Memories II

For those living in Hong Kong, they would probably be familiar with the sight of brilliant red, pink and purple flowers blooming everywhere around Hong Kong from the balconies of high-rise buildings to landscape gardens during the autumn to winter season. These are Bougainvillea (aka Bugambilia, 簕杜鵑 not to be confused with 杜鵑, Rhododendron which blooms at a different time during the year. Due to its ubiquitous presence in this region, it is the city flower for a lot of southern coastal cities in China including, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Weizhou and Xiamen. But Hong Kong's floral emblem is Bauhinia Blakeana 洋紫荊, which is a particular genus of Bauhinia first discovered in Hong Kong in 1880 (just imagine discovering anything new in Hong Kong nowadays).

Bougainvillea holds a special place in our hearts not only because we see the plant every day in the garden right beside where we take our afternoon naps; but more importantly the first bloom last year coincide with the day when Cadet was euthanized exactly 1 year ago. See previous blog entry here.

Whenever there is a starry night, mum would say Cadet is looking at us. Lets hope he's enjoying a peaceful life in dog's heaven with muffins and biscuits falling down like raindrops everyday.

Our Garden - A few new things

It's been a while since we wrote about our garden. The cooler weather brought some new crops with it. Some of these may not be that common in Hong Kong. From the top:

Kaffir Lime - Mum and dad have been asking almost 30 different shops and garden centers in Hong Kong for this. None of them carry this seemingly common south-east asian shrub. There was one garden center, KK Horticulture, which cater specially for expat which claimed they had it before but died during winter in Hong Kong, a fairly dubious claim, given the mild winter in Hong Kong. They got their two plants with their luggage from Singapore where they bought them in the market. It's fresh leaves add a distinct flavor to Thai curry and they are often included in the Thai spice pack (together with lemon grass, chili and galangal ginger) that you can buy in supermarket. Lets see if they survive 20C Hong Kong winter.

This big chili pepper is the only plant grown from seed that managed to survive all the rain and typhoon through the summer. Mum and dad probably need to rethink their seed growing program.

Buddha's hand citron - They got this from a friend's garden center. Positively creepy.

Mulberry - This was bought in March and was always looking sickly. No leaves and no fruit were coming out. Then after the very last typhoon, it came back to life!!. The fresh mulberries are great. They are much sweeter and have more flavors than the raspberries that you can buy in supermarket. The leaves are supposed to be nutritious as well. You can put it through food processor to make mulberry leaves juice. You can then taste what silk worms feed on.

Wine Country - Madrona Manor, Healdsburg

After the light lunch in Buchon Bakery, they decided to head for Healdsburg and looked for a place to stay for the night. Hotels in downtown Healdsburg, which is a tiny area, have rack rates which are challenging for the budget conscious. A simple room in the boutique Hotel Healdsburg is displayed at a rate of US$360. And the Relais & Châteaux certified Les Mars Hotel starts at US$545 and the only room left for the night was asking for US$775. And there wasn't much of a last-minute discount. After checking at a few places and thought they were not worth the price, they went outside downtown to Madrona Manor.

Madrona Manor is an hotel with accommodation in the main building as well as some small lodges outside it. One of the lodges, Meadow Wood East, was available and they managed to negotiate a good rate for it. The lodge was divided into a sitting room and a bedroom. The decor was very Oriental. The main door opened out a small porch overlooking one of the many gardens.

The weather was so good that they managed to have a swim before dinner. But to mum and dad, the best part was picking raspberries and toybox tomatoes from the garden which supplies produce to the Michelin one star restaurant within the hotel. Mum even took and ate a bright red heirloom tomato. Her excuse was she wouldn't want the tomato to drop on the ground and get rotten. Hmm.......

Located less than one mile away from downtown Healdsburg, Madrona Manor is definitely a lovely place to stay if you are looking for a sanctuary with peace and close to mother nature.

Imperial Palace

Have you ever wonder why the Japanese gardens are so immaculate? Especially the garden around the Imperial Palace. A picture tells a thousand words, just imagine going through the garden performing such back-breaking routine clearing weeds 1-by-1!! And with Japan's aging problem, one should wonder how long before they need to import foreign workers just to maintain such magnificent gardens.

