Vertical Garden Project DIY

In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned that I was going to make a vertical garden by myself. Well, finally, over the last two weekends, I had completed the project. I had chosen to use a single pole hanger instead of the aluminium frame. The reason is that it is cheaper as the hanger costs $12.90.

The things that I bought for my vertical garden:

(1) Single pole hanger stand from Giants at $12.90 (promotional price). Usual price is $19.90
(2) Wall planter hanging pockets (18 pockets) - 2pieces at $21 per piece (via eBay.com)
(3) 3 poles from Daiso (@$2 each)
(4) Felt (black colour) 70cm x 60cm from Daiso (@$2 each). Each felt (70cm x 60cm) can cut into 4 pieces of 12"x12".
(5) Base pot - $98 from World Farm
(6) Many plants (ranging from $3 to $12) from World Farm
(7) Cable ties

I setup the hanger stand and then tied the poles to the hanger to make a frame for the hanging pockets. I have two of the pockets to cover the hanger. The hanger is slightly smaller at 86cm instead of 100 cm for the two pockets. So the two edges of the pockets will be hanging without support.

I placed the base pot of plants on the shoe rack of the hanger. This will act as a support to secure the hanger upright and not topple over due to the weight of the hanging plants. We got a good deal at the World Farm because just the pot alone will cost us $90. We got the whole pot with plants for only $98. The pot is quite heavy and we needed two persons to carry it.

Next, we needed a lot of plants to cover the 36 pockets. We had little time over the weekend at World Farm. We just grabbed the plants that we thought would be great on the vertical garden. While I was choosing the plant, I would take a photo of the name and price.

The World Farm provides free delivery if the total amount after GST is above $200. We managed to exceed the amount by a bit after we added a Bougainvillea grafted mushroom shaped @ $68. As we live in the area, World Farm was able to deliver in the afternoon on the same day. Whew! I didn't have to put all the plants and Bougainvillea into my car. We left the World Farm at about 12.45pm. The plants were delivered by 2.30pm. The worker there was quite helpful and the purchase was a pleasant one.

The Bougainvillea was in a mess, many branches protruding out of the mushroom dome. I used some green coloured wires and managed to neaten the Bougainvillea back to its mushroom shape. There were many dried twigs and I had removed quite a number. I was afraid that any colour branch might have dried up and I would loose one colour. Currently, there are four colours on the graft. Maybe if I can find other colour (say blue), I can graft it onto the root stock.
The four colours are:

1. White
2. Chilli Red
3. Orange
4. Pink

Ok, enough on the Bougainvillea, next time, I will blog on the Bougainvillea and maybe I will start my grafting of another pot using many colours.

I had all the plants that I needed and I had cut the felt sheet (70cm x 60cm) into 4 pieces (12" x 12"). There are 36 pockets, so I will need 9 felt sheets. You can get the black felt sheets at Daiso for $2 each. You may use other colours but I prefer black since soil is black in colour. I was tempted to use green but in the end, I used black.

Take one felt sheet (12" x 12") and lay it on the floor with one corner towards you. Remember to lay some protective covers below so that it will not be too messy to clean after you have completed the vertical garden.

Fold the opposite corner toward the centre.

Place some soil onto the folded area.

Remove the plant from the container or wrapper and loosen the soil to remove some of them. We don't want to have too much soil in the felt and pocket.

Place the plant with the root ball below the folded edge. Flip up the corner facing you towards the centre.

Flip up the folded edge towards the top.

Fold the right corner towards the left side.

Fold the left side towards the right.

Tie the folded felt with a rubber band.

Place the wrapped plant into the wall planter pocket one at a time. You can remove and re-arrange them when you have completed the 36 pockets. You can probably skip one or two pockets where the plants are too big and have covered the area. 

Finally, all 36 pockets had been filled up. The bottom left portion where the money plants are is a bit bare. I had actually split the money plants into two portions (to reduce cost) and I knew that the money plant will grow pretty fast to cover that area.

After I had completed the vertical garden, it was time to water them. I used a watering can with pointed mouth so that I can target the soil easily while watering. I tried not to water too much as the excess water will flow downwards. I will monitor the vertical garden plants to see whether they are comfortable at their present locations. I will probably need to experience a bit and move them to the suitable locations on the wall.

How to get rid of white flies on Hibiscus Plant

Recently, I had white flies on my Hibiscus Plant. They were growing in numbers and had caused some damages to the leaves of the Hibiscus Plant. There was black dust on the leaves and I thought that it was due to the pollution in the air or some renovation works from my neighbours. However, after checking the internet for information on the white flies, I realised that the white flies will excrete honeydew after they fed on the plant sap.

