If plants can speak, what would they say to you, plant parent?
Have you ever wonder if plants can speak, what would they say?
The weather has been unbearably hot these few days…I need to go into hibernation soon.
My plant parent thought I can do well on her bedroom table. But I am not happy here!
My roots are rotting! There’s just too much water in my pot. I am dying…
We recently hosted WJ and Charmaine for our Urban Farm Workshop based in Singapore. Like how we always kickstart the plant workshop proper, I invited them to share their gardening experience. They came prepared with pictures and stories of their urban gardening life. Their primary objective to urban gardening is to green up their abode and ideally grow some food for their own consumption.
As they travel on vacation, they would buy interesting plant seeds home. In Japan, they bought Cosmos seeds although the germination project was not successful. When they visited Vietnam, they got a pack of bitter gourd seeds and this time, they were in for a treat because the seeds germinated, flowered and bore fruits! However, the plants soon became home to the irritating scales and mealy bugs. They also eventually stopped flowering, became weak and eventually WJ had to declare defeat and bid his bitter gourd plants farewell. Their Butterfly Pea plant project which took over the grills they had set up for the gourds also did not flower.
So if plants can speak, what would they tell WJ and Charmaine? Let’s look at some fundamentals of plant biology which were shared to both of them during the workshop.
Roses basking in the sunlight.
Most flowering plants and edible crops are sun-lovers. They will need at least 4-6 hours of direct sunlight daily. Morning sun is preferred. WJ and Charmaine live in an apartment that receives bright filtered light in the day without direct sunlight. This makes it very challenging for the bitter gourd or the butterfly pea to flower.
Plants flower in order to reproduce. And these flowers will need to be successfully pollinated in order to bear fruits and produce seeds. The bitter gourd, belongs to the cucurbit family, produces male and female flowers on the same plant. While they usually will need insects or bees as pollinators, they can be pollinated by hand easily. This was what WJ did during the first round of blooms to receive their first harvest. Eventually it became more challenging even as they germinated more seeds as the lighting condition was not ideal.
Similar to why humans fall ill, pests attack plants and win the war when the plants are stressed. This is usually contributed by their living condition. While WJ and Charmaine kept their windows opened frequently to promote good air-circulation, the lack of sunlight and nature air circulation compromised on the plant’s health, thus making them susceptible to pests attack.
Even though it sounded like a dead-end to their urban gardening life, it is in fact not dooms day for them. Nature is a myriad of plants that thrive in a variety of conditions. They were introduced a selection of plants that would potentially do well in their living space and they got their hands busy with soil mixing, propagating their own selection of plants, as well as seed germination.
They ended their workshop with our Shambala Treehaus Garden Tea Exclusive where they were ushered to our Treehaus and served Roji team with our home-made pandan coconut chiffon cake with white chocolate ganache and cherry. We wish them a more exciting urban gardening life with the newly acquired knowledge.
If you are also a struggling plant parent, get in touch with us to see what we can do to make your plant parenting more delightful. After all, gardening is an instrument of grace that allows one to appreciate the beauty of life.