this or that: plants from my childhood

in garden:
adenium obesum (desert rose)
cuphea hyssopifolia (false heather)
wrightia religiosa (water jasmine)
portulaca grandiflora (moss-rose)
caladium bicolor
caladium humboldtii
jatropha podagrica (bottle plant)
cyrtostachys renda (lipstick palm tree)
duranta erecta (pigeon berry)
aloe vera
bougainvillea
hibiscus
ixora coccinea (jungle geranium)
euphorbia milii (crown-of-thorns)
chrysanthemum
alternanthera ficoidea 'party time' (parrot leaf)
lantana camara (bush lantana)
heliconia densiflora (false bird-of-paradise)
plumeria (frangipani)
kalanchoe pinnata (life plant)
epipremnum aureum (devil's ivy)
catharanthus roseus (rose periwinkle)
ipomoea batatas (sweet potato)
arachis hypogaea (peanut)
wedelia/sphagneticola trilobata (creeping-oxeye; i used to call it daisy)


in orchard:
psidium guajava (guava)
citrus (lime)
durio (durian)
nephelium (rambutan)
syzygium samarangense (wax apple)
ananas comosus (pineapple)
mangifera (mango)
carica papaya (papaya)
musa (banana)
cocos (coconut palm)

moss rose

order: caryophyllales
family: portulacaceae
genus: portulaca
species: grandiflora

Moss-rose is one of my childhood plants. At that time I didn't know what it was called, or more accurately, not until recently. As kid, probably like many other kids, I had a chance to do some gardening with my family. For some years, I was fully in charge of all the garden work, which I had to get done before I got to school. For many years I've forgotten about my passion in gardening until I finally picked it up again last year after moving into a house with garden. I happened to come across a plant that I had so much to do with in a garden centre. It's known as "mexican heather", the name of which, I also didn't know. Now I've been trying to rediscover and gather a list of all these plants that I had a lot of dealing with back at home in Borneo. It wasn't easy for me to "rediscover" the plant of topic -- "moss-rose" aka "10 o'clock flower", because the flower is usually in full bloom at this hour in tropical Asia. I searched online giving all keywords I could think of although I had not a clue what it was called. Or I did. I thought the name had something to do with the flower carnation. Or the flower that showed up on the cans of condensed milk that mom used to buy. No, all my efforts were to no avail. But because I was determined to find it, I browsed through the entire volumes "DK encyclopedia of plants". My efforts weren't in vain, not only did I find out what this plant is called, there're also a dozen other plants that I used to know.

Coming back to moss-rose. These plants can have flowers in different colours. They can be both single coloured or multicoloured. There are varieties with single, semi-double and double flowers. My elder sister and I used to collect different varieties. We didn't buy; we got them from her school friends, from neighbours or we simply plucked some from the streetside, as they were widely planted as groundcover in curb areas in our city. (At some point, I also want to cover other plants that were used here.) Once back home, we simply pressed the plucked succulent stems into the soil. In a matter of a few days, the plant has already established itself and kept spreading like nobody's business. Because the city changes the plants every now and then, they were slowly forgotten.

I have already got a packet of portulaca grandiflora seeds. Can't wait for summer to come! :)

>>Update:

I've finally sown the seeds in March. I provided them the conditions mentioned on the package including moist soil and the minimum of 18 °C soil temperature. It only took them two days to sprout. I must say it was pretty impressive and unexpected. Now they are so tiny that they still don't look anything like the moss-rose I knew. That gets me wondering if these are really the plants I was looking for. Now I can only sit back and wait to see what they are going to turn into.

Seedlings are so tender, you always have to take extra care handling them. Despite the fine spray I used to water them, the shower flushed them all down against the soil. I think I might have to use a pipette the next time.

miniature roses

order: rosales

family: rosaceae

genus: rosa
species: ?
variety: ?

I got this mini rose from a DIY chain in November 2011. It was put on a bargain cart along with other withering plants. Instead of the usual price of 2,50 eur, I only paid 50 cents.

Since this is my very first rose, I had absolutely no idea what I should do to make him happy. I did a long research online but couldn't come to a conclusion from the vastly disputed opinions. Some people were very skeptical of its survival. Some say that roses won't thrive indoor and suggest to plant them out in garden. At this time of year, all the plants usually go to sleep outside while the days become shorter. I didn't think the roses were going to withstand the cold, so I decided to keep it indoor on the south-facing window sill and planned to postpone its winter dormancy.

First I took the plant out of the plastic pot with 6-cm diameter, replanted them into a slightly larger pot with their rootball untouched. Then I proceeded to trim off the deseased leaves. Afterwards, the plant did look happy and healthy. This is what it looked like:

roses newly transplanted into a slightly bigger pot.

I've been keeping my roses between 16 and 21 °C, cooler at night than day, which is recommended by an article I found over the internet. It also recommends humidity between 40% and 60% with air circulation. One mistake I did was misting the plant when the sun was shining brightly. As a result, the flower and flower buds got burnt and had to be pruned. I haven't misted them since. And even when I water, I avoid getting the leaves wet.
One week after having them, I finally seperated the 3 roses. I spent hours removing the soil from the rootball very carefully until each of them was barerooted, gave each of them a root cut, one third off the total length of each root system, including the taproot. Each is planted into their separate pot in a mix of regular soil and pumice.

Months have passed. They seem to have liked the way i handled them. After they were deadheaded and repotted, these tiny roses have grown bushy. One of them is giving me a new bloom now. I took a picture with the three of them together. If you compare with the previous photo, you can see how much they have grown.

separated roses. from left to right: number 1, 2 & 3.

One thing I noticed is that they don't seem to mind the heater underneath the window sill. Of course they don't get full blast from the hot air current. As a rule, I try not to let my plants be exposed to it. I just hold my hand over the heater unit next to the leaves, and if the air feels cool, then it's okay. Otherwise, I place a wider board underneath the pots.

>Observation
The leaves are alternate, each oddly pinnate, usually having 5 serrulated leaflets, sometimes 3, seldom only one at tip.
New growth is red in colour which slowly fades away and leaves behind its green.

>Info
Wikipedia says: "Miniature roses are often marketed and sold by the floral industry as houseplants, but it is important to remember that these plants are largely descended from outdoor shrubs native to temperate regions; thus, most miniature rose varieties require an annual period of cold dormancy to survive."

>>Update:

blooming rose number 1 on valentine's day 2012.

rose number 2 in bloom july 2012.

rose number 3 in bloom july 2012.