I was going to buy some pesticides in the local floral shop until I saw the formula in the internet. I was sceptical at first and thought that it might not work. In my workplace, there is IPA which is Isopropyl Alcohol available.

The formula for one litre spray is:
(1) 2 parts IPA
(2) 5 parts water
(3) 15ml of liquid detergent

I don't have one litre spray, I only have a 300ml spray. I just make sure that the ratio of the IPA:Water is 1:2.5 and then the liquid detergent, I just estimated.

After putting all the ingredients into the spray can, I shook it a little to make sure that they were dissolved and sprayed onto the leaves. I sprayed the underneath of the leaves to cover the eggs and larvae. Some of the liquids did drip into the soil and I hope it would not damage the plant. I sprayed it in the morning before the sunlight became too strong. I left the plant alone for the whole day.

The next morning, I checked the plant and discovered that the white flies were gone. The eggs and larvae had dried up and were destroyed by the spray. I noticed that some leaves turned yellow and I assumed that it was due to the liquid. I will keep on monitoring the plant to see any stress that it might have.

Avocado leaf browning, what is wrong?

I have placed my avocado seedlings on my window sill in my previous house. They were growing quite well and I didn't notice any abnormalities. However, I had to move house and I took them down from the window sill and notice that there are leaves turning brown. I'm not sure whether it is caused by salt accumulation or too much water.

As the new house has a big balcony which has at least 7 hours of direct sunlight, I'm afraid that it will burn the leaves. I bought new pots (bigger) and a couple of kilograms of garden soil. I just removed the seedling from the old pot together with the soil and placed it into the new bigger pot. I added the new garden soil around the perimeter to top-up the soil to the empty area.

I chose garden soil as I thought that it will be better than the commercialised potting soil. I will monitor closely and changed the soil if the plants are in stress.

I have three seedlings that have grown quite a bit and I placed one seedling in full direct sunlight and the remaining two in partial sunlight. Below are two photos that showed the leaves turning brown partially and not at the tip of the leaf. I was thinking of sun-burning of the leaves due to the intense sunlight but I'm not sure. Anyone has experience in this kind of problem? Please share and advise.

Avocado has many health benefits and Marry Spencer has listed 13 of them. Check it out at her post.


Leaf turning brown - what is the cause?



Leaf turning brown - what is the cause?

Air Layering of Hibiscus Plant

On new year's eve, I tried to propagate my Yellow Hibiscus Plant. This Yellow Hibiscus is pretty and had bloomed 5 flowers already. It is still producing buds for flowering. I tried to pollinate the flowers but failed. The "ovaries" would drop from the stalks after a couple of days. It is very difficult to pollinate the flowers.

I made two cuts on a woody branch that has no bud. I peeled the bark away between the two cuts to expose the white area. Under the bark, the branch is green and you need to cut or scrape the green surface away. Try not to do too much as it may break the branch. I cut a hole in a plastic bag and inserted the branch into the hole.

I tied the end of the plastic bag with a wire to secure the base with the branch. This is to prevent the sphagnum moss from coming out of the bag.

I used a swap to apply the rooting hormone onto the white surface of the branch.

Applying the rooting hormone on the exposed branch area.

I have pre-soaked the sphagnum moss in water for a few hours. Squeezed dry the sphagnum moss but they are still moist. Wrapped the moist sphagnum moss over the branch and covered it with the plastic bag.

Yellow Hibiscus Plant

We came across this Yellow Hibiscus plant in a market. The yellow flower was big and attractive and it immediately caught our attention. The plant is just only $5 per pot. We bought it and brought it home.

 

Yellow Hibiscus Plant



Yellow Hibiscus Flower

According to the internet, the YellowHibiscus is a flowering shrub that grows on all the Hawaiian islands except Ni’ihau and Kaho’olawe. All three subspecies of the yellow hibiscus are listed as endangered species. Even in Hawaii, the plant is rare. I don’t think it is endangered as I have seen them here in Singapore and many places. Probably it is endangered in Hawaii.

 

The first thing I noticed is the large bright yellow flower. There are a couple of buds on the plant waiting to bloom.

 





Withered flower

 

The flower lasted only about 2 days and then it will wither and drop off from the flower stalk. The ovary is left and if it is successful in the pollination process, it will develop into a pod with seeds. If it is unsuccessful, it will drop off when it is still green. The "ovary" dropped off after two days, so it is not unsuccessful.

 

Hibiscus "ovary"

 

After the "ovary" dropped off, I checked the soil and it was dried. I watered the soil and made sure that the excess water was drained away from the bottom of the pot. I thought that it might be that the plant was under stress as it had been moved from one place to another.

