The Secret Garden is being renovated part by part so as not to inconvenience visitors. The pathways are being re-surfaced to make them less slippery. At the same time the drainage is being improved for storm water to drain out faster. The big palms are being removed because we are afraid they are getting too heavy for the floor, which is the roof of the shopping mall.
A new free brochure is being designed that will be more informative than the present one.
A new visitor's book will soon be introduced in which visitors will record the time they come to the garden. This will enable us to plan better. Flowers have their times too. Some are morning flowers that fade in the afternoon and several are late afternoon flowers. So far we have favored whole-day flowers. We also prefer plants that flower year round, to give us SPRINGTIME ALL THE TIME. We do not grow night flowers because the garden is not open at night. We are also giving up on plants like petunias that that are quickly destroyed by snails.
The number of visitors average 300 to 400 every weekend. Most visitors are locals. We have just been included in the Ministry of Tourism's new brochure entitled 'Parks and Gardens Trails of Malaysia', which should bring us to the attention of foreign tourists.
If one googles under 'Secret Garden of 1 Utama' one can read about 100 blogs on it. These, together with comments in the visitor's book have provided us with useful guidance.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
Canna virus in Malaysia
Cannas in Malaysia are susceptible to what looks like a viral disease. The symptoms in Malaysia are stunting of plants, patches of dead tissue on young leaves, reduction of flower-size to half the normal size, and progressive stunting and weakening of the clump or bed until no more shoots appear. Separating out the rhizomes and cleaning them before transplanting does not help unless the disease is detected before it has spread to all the rhizomes.
At the early stage of infection, the bed should be dug out and the pieces of rhizome bearing swollen buds separated out for replanting. When new shoots emerge, the plants that are infected can be recognized by dead patches of tissue on their leaves. Such plants should be eliminated immediately, leaving healthy plants for starting new colonies. The virus takes several weeks to spread through a bed of cannas so there is time for such corrective action if one is alert to the symptoms of infection.
The virus does not travel in the air or soil. Plants in the next bed a short distance away may remain free of infection. I think the best way to prevent infection is to remove all canna shoots as soon as they have finished flowering. Such spent shoots should be cut off at their base. A regular once-a-week pruning programme will improve ventilation of the canna bed and deter white flies from settling on the leaves. White flies suck sap and are probably the agents spreading the virus in Malaysia.
In temperate countries, where cannas are sold as rhizomes, the canna virus has been disastrous for the canna trade because it is impossible to tell whether a rhizome is infected until it is grown out. In Malaysia and elsewhere in SE Asia, cannas are sold as full-grown plants, usually flowering, so it is immediately apparent from the condition of the plant whether it is infected.
At the early stage of infection, the bed should be dug out and the pieces of rhizome bearing swollen buds separated out for replanting. When new shoots emerge, the plants that are infected can be recognized by dead patches of tissue on their leaves. Such plants should be eliminated immediately, leaving healthy plants for starting new colonies. The virus takes several weeks to spread through a bed of cannas so there is time for such corrective action if one is alert to the symptoms of infection.
The virus does not travel in the air or soil. Plants in the next bed a short distance away may remain free of infection. I think the best way to prevent infection is to remove all canna shoots as soon as they have finished flowering. Such spent shoots should be cut off at their base. A regular once-a-week pruning programme will improve ventilation of the canna bed and deter white flies from settling on the leaves. White flies suck sap and are probably the agents spreading the virus in Malaysia.
In temperate countries, where cannas are sold as rhizomes, the canna virus has been disastrous for the canna trade because it is impossible to tell whether a rhizome is infected until it is grown out. In Malaysia and elsewhere in SE Asia, cannas are sold as full-grown plants, usually flowering, so it is immediately apparent from the condition of the plant whether it is infected.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Availability of the book Tropical Horticulture and Gardening
The hardcover edition of Tropical Horticulture and Gardening, published by the Academy of Sciences Malaysia and listed at RM260, is no longer available. I understand that the stocks were stored in a room that was too hot and humid for book storage. The pages got stuck together, making the books unusable.
