the flowers, no luck with the beans. I guess, I have to look for the bee that does the job properly.
Poinsettia is well known as a Christmas plant maybe because it changes color during the Christmas Holidays or winter. This poinsettia was from last year’s Christmas and I just took care of it up to now and I noticed the leaves are changing color. I did not do anything special really. Basically watering it diligently…
I consider water lily as an exotic flower. It exudes such mystery as their name implies, Nymphaeaceae from the word Nymph which means beautiful maidens in Greek mythology. Just like the flowers of the water lily they are beautiful. Apparently, there are two types of water lily, hardy and tropical. Since we’re in the tropics,…
I call this plant butterfly bush because butterflies lay eggs on the leaves. The caterpillars eat the leaves until the whole plant is stripped. When the caterpillars developed into beautiful butterflies, they suck the nectar from the tiny flowers. The flowers that has been pollinated developed seed pods and I just saw one today that…
Nasturtiums – Tropaeolum majus – is becoming the number one popular among the edible flowers. It’s not only tasty and peppery but planting and growing it yourself is almost foolproof. They don’t need fertilizer and they grow in poor soils and give more flowers than if you grow them in very rich soil. It prefers…
Ilang-Ilang is probably the most fragrant flower on earth. It’s the secret ingredient in most signature perfumes especially Chanel, I learned. Ilang-Ilang or Cananga odorata is a tropical tree indigenous to the Philippines. It grows tall to about 40 ft. in height. In the forests where they grow well is acidic in nature so they…
I have high hopes this flower will soon be pollinated and become a fruit. The variety I have in the garden is the yellow type. Apparently there is a purple type but I haven’t seen any yet. I love having “lilikoi”(Hawaiian name for passion fruit) in my garden. The fruits I gather can be made…