Identify this plant - Portulaca grandiflora

I was traveling in Taichung recently and saw these plants near Nina's Chocolate Factory 妮娜巧克力工坊. They were beautiful and I couldn't resist plucking one each. One is purple and the other is white. I didn't know whether they will survive one week in my luggage when I'm having vacation in Taiwan. The plants did survive and now have grown much bigger. However, the white flower plant didn't manage to branch out. I do not know whether it will in the future. The purple flower plant has a few branches now and I'm going to cut one branch and propagate it into another plant in one week or so. I will update again.

Purple flower plant - 3 branches

White flower plant - no branch

Update: This plant is Portulaca grandiflora or Moss Rose.

A vertical garden at the heartland

I was at Jurong West Street 52 and saw this garden.

Vertical Garden at Heartland?

Plants were growing out from the windows. It seemed that the owner had extended his flat out to the corridor and put grilles on the railings. I'm not sure whether the owner has purchased the common areas from HDB or not. The plants were draping down from the window grilles. I was wondering how the interior looks like. 

Air Plant flying off

It is a stupid mistake but I have been doing it for the past one month without any incident....

I started my daily routine of watering my air plants and put them on the window sill to dry out by the normal air draft outside the house. The weather changed suddenly and very fast. A strong gust of wind had blown my air plants out of the containers and one of them dropped 11 storeys to the ground floor. I was shocked! Oh no...

I quickly changed my clothes and rushed down to the void deck (ground floor). I searched and searched... the wind was still very strong and I wonder where the air plant could be....

Just as I was going to give up, I saw it. It was lying on the concrete floor... Oh no.... it might have suffered internal injuries. I gently picked up the air plant and inspected it. At least 8 leaves had loosened and fell off when I gently pulled them. What have I done!

I'm going to nurture it back to health again. This is my favourite air plant. Now it has become smaller and weaker... It's a stupid mistake that I'm not going to make...

DIY Air Plant Terrarium Container

The glass terrarium containers that shaped liked an apple, are quite expensive and they can break when drop or knock. I think it is not safe unless they are placed or hanged at area not accessible by people. But then it will defeat the purpose of the transparent glass materials that people want to enjoy.

I have thought of an idea! I will use plastic bottles and cut them into halves. The top half I would make a couple of holes to use as hanging points. I make sure that I use clear, transparent plastic bottles instead of colored opaque types. This will be used for plants and we need unfiltered lights to pass through for the plants that will be in the containers. I put some pebbles for decoration. You can use some icons or small branches as decors.

This is one of the DIY terrarium that I have made. Feel free to comment or email me for details.

DIY terrarium container

Morning glory plant found at NTUC Fairprice

I was at this NTUC Fairprice supermarket at Rochor Centre and saw that they were selling pots of morning glory plants. They were quite attractive and reminded me of the old Kampong days where morning glory plants could be found on old fences. I thought to myself, will morning glory plant a good candidate for vertical gardens? I think it will be a good candidate especially if it can climb the vertical wall of the gardens. However, I'm not sure the maintenance of the plants. If there are different colours of morning glory on the vertical gardens, it will be a beautiful wall to watch and admire.

Well, at that time, I didn't buy any and now it's all gone. Let see whether it will be available again... Let me know if you have different types of morning glory. Below is the one I found at the supermarket.

Morning Glory