Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Wishing You Another Great Lunar New Year
See you laters!
Rae wrote @ 18:02
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See you laters!
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Oh Ms Penny
My Penny the Hydrangea... Oh what have I done.
Penny was really thriving, so many babies sprouting at the base but just a few days ago, I noticed the new leaves were getting shriveled up and when I took a closer look, I spotted some tiny creepy brown crawlies. Panicked, I went to buy some pesticide.
The crawlies died but being a novice, I overdid with the pesticide and poisoned Penny.
Oh. My. God. All her leaves dropped, her tip was dry. I really want to cry.
Just to let you know, the daisy and the rose didn't survive. KL weather was just too hot. But Penny... Penny was a fighter and she still is. I can see her stems are still green. I've repotted her, thinking her soil must be soaked with poison. Hopefully I'm right.
I'm so upset with myself I did that to her. I'm very attached to her; her green hue, color of life, means so much to me. The propagation didn' work by the way.
Oh please Goddess of Mercy, please save her. I don't want her to die.
Rae wrote @ 00:23
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Saturday, January 11, 2014
I wish you a very happy new year and may 2014 be another glorious year.
Neil Gaiman didn't write a new year wish for this year, it disappointed me a bit but from I see on the internet, his 2011 wish was recycled:
“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.
So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.
Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”
So anyway, what did you guys do to usher 2014?
We did the typical this year, we had a sumptuous dinner at Maison Francaise and proceed to join the new year celebration and enjoy the fireworks with the staff. The host, who coincidentally, a Korean, was generous to provide us free flow of Taittinger. The chef entertained us with his experiences working all around the world and how he and his wife (also a Korean) ended up in Kuala Lumpur. His son, Luca, has the best of both French and Korean worlds, is as cute and cherubic as an angel. We had SO MUCH FUN.
The lounge has a nice view of KLCC but was kind of blocked by a building. We enjoyed the fireworks nonetheless.
We spent the next couple days exploring Cameron Highlands. Cold as heck.
Very much tempted to purchase these for dad, who's an orchid enthusiast but doubt he has time for them as he is back to the workforce.
I even managed to harvest a head of hydrangea from the my pot. It is advisable to cut all the flowers before repotting but I left the young one out, it's to wasteful.
The BF bought a selection of cacti and did his cute mini garden in a bowl. He also bought a monkey trap plant, which is now hung at the balcony temporarily.
I've been wanting to have hydrangeas but they are pretty expensive for cut flowers and they don't last long. Can you imagine how thrilled I was to have found they thrive in Cameron Highlands and they also sell the plants! I quickly snapped up a pot to try out. I was very tempted to get the deep purple one but held back for I'm not exactly known to have a green thumb.
Well, the first week with the plants was not without drama. They almost died at one point that I 'transferred ownership' to the BF (he boasted to have grown his own tomatoes before). Turns out I didn't water them enough and perhaps KL sun proved to be too much for them to handle. The plants are now moved to the living room and further away from the window.
My mini rose bush looks a bit pathetic after I pruned the dried leaves but it looks like it's going to survive.
My hydrangea looks like it's gonna thrive and kick ass after a mini scare, I feel so proud of her I named it Penny. Notice the burnt leaves. We put Penny too close to the window and got burned.
My aforementioned cut hydrangea wasn't spared and shrunk to this size. Despite that, it's super hardy and you will notice there are new leaves growing underneath. I'm thinking if I can propagate this. Feel so bad of throwing it away seeing the stem is so green and alive. The colour of the mature flower is just so beautiful. I learnt that the colour of the flowers are manipulated by the soil's pH level. If it's more than 6, the flowers will turn blue. If it's less than 6, it's pink. I can't wait to have my own hydrangea garden like so!
Propagation using the stem of the cut. I might risk of having it not going to flower when it matures as according to the internet, always propagate using non-flowering stem. I just couldn't bare to threw it away. It looked so alive.
My orange daisy is still deciding whether to live or die on me. I hope it will choose the former.
Rae wrote @ 15:39
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