Many temperate plants will grow and flower in the highland tropics at 1000m elevation and above. In the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia for example, fuchsias, daylilies, apples, roses, pelargoniums and snapdragons grow and flower throughout the year. In the lowlands e.g. in Kuala Lumpur, at 100m, they survive for only a few weaks or may grow but not flower.
I have been trying to grow temperate plants by arranging for them to get a cold water shower for 15 minutes a night at midnight. The water is chilled to about 18 degrees Celcius. However the effect has not been significant.
My next option was to get engineers to design a flat bed cooler on which I can place containers of plants for their roots to be cooled at night. I have opted for cooling at night so as not to have to fight against the daytime high temperature of 30 degrees. At night there is a natural drop to 24 degrees, which is a help. However the engineers have not been able to design a flatbed cooler for me. I thought this would be somewhat like a mini ice-skating rink, but exposed to sun and rain and only switched on at night. Does anyone out there know whether this can be done?
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
Where are the plant breeders?
Horticulture thrives on novelty, and plant breeders are the people who create novelties, but breeders barely exist in Malaysia. I am a plant breeder; I breed cannas. I choose to breed cannas because cannas flower all year round and come in many colours and forms. Well-grown beds of cannas are like well-grown beds of tulips, but unlike tulips, they bloom all year round. My friend Gregori Hambali, breeds calatheas in Bogor. Gregori sends his plants to the US to be patented and marketed there by a big horticultural enterprise. None of his plants have ever been released in Indonesia. Having no US backer, I keep my new varieties of cannas to myself. Anybody who buys one canna (or calathea) can multiply it and soon it will be everywhere. I have no wish to spend money taking out patents and then spend more to enforce my patents. Our society is a long way from accepting the concept of plant varieties as intellectual property. I do not believe the newly enacted plant patent laws will encourage plant breeding in Malaysia.
I am trying to get funding by selling varieties for MR 2000 (USD 570) each. Ideally, the buyer should be a local government agency, which has a horticultural use for the plants and would not mind if the plants leak out to the public, as they eventually will. The money they spend is public money after all. I think cannas in Malaysia could be as popular as tulips in the Netherlands and become the flower of the people. New varieties should be bred and distributed freely but the breeder deserves to be compensated, like any public servant except that he is compensated not by salary in advance but by results upon delivery. If only the whole of the public service could be run that way . . .
I am trying to get funding by selling varieties for MR 2000 (USD 570) each. Ideally, the buyer should be a local government agency, which has a horticultural use for the plants and would not mind if the plants leak out to the public, as they eventually will. The money they spend is public money after all. I think cannas in Malaysia could be as popular as tulips in the Netherlands and become the flower of the people. New varieties should be bred and distributed freely but the breeder deserves to be compensated, like any public servant except that he is compensated not by salary in advance but by results upon delivery. If only the whole of the public service could be run that way . . .
Friday, April 06, 2007
New ethnobotanic garden in Kuching, Sarawak
I have just been in Kuching to oversee the expansion of the ethnobotanic garden at the Sarawak Biodiversity Centre (SBC). The garden was designed according to my specifications and after one year, the results are terrific!
The garden was designed to display the plants used by the many different native communities of Sarawak. To obtain the plants, expeditions were made to the interior of Sarawak over the past three years. In one particularly tough expedition, I trekked 5 hours in wet weather and fading light to a village called Pa Lungan near the Indonesian border in the Bario Highlands to document and bring out a new species of banana, which we named Musa lokok. Musa lokok is now flowering and multiplying in the ethnobotanic garden, together with some tw0 hundred species of other plants, many of which will be new to science, including begonias, hoyas, orchids, aroids and ferns. Having the plants close at hand and concentrated in one location will allow comparative studies on the biology (growth and reproduction) of Bornean plants on an unprecedented scale. Eventually I expect to have over 500 species within a half-hectare area.
Already, conducted tours have been arranged for schoolchildren. Eventually tourists will be able to visit. The garden is close to the Orang Utan Centre at Semengok.
The garden was designed to display the plants used by the many different native communities of Sarawak. To obtain the plants, expeditions were made to the interior of Sarawak over the past three years. In one particularly tough expedition, I trekked 5 hours in wet weather and fading light to a village called Pa Lungan near the Indonesian border in the Bario Highlands to document and bring out a new species of banana, which we named Musa lokok. Musa lokok is now flowering and multiplying in the ethnobotanic garden, together with some tw0 hundred species of other plants, many of which will be new to science, including begonias, hoyas, orchids, aroids and ferns. Having the plants close at hand and concentrated in one location will allow comparative studies on the biology (growth and reproduction) of Bornean plants on an unprecedented scale. Eventually I expect to have over 500 species within a half-hectare area.
Already, conducted tours have been arranged for schoolchildren. Eventually tourists will be able to visit. The garden is close to the Orang Utan Centre at Semengok.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
1st Review of Tropical Horticulture and Gardening
Three months after publication, the first review of Tropical Horticulture and Gardening has been published. It is by JF Veldkamp and MMJ van Balgooy of the University of Leiden, in the Flora Malesiana Bulletin Vol 14 of March 1007, pages 60-62. Unusually for a joint review, the two authors wrote separate opinions. They pointed out several errors and took issue with the author over several points. But their verdict was favourable. Veldkamp thought my history of plant domestication was 'brief but informative', my introduction to nomenclature 'clear and helpful' and my chapter on morphology 'lucid'. Nomenclature and morphology are what students in botany sleep through in botany class. Of course, Veldkamp and Balgooy are professors, not students, but it is good to know that the professors approve of what I wrote. Balgooy says "In my opinion this is the best and most complete treatment on tropical gardening in SE Asia ever written."
