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Flowers In Our Garden

Just like we grow plenty of delicious vegetables to nourish our body and please our palate, we also grow a lot of flowers to beautify our garden as well as to enjoy the wonderful colours and fragrant scents. There is something about a garden full of blooms; it makes one happy and content.

Crabapple Blossoms in the spring	Daffodils and Tulips in the spring	Purple Clamatis in the summer

Every spring we can't wait for the snow to melt so we can go outside to our garden to "inspect " all our perreniels that will break through the ground with their new shoots! All through spring and summer to glorious autumn, we have a large varieties of flowers to enjoy in our garden.

When we see snowdrops and crocuses and hyacinths blooming, we see the sure signs of spring's arrival! Daffodils and tulips and lilacs will follow right after. What a joy to see the different colours all over the garden.

Snowdrops	Crocuses	Hyacinths	Daffodils	Tulips	Lilacs

Daffodils -- pink, yellow and orange. One year our beloved Dutch grandmother Oma VanIterson gave us some money for Christmas and wanted us to buy some bulbs to plant in our front garden. When we flipped through the seed catalogue the pink daffodils caught our attention and the decision was made. Aren't they beautiful, Oma?

Pink and white Begonias	Pink, white and red Geraniums	Ornamental "Cabbages"

Pink Peony	White Peony

Red Hibiscus -- this is our Malaysia's national flower. This particular variety has been climatized for our weather here.	Red Roses -- we have 5 different varieties of roses in our front yard. They are very hardy, often blooming till late fall.

In the winter months, instead of working in our garden outdoors, we have to resort to keeping a few indoor plants in order to have some green and other colours (if we are lucky to get blooms) to brighten our days.
Here are a few of our favourite indoor plants.

Junzhelan--"Gentleman's Orchids" The blooms last for a long time.	Clerodendron-- also known as "Loong Too Joo" in Chinese literally meaning "Dragon Spitting Out Pearls".

Christmas Cactus -- starting to bloom	Christmas Cactus -- full bloom

Epiphyllum can be propagated quite easily from a leaf or a small cutting. This explains why over the years we seem to have cultivated quite a few different varieties of Epiphyllum with different colours. We have learned this really "neat" trick of making them bloom every year, sometimes even twice a year if we are lucky. During the winter months we keep the plants in the basement with very little light and no watering for about 3-4 months, literally "starving" them. In the spring we move them back upstairs until the weather gets warm and we move them outdoors, preferably in the shade. They will bloom all through the summer months. As the weather gets cool in the fall, we move them indoors and often they produce a second bloom right through till November.

Red Epiphyllum	White Epiphyllum	Pink Epiphyllum

We hang the Epiphyllum plants under our crabapple tree in the front of our house every summer. Neighbours and friends (even strangers) often stop to admire our Epiphyllum flowers when they are in full bloom. Sometimes they even come around to the backyard to look at our vegetable garden. We are happy to be able to share our garden with them. Happiness and love, the more we share, the more we get!

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