I was provided with a number of hardcover copies of the book instead of royalties. Of these, 30 copies are still available. In response to requests, I have arranged to place autographed copies at the Hort Park Nursery in 1 Utama (next to Mamak Corner) to sell at RM 100 each. Hort Park Nursery does not have a place to display books so one may have to ask the shopkeeper, Nizam, where he keeps them.
The manuscript was originally offered to Times Publications to publish but it was politely rejected. I also made approaches to Oxford University Press and Timber Press but they declined.
I then worked with a designer to obtain the tightest possible integration of pictures with text. My aim was to provide maximum useful information in the minimum number of pages, while making every page a visual treat. Normally a designer works to a fixed template and leaves the text alone. By working side by side, the designer and I were able to arrive at a nice design solution for every page, sometimes by adjusting the pictures and sometimes by adjusting the text, making full use of the flexibility and power of modern publishing software to resize and move things around instantly. When everything was ready, I had a complete full colour sample hand-printed and bound, which I took to the Academy of Sciences Malaysia.
The Academy had received a grant from Government for publishing scholarly books. It published the book, but it had no marketing experience. The books stayed in its store room during the two years when it had the marketing rights. When that period was over, I searched for a new publisher. A friend took it to the boss of MPH and that is how the book finally made it to the MPH bookshops as an inexpensive soft-cover edition. All set up costs had already been absorbed by me and the Academy.
Thank you, John and Jacq www.jaycjayc.com and Autumnbelle http://www.mynicegarden.com/ for reviews of the book in your gardening blogs.
I was provided with a number of hardcover copies of the book instead of royalties. Of these, 30 copies are still available. In response to requests, I have arranged to place autographed copies at the Hort Park Nursery in 1 Utama (next to Mamak Corner) to sell at RM 100 each. Hort Park Nursery does not have a place to display books so one may have to ask the shopkeeper, Nizam, where he keeps them.
The manuscript was originally offered to Times Publications to publish but it was politely rejected. I also made approaches to Oxford University Press and Timber Press but they declined.
I then worked with a designer to obtain the tightest possible integration of pictures with text. My aim was to provide maximum useful information in the minimum number of pages, while making every page a visual treat. Normally a designer works to a fixed template and leaves the text alone. By working side by side, the designer and I were able to arrive at a nice design solution for every page, sometimes by adjusting the pictures and sometimes by adjusting the text, making full use of the flexibility and power of modern publishing software to resize and move things around instantly. When everything was ready, I had a complete full colour sample hand-printed and bound, which I took to the Academy of Sciences Malaysia.
The Academy had received a grant from Government for publishing scholarly books. It published the book, but it had no marketing experience. The books stayed in its store room during the two years when it had the marketing rights. When that period was over, I searched for a new publisher. A friend took it to the boss of MPH and that is how the book finally made it to the MPH bookshops as an inexpensive soft-cover edition. All set up costs had already been absorbed by me and the Academy.
Thank you, John and Jacq www.jaycjayc.com and Autumnbelle http://www.mynicegarden.com/ for reviews of the book in your gardening blogs.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Avocados for Kuala Lumpur
After my blog about avocados in 2007, I have been getting requests for avocado plants that I have found difficult to respond to on a case-by-case basis. Yesterday I made a deal with a retail outlet at the 1 Utama Shopping Mall. This is a small place called Hortpark Nursery on the Lower Ground Floor, next to the Mamak Corner. I have placed two plants there, which are all that I have to spare at present. Hortpark Nursery will take care of them and sell at RM25 per plant to cover their expenses. Hortpark also sells horticarbon in 5 and 10 kg bags. Shoppers should bring bring their own strong bag for big items. Hortpark is open from 10am to about 6pm.
The avocado plants being made available are seedlings from the best plant of about 20 selected clones that I have tested. The clones were acquired by MARDI (Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Centre) through international collaboration many years ago. The Research Assistant in charge of the collection offered me a duplicate set of this collection. I was at that time establishing the Fruit Tree Arboretum at FRIM (Forest Research Institute Malaysia). He brought me a set of bud-grafted plants all the way from MARDI to FRIM, a considerable distance to cover on his motorcycle, at his own expense. This person was about to retire and felt that his many years of effort would disappear without a trace unless he could pass it on. He was right! Avocados have disappeared from MARDI’s agenda.
