I was saying to Mom that I couldn't find lemongrass at the market with roots to grow them in the pot. Interestingly, I place these 4 in the plastic bag & viola... roots in just 7 days. I have planted them & hopefully they will grow well. So needed to make the lemongrass drink every now and then. The leaves add better flavour & colour to the drink.

Current favourite drink:

Japanese Green Tea (from Sri Lanka) with fresh mint leaves from our garden.

A quick update on the mini-garden in front of our house...

I have added a traveller's palm to each side of the garden, I don't think we will live here long enough to enjoy the beauty, but hopefully the new tenants will appreciate them as much as we do.
The garden view to the right of our neighbours

This is the left side of our garden. At the moment, I have the Elephant Ear at the extreme left,
a type of fern plant in the middle, & the newly planted Traveller's Palm on the right.

Here's a garden view of my neighbours on the left.

"Operation Botanico"

The flowers & plants have been in the garden. Not planted.

The granites and the clay when we first moved in were unfavourable to grow anything.

Thus, I have removed the granites and a portion of the topsoil (clay actually) at the expense of my delicate (useless) lower back. Not surprisingly, I got a sore back.

Anyway, it is 95% completed and I am happy with the arrangement. 

I needed the garden to look fabulous not only from outside & inside the fence, but also from the top (our bedroom verandah).

Now, I need a massage therapy session. 

Otoko's recommendation: Tui Na

If you haven't tried Tui Na, you really should.

We had our New Year Celebration at our place, Alan had (8 hours prior) invited his bosses & families over. No pressure... yeah, sounds about right! Luckily, Mums were there as well. I roped in extra help from Nadeesha & Udith. The party went well, in fact better than I had anticipated. 

Happy New Year!

A special note to remember this Champagne we drank to start the New Year. Dennis, our Couchsurfer bought this for us from Paris. Thanks Dennis!

Pink Musa

Finally a name to the pink flower banana plants we have in our garden - Pink Musa. 

They are such a beauty, with the pink petals on the ground, etc.

I wouldn't attempt to eat the hairy pink banana though, only one source indicated that it was edible.

It's that time of the year again - rain and more rain.

Sri Lanka has two monsoons - usually one in May & another in October.

New leaves from our mango trees... hoping next year's harvest (in February 2009) will be better than last year.

It's been pouring almost every evening... good at this time but will not be good when the flowers blossom. 

3 new interesting plants in our garden...

No idea about their names or origins... we bought them from the market.

If you know the names or have information, please drop me a message. 

Tomato flowers, and soon we will have tomatoes... hopefully, by the time Vic & ET are here, there would be some for breakfast & dinner & salads.

Broccoli & Cauliflower are our first attempt, hopefully we will our own harvest. 

I am starting to wonder if passionfruits ever drop on its own, or if we have to cut them down. It's like they hang on the vines forever.

Patience is a virtue, I remember an old friend used to say to me.

Flowers in abundance around the garden.

I am especially looking forward to seeing the flowers from the banana plant (bottom, centred)

Abelmoschus Esculentus, or better known as Okra or Lady's Finger, finally in our vegie garden.

I must say that the flower was indeed pretty.

Passionfruit

Different stages of growth

Cross-section of the various stages

Orchids in our garden at this time of the year...

We have recently added 3 new varieties, the regular purple (not pictured), the darker purple (above) and the white orchids (below)

The lighter purple orchids are just about everywhere in our garden, nice to look at. I hope the three new varieties will add more colours, I am currently hoping to get either yellow or red orchids for the garden.

Various types of heliconia are thriving in our garden too, sprouting vivid colour and they definitely remind Alan & I of our time in Bali.

 

Look! I have tied some smaller light purple orchids on the frangipani trees. Hopefully, they will add grow well around those bare areas.

I couldn't believe how lucky I was to have caught these pictures of raindrops early one morning, after the rain...

Rasika has started to grow new stuff for the garden.

Abandoned honeycomb... 

Berries from the pepper vines... I'm taking some of this good stuff home for Mom to cook with her curries, I am sure she will love it too.

(Below) Managed to keep some of the rockets in our garden going, they were dying at one stage. I moved them to a slightly more shaddy area and they have thrived since. 

Just look at passionfruit flowers in our garden... pretty amazing sight actually.

The 'fragrant' from the flowers tends to be a bit on the strong pungent side...

I have blocked (stuffy) nose, so I could only trust Rasika's sense of smell.

Hopefully, I will be able to get some of these yummy fruits back to Singapore. Keep my fingers crossed.  :)

That's the energy saving bulb, but the bees have made a colony in the  centre.

Interestingly, this bulb is switched on at night to deter the bats from resting/hanging above our front verandah...

The first time to ever see so many (35) spiderlilies blooming at the same time.... it was such a beautiful sight. I replanted them about a month ago, and it was definitely worth aching my back for this...

Unfortunately, the rain has been pretty heavy for the last week or so. Good thing that the garden is getting watered, but too much water is also not a good thing...

It's cold inside the house, and colder outside... Bodhi has also kept herself indoors.

Look at the ponding in our veggie garden, I hope the seedlings can withstand the rain. All the way at the back is the passionfruit vines, heaps of it and in fact, overcrowded. The Blue Ginger, lesser galangal, are planted underneath the passionfruit vines...

Honeycomb... in our garden