Thank you, thank you.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Gardening for Beginners
My son John has moved into a new house in Kuala Lumpur. He used to live in a condominium. Now he has land for gardening: a strip in the front and a rectangle in the back. John's neighbours are doing their gardens, and it is interesting to see all the different kinds of ideas being implemented by proud houseowners who are probably gardening for the first time.
John complains that my book Tropical Horticulture and Gardening is of little use to him and other absolute beginners. I have to confess I did not write the book for absolute beginners. I also found that house builders do not provide for gardeners. I had to have a water tap installed at the back, drainage holes drilled through the back wall, and a proper soil mixture spread over the ground, not to mention the stones we had to dig out. We bought stone slabs for a garden path and John laid a path with the slabs arranged left and right in two parallel lines. I told him normal people walk by putting one foot in front of the other, and rearranged the slabs in a single line. For an instant garden, we bought flowering plants at their peak. Among them were the daisy-like Melampodiun paludosum, which, I warned, would only last one or two months, but would produce seeds and seedlings. A month later as the plants started to fade, John complained about the weeds he was having to pull out from the flower bed. The 'weeds' turned out to be seedlings of Melampodium paludosum.
OK, so a book for beginners has to be very different from the one I wrote. Also, Melampodium paludosum is too much of a mouthful, and needs a suitable nickname. Maybe in a year's time we will have something ready for testing on beginners. By that time, John will have graduated to the next level.
John complains that my book Tropical Horticulture and Gardening is of little use to him and other absolute beginners. I have to confess I did not write the book for absolute beginners. I also found that house builders do not provide for gardeners. I had to have a water tap installed at the back, drainage holes drilled through the back wall, and a proper soil mixture spread over the ground, not to mention the stones we had to dig out. We bought stone slabs for a garden path and John laid a path with the slabs arranged left and right in two parallel lines. I told him normal people walk by putting one foot in front of the other, and rearranged the slabs in a single line. For an instant garden, we bought flowering plants at their peak. Among them were the daisy-like Melampodiun paludosum, which, I warned, would only last one or two months, but would produce seeds and seedlings. A month later as the plants started to fade, John complained about the weeds he was having to pull out from the flower bed. The 'weeds' turned out to be seedlings of Melampodium paludosum.
OK, so a book for beginners has to be very different from the one I wrote. Also, Melampodium paludosum is too much of a mouthful, and needs a suitable nickname. Maybe in a year's time we will have something ready for testing on beginners. By that time, John will have graduated to the next level.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Seedless fruits
During the past few days we have been celebrating what is called 'Chinese New Year' in Malaysia and Singapore, 'Spring Festival' in China and 'Tet' in Vietnam. In Malaysia and Singapore, lots of mandarin oranges are consumed during this festival. This year I have been struck by the fact that most of the mandarin oranges are seedless. If mandarin oranges can be made seedless, we may expect other citrus fruits to follow.
Of other tropical fruits, we can expect mangosteens to become seedless. Already we have come across the odd seedless mangosteen fruit. Somebody should find a way to convert this rare possibility to certainty. With durians, nangkas, chempedaks and chikus there are trees that produce fewer seeds per fruit as well as fruits with reduced seed size, but we do not know if complete seedlessness is possible. Does anybody know?
Of other tropical fruits, we can expect mangosteens to become seedless. Already we have come across the odd seedless mangosteen fruit. Somebody should find a way to convert this rare possibility to certainty. With durians, nangkas, chempedaks and chikus there are trees that produce fewer seeds per fruit as well as fruits with reduced seed size, but we do not know if complete seedlessness is possible. Does anybody know?
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Websites for Tropical Horticulture and Gardening
Tropical Horticulture and Gardening is now listed in the following websites:
www.akademisains.gov.my
www.naturesniche.com
Here are comments from some readers
... magnificent... (Susyn Andrews -- horticultural botanist, Kew, England).
... a real treasure of information and eminently readable... (Tan Sri Chong Hon Nyan -- Patron of the Selangor Gardening Society, Malaysia).
... a monumental book... (Prof. Abdul Latif Mohamad, UKM--National University of Malaysia)
... I like it very much. (J.F. Veldkamp, Editor of the Flora Malesiana Bulletin, Leiden, Netherlands)
... a wonderfully useful book, much needed and a complete source of information re tropical horticulture and botany. (F. M. Schlegel, Forestry Consultant, Hochrhein, Germany)
www.akademisains.gov.my
www.naturesniche.com
Here are comments from some readers
... magnificent... (Susyn Andrews -- horticultural botanist, Kew, England).
... a real treasure of information and eminently readable... (Tan Sri Chong Hon Nyan -- Patron of the Selangor Gardening Society, Malaysia).
... a monumental book... (Prof. Abdul Latif Mohamad, UKM--National University of Malaysia)
... I like it very much. (J.F. Veldkamp, Editor of the Flora Malesiana Bulletin, Leiden, Netherlands)
... a wonderfully useful book, much needed and a complete source of information re tropical horticulture and botany. (F. M. Schlegel, Forestry Consultant, Hochrhein, Germany)
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