I planted most of the clones at FRIM, and a few around my house. Over the next 20 years, some of the trees failed to flower and fruit under our conditions. One flowered but never fruited. One remained stunted at about 3 ft tall. One fruited only after 10 years. One produced oversized fruits, but only in small numbers. The collection in FRIM gradually died out after I retired, but I had already identified and propagated the best tree.
This tree fruited at 6 years old and has been fruiting every year. The fruits are smooth-skinned, green in colour, and medium sized (supermarket size), with smooth pulp. It is self-fertile, which means a single tree is enough to produce fruits. This is the tree that I have been propagating and giving away, but I can only produce a small number at a time.
At about the same time as the avocados were offered to me, another scientist, working at an oil palm research centre, Bakasawit, was about to retire to England. He offered me an international collection of coconut varieties that he feared would be lost upon his retirement. Sadly, I had no place for coconuts in FRIM.
Those were times when scientists collaborated across institutions and did what they thought was best in the public interest. That spirit no longer exists.
There are extensive ‘germplasm’ collections of rubber, oil palm, bananas, sweet potatoes, etc in our research institutes, many acquired through exploration and exchange at great cost and effort. All are in danger of being lost upon the retirement of the scientists who built them up, but it is almost impossible for outsiders to get anything out. They are treated like official secrets.
I am working with UTAR at its university campus in Kampar to set up an agricultural resource centre where we hope to establish our own collections for research, teaching, propagation, distribution and exchange. Avocados will be on the agenda, with other fruits and plants of agri-horticultural interest. We hope to establish an ethical model of trust and collaboration between scientists and the public, without which Malaysian agriculture will stagnate.
The avocado plants being made available are seedlings from the best plant of about 20 selected clones that I have tested. The clones were acquired by MARDI (Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Centre) through international collaboration many years ago. The Research Assistant in charge of the collection offered me a duplicate set of this collection. I was at that time establishing the Fruit Tree Arboretum at FRIM (Forest Research Institute Malaysia). He brought me a set of bud-grafted plants all the way from MARDI to FRIM, a considerable distance to cover on his motorcycle, at his own expense. This person was about to retire and felt that his many years of effort would disappear without a trace unless he could pass it on. He was right! Avocados have disappeared from MARDI’s agenda.
I planted most of the clones at FRIM, and a few around my house. Over the next 20 years, some of the trees failed to flower and fruit under our conditions. One flowered but never fruited. One remained stunted at about 3 ft tall. One fruited only after 10 years. One produced oversized fruits, but only in small numbers. The collection in FRIM gradually died out after I retired, but I had already identified and propagated the best tree.
This tree fruited at 6 years old and has been fruiting every year. The fruits are smooth-skinned, green in colour, and medium sized (supermarket size), with smooth pulp. It is self-fertile, which means a single tree is enough to produce fruits. This is the tree that I have been propagating and giving away, but I can only produce a small number at a time.
At about the same time as the avocados were offered to me, another scientist, working at an oil palm research centre, Bakasawit, was about to retire to England. He offered me an international collection of coconut varieties that he feared would be lost upon his retirement. Sadly, I had no place for coconuts in FRIM.
Those were times when scientists collaborated across institutions and did what they thought was best in the public interest. That spirit no longer exists.
There are extensive ‘germplasm’ collections of rubber, oil palm, bananas, sweet potatoes, etc in our research institutes, many acquired through exploration and exchange at great cost and effort. All are in danger of being lost upon the retirement of the scientists who built them up, but it is almost impossible for outsiders to get anything out. They are treated like official secrets.
I am working with UTAR at its university campus in Kampar to set up an agricultural resource centre where we hope to establish our own collections for research, teaching, propagation, distribution and exchange. Avocados will be on the agenda, with other fruits and plants of agri-horticultural interest. We hope to establish an ethical model of trust and collaboration between scientists and the public, without which Malaysian agriculture will stagnate.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Fakery versus reality in Malaysia
The Malaysian Press has been busy during the past few days covering the forthcoming Sarawak State Elections and the news of fake eggs being sold in a market in Penang.
