I'm interested in ...

Hobbies, I think, are started out of interest. This one is probably started out of necessity.

Like many Singaporeans, we pay our way through rather than start from scratch and learn things the old fashion (ie hard) way. We have a space in the home that had a ton of potential. In fact, the space was one reason why we bought our home in the first place. It was unique and in a nice part of the house but on first glance, it had not been kept well. Seems the previous owner had haphazardly cobblered something together and it was not a job well done. There was some rudimentary landscaping but no attempt had been made to hide stuff.

We decided to turn it into a garden. And we laid down cash for it, getting someone to come in and have it done. Everything in land scarce Singapore is done upwards, instead of sideways; our garden is no different - it is a vertical garden.

Not long after the vertical garden was set up, some of the plants began to die. We have a few planter boxes at the sides as well and the plants there did not fare well too. To say we were annoyed would be putting it mildly; we had told the gardener-man the area did not enjoy direct sunlight (it was bright though) and that the area was humid - gardener-man even came for a recce to see for himself. He declared that as long as there was light (vs sunlight), everything would be fine. On the strength of his assessment, we had left him to select our plants for the garden. We specifically wanted flowers (to add colour) and a frangipani tree (to add, well, impact).

Gardener-man has since come back to replenish the plants that have died. They're not going so well too. There was no choice but for me to start looking into the garden myself. Gardening has never appealed to me but watching hard earned money being thrown away from neglect and negligence was far less enticing.

I spoke to P (our sis in-law) who told us to buy a book. I also learnt we were over watering and so the sprinkler system has now been shut off. It takes days for the soil to dry; yes, it's that damp in the garden. I bought insecticide, and quizzed the nursery lady who sold me the insecticide on the frequency of its use. To make sure I started off right, I cross-checked this knowledge checked with P. When you want to do something, I want to do it properly. Liquid fertilizer was bought to give food to the plants - never believe gardener-man when he said he had placed enough fertilizer to last for 4 months because on the second visit he conveniently forgot what he said and encouraged us to fertilize weekly!!

With the book, I took one big step today and bought plants which I think are suitable for our conditions. Came back, dug up the dying ixora and re-planted them with the plants I bought. Jamie got involved as well, happily scooping soil and in the end, he planted some seeds as well.

I've now acquired some rudimentary knowledge on gardening and am on my way to tending our own garden. New fertilizer, the type that encourages flowers to bloom was also just bought and insya-Allah, our garden will have flowers in a short time.