clitoral bush // butterfly pea // blue pea

order: fabales
family: fabaceae
genus: clitoria
species: ternatea

First Story

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20 august 2015

This plant, native to tropical Asia, is known by many different names. My first encounter with the plant is through a video series by Gordon Ramsay on his culinary discovery trip around South East Asia. The article that links to the video says: "Gordon Ramsay touches a Malaysian woman's clitoral bush". Unabashed, the hostess introduced Gordon to her kitchen plant proclaiming prosaically its name only to have Gordon jokingly asked her if her husband ever picks her bush. The two were apparently very amused by it. In the video, she used the flowers of the plant to give a blue hue to her rice. That's striking. I wondered how I didn't know it before, having lived in that part of the world for so long. After watching that video, I immediately took note of the plant.

This year, I intentionally cut down on the amount of new acquisition. Among the few new plants, this is one that I grew from seeds, which are locally available. Growing it from seeds is easy and needs no further explanation. The plant is a short-lived perennial, twining climber. Its growth is not very aggressive. Only 4 months into growing, it started to set flowers after flowers. They are blue and have a shape that is very distinctive of the pea family. Only with the case of clitoral bush, the flower is upside-down, with the protruding tube at the top. People see clitoris in them. The flowers open during the day and close during the night and repeat for 2 consecutive days. If you don't harvest the flowers, they develop into flat bean pods, which are as per my research also edible when young. The leaves are likewise as can be expected. Soft pinnate leaves of mostly 5 leaflets droop at night and become rigid again by day. Its roots are said to also form rhizobial nodules that fix nitrogen in the soil. The plant seems to be a really carefree, something I can recommend to beginners. It does best in full sun but also thrives at any bright location. Water and fertilise as usual. I am most likely going to overwinter my plants. If this is not an option, you should definitely leave some seed pods to mature and save them to start new plants in spring.

tamarind

order: fabales
family: fabaceae
genus: tamarindus
species: indica

Sown deep in the winter on 9 january 2013, many tamarind seeds saved from the Christmas meal successfully struck. The soft pinnate leaves are photosensitive. They close upwards when dark and open flat again by light. Stems turned woody in a short period of time. Growth is moderately vigorous. As of mid-october, the tallest plant measures 30cm. Their need for water is moderate. They can withstand some drought, but do not let dry for long. Aphids grow very fat by feeding on their sap. Find a way to get rid of them, if they found their ways onto your plants. Keep the plants above 7°C. Ideal soil pH is 5.5. So whenever possible, use acid fertiliser and limefree water.

wisteria

order: fabales
family: fabaceae
genus: wisteria
species: floribunda / sinensis ??
cultivar: n/a; grown from seed

In autumn 2011 while walking through a garden that was already preparing for winter slumber, my friend collected a seedpod from a seemingly wisteria plant with bare rugged trunks twining against a pergola, and handed it to me. Back home I swiftly pressed it into the old soil in a vacant pot that was lying around in the garden. The seed was quickly forgotten.

In the following spring, my excitement about gardening grew as the ground started to thaw and the bulbs started to flower. Since I was new to gardening in the colder climate zone I was very curious about what grows in the garden. So I went around studying every little green tip that popped out from the ground and also dug out some interesting looking self-sown "weeds" to keep before the mower comes to eat away everything. While going around I discovered the forgotten pot and a sprout in it. After so many months of cold and silent death it's impossible for me to remember anything like that. But thanks to the seedpod that was still lying around it, the beautiful memory came back as a vivid walk of last autumn. After its pinnate leaves had grown to be visible I confirmed it's a wisteria. I'm yet to identify the species. At the moment, I narrowed down the possiblities to W. floribunda and W. sinensis, because these are the most commonly grown species here. I'm not very fussy about this now, as long as the plant stays healthy and beautiful.

Last year the plant grew to be just about 10 cm. I wanted to transplant it to a bigger pot with fresh soil this year but missed the season to do this completely. Nevertheless it has become fuller looking after another season of growth. The pinnate leaves grow in all direction making a nice rounded silhouette when viewed from the top. Even though it hasn't branched out, its pinnate leaf structure makes an allusion to the branches that may develop in the near future. Being able to see plants developing so quickly makes growing them from seeds very rewarding. I gave it a temporary ceramic pot for an immediate improvement in presentation. If I manage to find time to repot it properly next year, I'd definitely give it a bigger container and get rid of the old tired soil.

carob tree // st john's bread

order: fabales
family: fabaceae
genus: ceratonia
species: siliqua (is there any possibility that it's a C. oreothauma?)
cultivar: from seeds obtained from a wild parent tree

When a friend of mine returned from the trip to South Africa earlier this year, he gave me different seeds he collected during expeditions in the wilderness including a seed pod collected from a carob tree. I have seen carob seed pods sold in supermarkets as food, but I don't know if there are still viable seeds in them. I have my seeds, so I probably don't ever have to find out.

On one fine day in July, I opened up the very hard pod and strained a lot of energy doing it. Since I didn't want to do damage to the seeds, I didn't want to use a knife. Instead I cracked it to bits with my bare hands. Seeds could then be knocked out from the pod. Next, I soaked the seeds in water for over 24 hours until they swelled. After that the seeds were sown in a pot of a standard potting compost. They sprouted in a couple of days, all of them. Since it belongs to the pea family or the legumes (fabaceae) -- a popular family of plants including acacia, mimosa and wisteria -- you can expect pinnate leaves on the plant. So far there are only two leaflets on each leaf. Young shoots are bronze in colour and turn dark green afterwards. The stems of the new shoots are thinly winged. The foliage is rather stiff and shiny. If you want to have any fruit at all, keep at least one male and one female plants. Yes, they are dioecious. I read that the flowers are initially bisexual or hermaphrodite. One sex will be suppressed in later development. So it's a good idea to keep several seedlings until the sexes have been determined.

As always I do things at the wrong time of year. Only two months after germination those sunny summer days are all over. Now we are already getting into autumn. Average temperature dropped down to 10°C in my area. So I brought the seedlings into my studies so they can continue to grow a bit more before the days get too short.

Carob trees grow best in calcareous soils. They should be kept above freezing temperature at all time. Water moderately and let dry out almost completely in between. It's unclear whether carob tree is able to fix nitrogen from the atmosphere. However it seems like they do not have the nitrogen fixing nodules present on some other leguminous plants. Assuming that its ability to fix nitrogen is weak, I believe it will be beneficial to give potted plants some weak balanced fertiliser occasionally. This should give the plant sufficient nitrogen and thus eliminate the need to use mycorrhizal fungi, which probably drains more energy from the tree than the tree can produce in low light condition in the winter, especially if the overwinter temperature is high enough for the fungi to stay active. As a rule I'd only use mycorrhizal fungi on plants that stay outdoors year round.