The fake egg issue is the more immediate. A non-government expert on fake eggs, interviewed by the press, has warned that fake eggs are made with chemicals, which are dangerous to health. The Consumers Association of Penang has raised the issue with the government, which responded immediately by sending officers to raid the market and seize hundreds of eggs. After cracking open the eggs, the government experts declared the eggs to be real, but to be doubly sure, they decided to send some of the eggs to the Chemistry Department for DNA tests. The results have not yet been announced. Meanwhile the sale of eggs in Penang has plummeted. To ensure the safety of consumers, the government has declared that it will devise a system to ensure that only certified eggs will reach the market. The Consumers Association alleges that the Government officers confiscated and tested the wrong eggs.
The finger of suspicion has been pointed at the usual suspects--unscrupulous entrepreuners in China, who have already been implicated in faking milk powder, buns, music CDs, Omega watches, Gucci handbags, etc, etc. They seem to have now targeted Malaysia, capitalizing on the inability of Malaysians to distinguish real eggs from clever fakes. If they can fool people in Penang, they can fool people anywhere. The shop keeper from whom I buy eggs is a very worried man because he does not know how to tell a real egg from a clever fake although he has been selling eggs for 50 years. He is thinking of giving up the egg business because DNA sequencing is too high tech for him. It may be easier to sell cameras, but another friend, who sells cameras, says that one has only six months to sell a new model before it is obsoleted by the next model from the same manufacturer. The shelf life of cameras is approaching the shelf life of eggs.
Fake flowers have never been an issue with anybody. But real flowers have posed problems. There was a big scare last year with flowers that allegedly have the power to trigger cancer in people who come near them. Nobody was willing to test the allegation, and the furore seems to have died down.
On the back-burner is the issue of whether the video of an alleged political celebrity filmed in the act with an alleged prostitute is real or fake. The police have checked the video and found it to be real, but nobody is sure whether the celebrity is real. The celebrity in question refuses to cooperate with the police and hand over his DNA. The police are now looking for the alleged prostitute to confirm whether she is real.
To be continued...
The fake egg issue is the more immediate. A non-government expert on fake eggs, interviewed by the press, has warned that fake eggs are made with chemicals, which are dangerous to health. The Consumers Association of Penang has raised the issue with the government, which responded immediately by sending officers to raid the market and seize hundreds of eggs. After cracking open the eggs, the government experts declared the eggs to be real, but to be doubly sure, they decided to send some of the eggs to the Chemistry Department for DNA tests. The results have not yet been announced. Meanwhile the sale of eggs in Penang has plummeted. To ensure the safety of consumers, the government has declared that it will devise a system to ensure that only certified eggs will reach the market. The Consumers Association alleges that the Government officers confiscated and tested the wrong eggs.
The finger of suspicion has been pointed at the usual suspects--unscrupulous entrepreuners in China, who have already been implicated in faking milk powder, buns, music CDs, Omega watches, Gucci handbags, etc, etc. They seem to have now targeted Malaysia, capitalizing on the inability of Malaysians to distinguish real eggs from clever fakes. If they can fool people in Penang, they can fool people anywhere. The shop keeper from whom I buy eggs is a very worried man because he does not know how to tell a real egg from a clever fake although he has been selling eggs for 50 years. He is thinking of giving up the egg business because DNA sequencing is too high tech for him. It may be easier to sell cameras, but another friend, who sells cameras, says that one has only six months to sell a new model before it is obsoleted by the next model from the same manufacturer. The shelf life of cameras is approaching the shelf life of eggs.
Fake flowers have never been an issue with anybody. But real flowers have posed problems. There was a big scare last year with flowers that allegedly have the power to trigger cancer in people who come near them. Nobody was willing to test the allegation, and the furore seems to have died down.
