bird's eye chili // cili padi

order: solanales
family: solanaceae
genus: capsicum
species: frutescens
cultivar: cili padi

First Story

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2 december 2012

Earlier this year, a good friend of mine from Malaysia sent me seeds of bird's eye chili and key lime from her kitchen. I ordered them from her, so I can be sure to have the type of chili and key lime I'm looking for, ones that I knew back home. Bird's eye chili plants are short-lived perennials that grow into knee-high bush with freely branching habit. If it's indeed the correct type, its small fruits should be upright and not drooping. I sowed all of the chili seeds in a pot, very precisely on the 11th of July 2002. The chili seeds sprouted after less than a week. I ended up having a forest of chili plants. As I already have a plentiful amount of tropical plants in my room, I can only allow myself to keep a small number of them. I managed to have a friend take over half of the forest. I divided the rootball into two halves, replanted the two parts into separate pots and handed one of them to him.

I find that, these are rather easy plants to keep, not as finicky as many other tropical plants. However you shouldn't let the soil completely dry out. These plants are rather thirsty and need frequent watering. They are the one plant that I water the most often. In summer, when it's sunny and windy, I would water it twice a day. In winter, I water it once every other day. Even though the plant is not finicky, it does fall prey to aphids very easily. These creatures propagate at an unbelievable rate both sexually and asexually. So unless you control the plant at each watering, the creatures will make use of the time during your absence to set up colonies all over the plants and suck the plants dry of their life sap. By the time you notice a group of aphids on a leaf, the leaf is mostly damaged beyond rescue. However, as long as you can keep the number of aphids low, you can keep the plants growing just nicely.

Update

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24 february 2014

After having not updated on the chili plants for over a year, I'm finally posting some photos from year 2013. The first shows the appearance of the very first flower of the plants in the height of summer. While the petals of the flowers are white, the inner organs have a violet colour. Flowers are borne at terminals and are slightly drooping. In the latter photo, green and red chilies can be seen on the same plants. By autumn, we're provided with more chilies than we can consume. I gave some of them to my friends and let the rest ripen on the branch.

The taste of cili padi is in my opinion more refined than the regular chilies. When used slightly, it gives a perfect tone of pungency to your cooking. I especially prefer them when making the condiments for Hainanese chicken rice and Bak Kut Teh, both of which are favorite dishes among the Malaysian of Chinese descent.

As it seems, the aphids made their way back this spring. Though this batch of them look slightly different from the one from last year. The adult aphids put on stripes across their backs. That however doesn't make their appearance any more condonable. Every two to three days I would carry out a "health check".

nz tea tree // manuka

order: myrtales
family: myrtaceae
genus: leptospermum
species: scoparium

First Story

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24 may 2012

NZ tea tree is originally from Australia. Since there are already several other tea trees in Australia, like malaleuca for example, calling it a NZ tea tree makes it easy for differentiation. This plant is a member of the myrtle family. It's very easy to confuse it with waxflower (chamelaucium uncinatum), another member of myrtle family, if you are new to these two plants. Their flowers are identical. The difference is: leptospermum has stiff branches and foliage whereas waxflower like malaleuca has soft, tender ones.

It's been said that this plant is an absolutely difficult plant. It will be difficult to keep it alive for a long time. If you for some reason forget it for a single day, it will bid you farewell. This plant wants to have moist soil around its roots constantly. Yet water logged soil will kill it just as easily. I usually water it once or twice a day when it's indoor and as often as three to four times a day when moved outdoor. I find it easier to keep it in partial shade than in full sun, since it dries a lot quicker when fully exposed to the sun. Especially if you're a working person, you definitely want to place it at a shadier place.

Giving it a balanced fertiliser every other week from spring to fall should be fine. It blooms almost constantly during this period.

flowers and flowerbuds in abundance.

top view.

R.I.P

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2 february 2014

After 2 years of growth, the crown of this plant had become a lot more massive. Unfortunately it died from my neglect in the winter storage: I forgot to water it for nearly a week, during which I was almost suffocated with my studies. I worked many days in a row without getting much sleep and on some days I didn't come home at all. The day after I completed my work, I came home to find a very pungent smell in the stairwell where the manuka bush was hidden very nicely in between other plants. By the time I realised the smell came from it, it had already been dead for a couple of days. The soil was completely devoid of any moisture. This was the first time I learned of the true meaning of its name "tea tree". The dried up "tea leaves" were persistent, though you can be sure the foliage has already died, in that it turned into a pale, lifeless khaki colour. I tried to revive it by saturating the entire plant in a bucket of water and using a fine spray of water to keep the foliage moist. For a month, I didn't want to give it up hoping miracle could happen, but it didn't. It's really a pity; after these 2 years of care. Now I'm still in process of deciding if I should get another manuka plant to start with or just forget it forever? The plant had never been finicky. It was really my fault.

shrubby cinquefoil

order: rosales
family: rosaceae
genus: dasiphora (potentilla)
species: fruticosa
cultivar: 'Kobold'

First Story

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2 august 2012

Cinquefoil belongs to the rose family, a family that is distributed in all continents except Antarctica. Just as I'm writing this text, I discover that it's no longer placed under the genus potentilla, which is kind of sad. Now I'll have to remember not to call it a potentilla, but a dasiphora... So if it's not a potentilla, then it's not a cinquefoil, not a "five leaves".

Well, well... whatever dasiphora means, it still has five leaves, or as the germans call it, "five fingers". The reason I got this plant is because it has five fingers on each hand, just like I do. I ordered this plant online in late winter, even before the garden centres started bringing in different plants for sales. I simply transplanted it into this larger pot, although a bigger pot wasn't necessary. I first let the new shoots grow long and bear flowers. After the first flush of flowers, I pruned it back to make a rounded silhouette. I saw that our neighbours also have a same plant in their garden. A big rounded bush with flowers lasting until now. I wonder if mine would have given me more flowers had I not pruned it back that early. However I think the pruning was necessary, because the bush gets out of shape very easily, if it's to be kept small.

I found that this plant prefers the soil to be more on the wet side than on the dry side. When it's almost dry, some of the leaves will just wilt. You may not notice it right away, but it will show up a couple of days later. So the whole thing becomes a little unsightly. I'll thin out some of its volume in spring to allow light and air to penetrate into the inner part. I'll also prune back hard before the first shoots appear, so that I don't have to prune it so soon after the first growth and allow it to flower longer.

Update

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September pruning.

Throughout the growing season I've been pinching back new growth every now and then. Now that the growing season is coming to an end I thinned out the plant for one last time this year. In spring next year some of the major branches have to go.

Update

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2 february 2014

In 2013, I mainly let my cinquefoil plant grow uninhibited, skipped trimming completely and supplied it pellets of mixed dung frequently. At the end of the year, the branches have become long and thick. After leaf fall it was time to tidy up. I first began by cutting back the excessively long branches. Then I proceeded to remove crossing branches.

By this time the soil surface is completely covered with two species of moss, one of which sent up a crowded mass of long, decorative sporophytes.