Revival and Recuperation

As I mentioned in one of my early blogs, many of my plants had had a hard time earlier this year when they were forced to stay inside the house against their will for several weeks while renovation work was done on our building. Some looked near the end and others got hit by disease causing leaf loss and deformity. However, with my chilli spray and an excellent organic fertiliser leaf spray they've bounced back with a vengence!

Firtly, my Golden Pseuderanthemum. When she went back out onto the balcony, she was barely one stick and a couple of leaves. But within a month, she'd put out leaves and even a little spray of flowers. Now she's beautiful and bushy. She's very happy in her corner. She likes the sun, but not too much and now she's florishing!

Another one that has suffered has been my purple heart. I love this plant with its deep purple leaves. Sadly, it suffered a lot from something - I honestly don't know what! Its leaves lost their colour, but it looked like the colour had been stripped from the leaves, not faded and its leaves and stalks were growing in deformed shapes. There didn't appear to be any insects, but I couldn't find anything online about purple heart diseases. All that was mentioned was that they were hardy plants! Then I read that they don't like soaking roots and to let them dry out a little before the next watering. So, what did I do? I let them dry out too much and any shoots I had died! Determined not to give up, I watered it again anyway and sprayed the soil with the new organic spray. Two weeks ago, I was rewarded with little purple shoots and now I've got some little purple plantlets reaching for the sky.

A third one that had a hard time was my bird's nest fern. It got burned by my chilli spray when I put too much garlic in it. Old leaves and new shoots were all affected. I didn't prune it back immediately, thinking that it would still need to photosynthesise for any new shoots. It took a bit longer to spring back than the others, but I finally got to prune all the affected leaves off last week and the new ones are looking so beautiful and fresh.

The final one for today was my spider lily. It'd been hit hard by the white bug which was proving ridiculously hard to get rid of. I'd even taken the bulbs out and washed them in conventional insecticide. Then I started using my chilli-garlic spray and it just loved it. The white bugs were just starting to multiply again when I made my first batch of insecticide and I sprayed all my plants weekly for over a month. My spider lily just lapped it up and wasn't even burned by the strong batch. Since then I haven't seen hide nor hair of any white bug and my spider lily is an abundnace of leaves. Then last week, I got the best gift of a spray of flowers. The scent was delightful and not a hint of chilli nor garlic. ;)

I've found it!!

I'm very excited because I've finally found out the name of a plant that I've had for about five years, pictured below.

It's simply known as Pseuderanthemum reticulatum or by its simpler common names of Yellow-Vein Eranthemum and Golden Pseuderanthemum! Phew, I don't think those names will be flowing from my lips in a hurry. But it's great because now I can research it properly and improve my care of it.

Before I carry on though, all credit for finding the name goes to a lovely lady called Jacq who's listed in my blog list. She found it in a book that she just got called Tropical Horticulture & Gardening. We'd both tried googling it, but couldn't find the picture anywhere. Now I can find it everywhere! So thank you Jacq.

So far, what I've learned is:

1. It likes sunny to partial shade. Does best in bright indirect sunlight coming from the South/East/West. I have sun from the west, so great.

2. Likes a bit of humidity

3. Even watering and fertilizing every fortnight.

Nothing new really as my 'Golden Pseuderanthemum' (maybe I should nickname her Goldie) really lets me know when she wasn't happy. She curls up her leaves and drops them in the space of days if she was throwing a tantrum. But I like one idea about making it more humid and that is adding pebbles in her water tray and keep it filled with water to increase humidity. I'll have to put mosquito pesticide in it too though. I might try it with my orchids as well, as they aren't too happy right now. They aren't dying, but they aren't growing either.

I'm thrilled to find out her name. Goldie's a lovely plant and her flowers are very pretty. I got her when I went to Bukit Tinggi Botanical Garden and Japanese tea garden. Lovely place. I had another one, but it sadly died in January when all my plants had to stay inside. Most of them weren't happy, but the goldies acted like pre-schoolers kicking and screaming on the floor. All the leaves dropped pretty rapidly and then the stems started going brown. Thankfully, one didn't give up entirely and I managed to get her out in time. Pruned her back to the green and away she went.