On the back-burner is the issue of whether the video of an alleged political celebrity filmed in the act with an alleged prostitute is real or fake. The police have checked the video and found it to be real, but nobody is sure whether the celebrity is real. The celebrity in question refuses to cooperate with the police and hand over his DNA. The police are now looking for the alleged prostitute to confirm whether she is real.
To be continued...
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Furadan or no furadan, and worm-free gardening
Furadan (trade name for carbofuran) is used as a contact and systemic poison. Furadan comes in small granules coloured purple or red. It kills earthworms, nematodes, ants, and other animals in the soil by contact. It is also absorbed by roots into the plant, and kills sap-sucking insects such as aphids and mealy bugs; probably leaf-eating caterpillars too.
I have applied furadan to soil to control ants and mealybugs; the ants by contact and the mealybugs by systemic action. The ants were eliminated but came back after one week. Mealybugs were back after two weeks. Hence the poison wears off fairly quickly. On plants growing on the ground, there is a danger of furadan being over-applied by frequent re-application. For plants in pots and containers the use of furadan is more ‘containable’. A light sprinkling of granules on the surface of the soil in the container is enough to rid the soil of earthworms and nematodes. Earthworms are especially lethal in containers used to nurse cuttings or young seedlings, and nematodes destroy the roots and tubers of dahlias. A treated container should be kept out of contact with the ground, so that once treated, the soil it contains will remain free of worms for a very long time. Against ants and sap-sucking insects associated with ants, repeated application may be necessary but in a pot, the furadan will be contained and not get into the ground.
I prefer gardening with soil that is sterile to begin with. Burnt soil (available in bags in Kuala Lumpur at RM1.50 per 3kg bag) is soil that has been baked over a wood fire for about a week. This can be used alone or mixed with biochar/ horticarbon (granulated charcoal, available at RM 10 per 5kg bag). I have no worms in my pots unless I get careless and allow my pots to come into contact with the ground. Worms can enter via the drainage holes at the bottom of the pots.
I do not do any mulching or composting. I find that mulch and compost promote the multiplication of snails, earthworms and termites. In the humid tropics mulch and compost also get soggy as they decompose, impede aeration of the soil, and compete with roots for oxygen. Visitors to the rooftop ‘Secret Garden of 1 Utama’ may have noticed that it is free of mulch and compost. All the garden trimmings are stuffed into big bags and sent down by lift for disposal elsewhere.
The role of earthworms in the humid tropics needs more investigation. Many years ago I assigned a young scientist to study earthworms in the Malaysia forests and guess what? He could not find any! It seems that earthworms are rare in tropical rain forests. I suspect the earthworms in our farms and gardens are of foreign origin. The breakdown of litter in the forests is done by insects, especially termites, not by worms.
I have applied furadan to soil to control ants and mealybugs; the ants by contact and the mealybugs by systemic action. The ants were eliminated but came back after one week. Mealybugs were back after two weeks. Hence the poison wears off fairly quickly. On plants growing on the ground, there is a danger of furadan being over-applied by frequent re-application. For plants in pots and containers the use of furadan is more ‘containable’. A light sprinkling of granules on the surface of the soil in the container is enough to rid the soil of earthworms and nematodes. Earthworms are especially lethal in containers used to nurse cuttings or young seedlings, and nematodes destroy the roots and tubers of dahlias. A treated container should be kept out of contact with the ground, so that once treated, the soil it contains will remain free of worms for a very long time. Against ants and sap-sucking insects associated with ants, repeated application may be necessary but in a pot, the furadan will be contained and not get into the ground.
I prefer gardening with soil that is sterile to begin with. Burnt soil (available in bags in Kuala Lumpur at RM1.50 per 3kg bag) is soil that has been baked over a wood fire for about a week. This can be used alone or mixed with biochar/ horticarbon (granulated charcoal, available at RM 10 per 5kg bag). I have no worms in my pots unless I get careless and allow my pots to come into contact with the ground. Worms can enter via the drainage holes at the bottom of the pots.
I do not do any mulching or composting. I find that mulch and compost promote the multiplication of snails, earthworms and termites. In the humid tropics mulch and compost also get soggy as they decompose, impede aeration of the soil, and compete with roots for oxygen. Visitors to the rooftop ‘Secret Garden of 1 Utama’ may have noticed that it is free of mulch and compost. All the garden trimmings are stuffed into big bags and sent down by lift for disposal elsewhere.