Two more flowers bloomed and I used a cotton swab to transfer the pollen across from one flower to the other and vice versa. The pollens are sticky and they are quite difficult to transfer to the stigma of the pistil. The stigma is also sticky and the pollens get stuck on them.

After two days, the flowers withered and I'm hoping for the pollination to be successful. From the internet, it seems that the pollination is not usually successful and will depend on many factors. Today, I saw one of the "ovary" dropped from the plant. The other is still on the plant and I hope that this one will develop into seed pod.



One "ovary" dropped.

 



DIY Vertical Garden for my balcony

I ordered a 18-pocket vertical garden hanging planter from eBay and it should delivery after 15 December 2015. The dimensions are 50cm x 100cm (see below). I noticed that there is green colour planter and luckily I didn't order the black one. I think the green planter will be perfect for the vertical garden.


Picture from eBay

Initially, I thought of just having one 18-pocket planter. But my wife said that it is not big enough. So, I started to design a frame structure to hold two 18-pocket planters. That will give a vertical garden area of 1m x 1m since I can combine two 18-pocket planters.

2x 18-pocket planters

I will need to hang the two 18-pocket planters onto a frame. The frame material will be aluminium. I have made a couple of designs.

Frame design 1




Frame design 2

I sent the designs to my friend and he thought the frames are readily available in the shop. I told him that I need to provide the dimensions of the aluminium profile bars to the supplier so that the supplier can cut them to the lengths that I need. I will need to get the connectors to join the bars together.

My wife thinks that 1m width vertical garden is not good enough, she prefers to have 1.5m in width. Thus, I will need to increase the 1m to 1.5m. Luckily I have not purchased the bars and still have time to consider the correct lengths to cut. My only concern is that the 1.5m width will make the frame structure weakly and I will need to consider the strength of the frame design. Also, I will need to add another 18-pocket planter to the original design so that I will have 3pcs 0.5m x 1m = 1.5m x 1m planters for the vertical garden.

I checked with the eBay seller whether I can get discount for the additional 2pcs that I'm going to order. His reply is prompt and said that as the price is discounted already and he couldn't get further discount even if I purchase two pieces. The package that I have ordered arrived on 18 Dec and it almost filled up the entire mailbox. I wanted to order another 2pcs but I think I will order it separately so that the delivery will be one after another so that the mailbox can hold one at a time. I don't think the postman can squeeze the two packages into my mailbox. I will wait a few days and when the 2nd package has been posted, I will order the 3rd package.



18-pocket planter has arrived!

The 18-pocket planter arrived safely. It is what I have envisaged and I will use this piece to design the frame. My design idea for the frame is to hang and secure the 3pcs 18-pocket planters side by side. This will cover an area of 1.5m x 1.0m rectangle. I will need to calculate the height of the frame. I plan to have a planter box in front of the frame to hold rectangular plastic pots. In the Frame design 1 and 2 pictures above, you can see the planter box area. I want to buy readily available plastic pots or containers and place them into the planter box area. I will need to buy them and check the dimensions so that I can design the planter box. I will place a plastic sheet onto the frame before I hang the pocket planters. The plastic sheet will extend all the way down to the planter box so that when I water the top of the pocket planters, the excess water will flow down towards the planter box.



Kalanchoe from Holland

I happened to see a few pots of Kalanchoe (from Holland) selling at Cold Storage @ West Mall. There is no price-tag on it and we asked a sales person and was told that it costs only $6.88. They look good and are flowering. There are a few colours to choose, pink, orange and red. My daughter chose the pink one. I was thinking of buying the orange one. But come to think of it, I should have bought all the three colours since they look very nice. It would look great if I have a pot that have the three colours.

Kalanchoe from Holland

There are many posts in the internet that say Kalanchoe is easy to care for and for it to grow the buds for flowering, you need to follow some simple steps to trick the plant to think that it is already winter. After a few weeks of thinking that it is winter, when the day becomes longer, the plant will think that it is spring and starts to grow buds for flowering.

Pink Kalanchoe from Holland



Purple Kalanchoe from Holland

Red Kalanchoe from Holland

Kalanchoe belongs to the succulent family which can survive in dry conditions. So, it likes soil that does not retain water and can drain easily. I think cacti media will be suitable for them. I will need to water it thorough and drain the water away and water again when the soil is dry.

They like bright indirect sunlight so that the leaves will not get burn by the direct sunlight. I place it near a window to get as much indirect light as possible.

As a person who likes to grow plants, I would try to propagate the plants and get many baby plants from the parent plant. But before I can do that, I need time to learn how to grow the plants well. I will update in my post on the status. I hope that they can adapt well in Singapore's climate.

Let me know if you are interested in my progress and I will email you when I have a new post. Thanks.