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The Little Jewels From The Rainforest of Sarawak
 Ever since I fell in love with wild orchids, jewel orchid is always my favourite type of orchid. Jewel orchid is the general term to refer to a group of terrestrial orchids which have very beautiful foliage. When you look at the leaves of these orchids in some angles under the sunlight, the leaves glitter just like a jewel or gem; therefore people called it “Jewel orchid”. In Sarawak of Malaysian Borneo, there are more than 50 species of jewel orchid from different genera growing in different type of habitats from near to the sea level peat swamp forest to mountain-tops.
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A Fusion Garden
 In GardenAsia issue no.23 we featured a garden designed by a Doctor turned Garden designer. We never met the designer then and thought it was a one off design done by a doctor passionate about gardens! It was only recently that we discovered Dr. Frank Ow Yang Abdullah the designer, who actually has a company called Pondscapes and does Garden designing, building and maintenance, on a professional basis.
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How Plants Are Named
 Continuing our series on “How Plants are named”, this issue are featuring Cestrum nocturnum, Costus spicatus, Chrysothemis pulchella, and Cyperus alternifolius.
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Bogor Botanic Garden
 The founder of the Bogor Botanic Garden was a Dutch, Casper George Carl Reinwardt, a German who moved to Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He called the garden ’s Lands Plantentuin. Initially the gardens were established on 47 hectares of the grounds bordering the palace, in 1817. Reinwardt was Director in agricultural business, arts and sciences on Java and neighboring islands. He was interested in investigating plants which were widely used by the Javanese for domestic and medicinal purposes.
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Speaking of Gardens & Parks |
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The Belum-Temengor Rainforest
We realised that in our region there is a culture of establishing parks for community use when large areas are developed. Public gardens are few and private gardens open to public are lesser still. Parks usually have more hardscape than plantings but with the awareness that we need to plant more trees in public parks for the benefit of the community, we may find some important parks turning into Botanical parks. Then, there is the National Parks, eco parks, which we should advertise to the world!
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Prunning Nerium oleander
Prunning Nerium oleander
The Nerium oleander bush can grow to a reasonable height but the stems would soon be long and lanky making the bush open and not compact. Pruning and cutting back considerably will produce new shoots and a new shape would form.
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Plant the Pulasan (Nephelium mutabile Blume)
This fruit tree is from the family Sapindaceae and has fruits similar to the rambutans. It is however quite easy to see the difference because the ‘hairs’ on the fruits are different. The pulasan has conical, blunt-tipped tubercles or thick, fleshy, straight spines, which are up to 1 cm long, whereas the hairs on the rambutan is longer and thinner as it tapers and hence softer.
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Colours of the Forest
The tropical rainforest is well known to be dense and green; maybe many shades of green. People who travel on highways and roads that cuts through the jungle knows that it is not always totally green. There will be that time in the year that the jungle will burst into colour.
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Cooking With Chan Choy
The vegetable Chan choy we featured in Kitchen garden is a popular vegetable amongst the Chinese. When we asked our Chinese friends about getting a recipe for it, the young ones said they have never heard of it. When shown the soup, oh yes! They have taken it but did not know the name of the vegetable! Mum cooked it. Amongst the older generation, we had a different reaction. “It’s a lovely vegetable, delicious and nutritious this Chan choy! Let me tell you how to cook it.”
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