How often do you see a pair of swans swimming right below the bridge to Imperial Palace? Perhaps, a few times a day.

Garden Produce

Last night mum and dad got all excited during dinner. You would have thought they just made something special like Kobe Wagyu. It was just a few stalks of beans fried in butter with a bunch of other veg. We have seen those every time we had our exploratory trip around the garden. Just a few sickly looking plant trailing up the trellis and not enough even for us to snack on!! Apparently, they tasted better but we had no way to tell as we were not invited to the tasting. Guess it's all in their minds, seeing the beans from seeds to plant.

If you like organic garden produce, ie not something from huge scale intensive farming that you get in supermarkets, planting your own is not really a solution even if you have some space. Your best bet is to go to the Organic Farmers' Market in Star Ferry on Sunday. Apparently they have one on Wednesday as well, but mum and dad have never been. More on this in a later entry.

Epsom Salt 瀉鹽

First and foremost, Epsom salt is not your everyday seasoning like rock salt, sea salt, table salt, which are all variants of the same thing sodium chloride NaCl. It is the common name of magnesium sulfate. And you won't want to add it to your food like any seasoning, because as the Chinese name suggests, it's a laxative and often use in conjunction with lemon juice as a folk remedy for colonic cleansing. It's also a component of bath salt among some of its other uses.

Magnesium is essential to the formation of the green stuff, chlorophyll, in plants. The photo shows the difference Epsom salt made to our chilli pepper. We use 1tsp of Epsom Salt for 1 to 2 litres of water.

You probably won't find Epsom salt in your average garden centre. Go to your local pharmacy for these. Of course you need the Chinese name, otherwise most local wouldn't have a clue.

Bad birdies

Of course this is a different type of birdies that everyone is trying to get in golf. These are the birdies which pecked away our beloved peaches from the 2 small peach trees in our balcony. Mum and dad got them after they saw a similar tree in the flower show last month. And then 2 weeks ago when we went up to the balcony, we smelt the smell of ripen peaches. Surprise, surprise, those fruits are not for us. All we can do was looking up and hoping that we will get given one!!

The birdies which visited the balcony don't need permission, they just flew down and took liberty in feasting themselves to the peaches still hanging on the trees. Mum and dad noticed that one were eaten when they went up last night and now there are 3 more destroyed goods. The birdies did one good thing for us though, they forced an early harvest of all the ripen fruit. We will get to share the spoil.

Mind you if mum and dad are not careful, we might get bad birdies visiting during the day and scary fruit bats swooping in at night. Check out Mount Butler Drive after 9pm, you will find quite a few fruit bats flying around there!!

Another visitor

We are always delighted to see butterflies and we even tried to chase after them. You don't need us to tell you what happen afterward....... There seems to be more butterflies in the garden nowadays and yu won't be surprise when you see this picture. Again, not mum's cup of tea and they destroy her precious plants. The caterpillars always get taken outside to the public park when they are found.

More Orchids

Another batch of blooms. These orchids are different.

Cattleya Orchids

The white-washed walls in our house, which only had a few framed photos of Peter Lik, have seen a surge of bright colours recently. Mum literally went "flower crazy" when she visited the Hong Kong Flower Show 2009. When we drove past Victoria Park the first Sunday when the show was held, the park was jam-packed with people. As always, mum was put of by the crowd. A few days later mum and dad went there in the evening when it was much quieter. The quality and variety on offer were impressive and the prices are much cheaper than what you get in the Flower Market of Mongkok (near Prince Edward MTR Station).
Mum is having some success with her recent batch of orchids, which unlike everything before them, have started to flower again after the the first lot of flowers wilted. She set her sights on the more exotic varieties during the flower show and brought some weird stuff. Be your own judge and take a look at the photos.
Both photos are both Cattleya orchids. Perhaps dad will take pictures of the other varieties we see later.

Citronella Plant

Got some citronella plants （驅蚊草） from Mongkok the other day. For HKD 20, they are a good little herb to grow at home. The smell is pleasant and in fact if you go to Thailand for holidays, you would notice the smell immediately.

If you think they are going to drive mosquitoes away as they claim in the flower market, you are probably out of luck. As most studies indicates that the plant is ineffective in mosquito repelling.