Plant time

Spruce-up time
Spent some time in the main balcony today. With a little helper in tow. Nana.

Got her to do the simple stuff like picking up dead/dried leaves from the floor, and picking them up (with a gardening tweezer) from within the pots. Took the opportunity to teach her some stuff about the Byrophyllum plants we have, and how they produce their little baby plants. And showed her the leaf patterns of the Indian Borage, and she helped to point out dead leaves on plants so I could remove them.

It was fun for me doing this with her and I hope she had fun too.

She said to me "I wish we could have our own garden".
Yes, sweetie. I'd like a garden of my own too....but it's unlikely to happen...so we'll just have fun in our balconies haha...:)

Byrophyllum
Aside from the 2 small pots of baby aloe vera that the girls have, they now also have 2 tiny pots of byrophyllum as well. Planted them this evening. :)

I prepared the soil and pots and the girls placed the babies into the pots themselves. It's a very easy plant to care for and the plantlets root damn easily. You really don't have to do much at all. Just give them enough moisture that's all.

I've currently 2 or 3 pots of this....well 5 if you include the girls' pots. I've thrown away many many small babies...and I would probably have maybe 50 pots of this plant now (or more) if I'd bothered to salvage and plant all those plantlets. It's probably the only succulent that the klutzy me can handle lol....

p/s: just found out this evening while reading up some stuff on the Internet, that the Byrophyllum is also known as the Mother of Thousands or the Kalanchoe or the Devil's Backbone.

Moss Rose
This little lady is a sassy one with attitude. She's bounced back beautifully from her battle with the mealybugs. New shoots appear every other day and she's also grown long and tall new stalks. Tall because they reach out for the sun. Quite cute to see those stalks like this.

Since that day when a lone pink flower finally bloomed, she's been blessing me with one small but bright pink flower every 2 days or so. It's a far cry from the early days when she first came to me though. Back then, she'd bloom like 6-10 flowers each day...easily. Still, I'm happy that she's progressed well, compared to just 1 or 2 months ago when she was ravaged by those damn bugs.

Japanese bamboo
It is shedding less now, but still looks a little shaky. I hope no more leaves turn yellow or drop anymore. I didn't do much to this fella, except to shift its location from the main balcony to my own balcony. And it's placed in a shadier area with no direct sun. It's still in its pot. I decided against re-potting it. Didn't want to stress it further. Relocation can already bring stress to a plant. If I repot it as well, skali it gets more stressed.

Good thing is that its tallest and main stalk has a new leaf unfurling at its tip.
Will keep this fella under close watch and see how....

Ficus Ginseng
The original one I had in the normal pot recently started shedding. I don't know why...:(
It went almost botak a year back. And then it slowly started growing new leaves a few months back. Though it never got back to its original state and was rather sparse. I was still happy but then now it's started shedding again. Leaves turned yellow and kept dropping...Didn't really spot many new shoots too so...I'm just wondering what to do with it.

The ficus ginseng in the green bonsai pot is doing ok....an occasional leaf turns yellow and falls off but so far it seems ok. I see some new shoots coming out so I'm hopeful...

Water Plum
This lady...has sprouted many new shoots and I spotted many new bunches of flower buds or at least the beginnings of what would become new clumps of flower buds. I hope many many new leaves spring up soon. To replace the sudden leaf dropping episode last week...I'd never seen that many leaves drop from this lady before...It scared me a little and I was hoping she wouldn't go botak on me.

Anyway, I've not figured out what to do with the bunch of seeds that I'd collected from the 2 seed pods a few weeks ago. Hmm....my balcony doesn't attract any pollinators at all (being on the 4th floor, and less accessible to bees and insects? haha...) so even if I have flowers blooming regularly from this plant, it is unlikely I will ever get any of them pollinated and produce seed pods later on.

Local pomegranate
This old lady...is going strong, although she constantly looks like she's half gone, in recent weeks, she started sprouting new shoots and new leaves. Perhaps it's due to me fertilising her soil or due to the recent rains bringing more minerals and nutrients to her. But I noticed several areas where new leaves and branches forming. That's good...:)

Only thing is, she also has many many dead branches. I've tried trimming them off but there're just too many of them....I'll just leave her be...again. She seems resilient enough to weather most difficulties herself. ;p