The role of earthworms in the humid tropics needs more investigation. Many years ago I assigned a young scientist to study earthworms in the Malaysia forests and guess what? He could not find any! It seems that earthworms are rare in tropical rain forests. I suspect the earthworms in our farms and gardens are of foreign origin. The breakdown of litter in the forests is done by insects, especially termites, not by worms.
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Earthworms kill potted plants
For a long time, I have suspected that earthworms kill potted plants by feeding on their roots. Whenever I cleaned out such pots, I found earthworms in them.
Ever since Charles Darwin wrote of the earthworm in 1881, “It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organised creatures”, few have dared to say anything nasty about earthworms, so I kept my suspicions to myself while trying to figure how I could prove my case.
As a scientist I am aware that to prove cause and effect, I would have to set up a comparison between two potted plants in which everything would have to be identical except that one pot would contain worms while the other would have no worms. However, with just two pots for comparison, the results could be muddled up by unknown variations despite efforts to ensure absolute uniformity. It would be better to enlarge the comparison to say 20 pots per treatment. Comparing 20 pots against 20 would be statistically more robust than 1 against 1. I still had to figure out how to measure plant performance and for how long to run the experiment. Things got so complicated in my mind that the experiment never got done.
Last year, I raised half a dozen seedlings of the rare endemic Malayan witch hazel, Maingaya malayana, in individual pots. The seedlings grew at different rates, which was to be expected since they were raised from seeds and could be expected to be genetically different from each other. I had also not taken the trouble to ensure that the soil was exactly the same in all the pots. Also the pots were in different parts of the garden, under different environments. However, one plant was particularly stunted. I thought this was a genetic dwarf because it did not respond to any of my efforts to get it to grow beyond its first few leaves. Finally when it was clear that the plant was about to die, I tipped the plant out of the pot and found earthworms wriggling in the soil. I threw out the earthworms and repotted the plant. It recovered immediately and produced new leaves. The recovery was so striking that I have no doubt the worms were the cause of the stunting and slow decline of the plant.
For those who still doubt, I can now suggest an easy test. Add earthworms to a pot containing a healthy plant. Watch the plant decline over the next few months, then repot the plant after removing the worms, and see if the plant recovers.
Ever since Charles Darwin wrote of the earthworm in 1881, “It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organised creatures”, few have dared to say anything nasty about earthworms, so I kept my suspicions to myself while trying to figure how I could prove my case.
As a scientist I am aware that to prove cause and effect, I would have to set up a comparison between two potted plants in which everything would have to be identical except that one pot would contain worms while the other would have no worms. However, with just two pots for comparison, the results could be muddled up by unknown variations despite efforts to ensure absolute uniformity. It would be better to enlarge the comparison to say 20 pots per treatment. Comparing 20 pots against 20 would be statistically more robust than 1 against 1. I still had to figure out how to measure plant performance and for how long to run the experiment. Things got so complicated in my mind that the experiment never got done.
Last year, I raised half a dozen seedlings of the rare endemic Malayan witch hazel, Maingaya malayana, in individual pots. The seedlings grew at different rates, which was to be expected since they were raised from seeds and could be expected to be genetically different from each other. I had also not taken the trouble to ensure that the soil was exactly the same in all the pots. Also the pots were in different parts of the garden, under different environments. However, one plant was particularly stunted. I thought this was a genetic dwarf because it did not respond to any of my efforts to get it to grow beyond its first few leaves. Finally when it was clear that the plant was about to die, I tipped the plant out of the pot and found earthworms wriggling in the soil. I threw out the earthworms and repotted the plant. It recovered immediately and produced new leaves. The recovery was so striking that I have no doubt the worms were the cause of the stunting and slow decline of the plant.
For those who still doubt, I can now suggest an easy test. Add earthworms to a pot containing a healthy plant. Watch the plant decline over the next few months, then repot the plant after removing the worms, and see if the plant recovers.
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