The joy of gardening

In the past, gardening to me meant buying plants from the nursery, taking them home and watching them grow under my care.

Nowadays I derive more joy from watching a tiny seed grow into a big plant. All you need is soil and some knowledge. I get immense satisfaction when I see plants growing healthily and producing flowers and fruits. It's hard to imagine how a miniature seed can grow into a robust plant. Oh, the wonders of nature!

This mulberry plant grew from a small stem cutting from my parent's mulberry tree. It's probably less than 3 months old but it's looking good and strong already.

These are lychee plants that I sowed after eating lychees. I know they don't grow in hot and humid climate but who knows? They may do well in my shady and cool patio.

The eggplant is growing rather quickly. It's such a pretty shade of purple, I wouldn't bear to eat it. There's only one, so again, it's going to be difficult to cook just one eggplant. We'll see...

After cutting up some chilli in the kitchen that day, I tossed the seeds into my planter box and ended up with a whole bunch of seedlings. Now I have two dozen baby plants in my patio. Oh, I'm going to end up with an endless supply of chilli!

I gathered some seeds from the periwinkle in our estate's garden some months ago. Now I have periwinkle flowers in the patio all the time. They, in turn, are producing seeds of their own which I scatter in the pots for regrowth.

These are watercress seedlings which I grew from seeds. They're such delicate and slow growers, they should do well in the protected environment of a terrarium.

The ones below are bigger seedlings sown some weeks back. I had almost forgotten about them until I found them tucked away beneath the shady palm tree.

There's something else that I like about gardening. It's sharing amongst gardeners. That day, Petunia gave me some chamomile seedlings and dandelion seeds. Sadly, the chamomile didn't make it. They have died within two days under my care. I suspect the delicate seedlings were killed during a heavy downpour that morning. I have sown the dandelion seeds and can't wait to see them germinate.

When I was at my friend Steph's place yesterday, something familiar caught my eye. She has a planter box full of pretty red flowers. The name of this plant suddenly slipped my mind but she reminded me that they were from me. Ah, I had given her some young plants years ago and now they're thriving under her care.

Now it is her turn to give me some. My garden needs more colours, so I took these young shoots home (below). I hope to nurture them into an attractive patch in the shady corner of my garden.

Isn't gardening wonderful? It's even better if you have friends to share the joy with. If not, a pet who appreciates gardening (like Rusty) is fine too.

I shall leave you with a lovely spider lily blooming in my garden today. It has just emerged, so it is in the most perfect condition at this moment. When the sun comes up, the petals will start to become limpy and weak, so enjoy it while it is at its best!