Our little garden project..

Here's how our little plot of land looked like a few months ago. We moved back here from Kuala Lumpur in Jan 08 but I never feel like working on the land until just recently when I stopped by at this one nursery near my office. I've never really plant anything before that stay alive for a long time. Usually after a few months, they'd just dry up. Anyway, I felt like that day, those plants at the nursery were screaming "Take me!" that I bought a couple and gave them a new home =).This is the left side, if we take the gate entrance as our focal point. When I was little, there used to be a mango tree in the middle that produced extremely sweet mango fruits. But there was a major floor back in 1988, everything was washed out and that was the time when we moved out from this house to our current family house, located about 5 minutes drive from this one, in which at that time was still under construction. Ever since then, dad rented it out until I decided to move back to Alor Setar last year.

This is definitely the easiest plot to work with compared to the other plots because the soil doesn't have much rocks. The supposedly top soil that the contractor promised to deliver turned out to be just some red soil full or rocks! By the way, that's a frangipani tree, one of my fav trees. I think it's also known as plumeria to some. This one produces pinkish flowers. Can't wait for that to bloom! And those little plants at the corner are varieties of elephant ears. They are the easiest to grow!

This is the right side. Some busy red beez are working.

And this is the backyard. My Granny (mom's mother) planted the banana tree when we first moved in to this house in 1979. So that's one really ooollllddd banana tree back there! My brother Najib was born here, the very same day we moved in! There was also a Noni tree, which I thought was a yucky tree with it's squishy fruits, and another huge mango tree which dad put some ropes to its branches and made a swing for us! And now, nothing is there except that banana tree. Everything else is still weed. Not sure if I wanna work on that part considering the fact that I don't have much time left to be here.

After 30 years, it is still able to produce sweet bananas! (This type has lots of big seeds though)

Mr Ezzat is working hard. All fully geared - a hat, a pair of glove, a hoe, for some awesome gardening experience. Except that he might need a pair of cute garden boot coz he keeps complaining about how soil gets in between his toes.

Meanwhile, Emir and Farhan are more laid back and prefer to play.

Yes, I like to make myself comfortable even while gardening. See the pink cute stool?

Here is Emir doing his homework. See those wood planks at the back? Those are old ones from railway tracks. Dad got it somewhere when mom wanted to used some for her garden. And I got the rest! Yay!

And this is what I did with them. The kids helped picked up the rocks at the backyard. We do have to get rid of them, so rather them throwing them away, I think it's much better to use them. And I heart my Yucca tree.

Grass might be the best known ground cover. But with the kind of soil I have at the right plot, there's no way the grass would last unless I do some sort of treatment to it, which I am not going to. So I opted for pea plants like this. Plus it has that little cute yellow flowers!

Green love!

In Malaysia this flower is called 'Harum Sundal Malam' or 'Bakawali'. In India it is called 'Rajnigandha' or 'night fragrant' as it has this sweet floral scent which becomes much stronger at night. The scientific name for it if I am not mistaken is Polianthes Tuberosa. The flowers last pretty long. This one in the picture kept blooming until almost a month.

I'm not sure what this is called. Probably from the Colchium family? I got it in 3 shades, white, pink and yellow and I love them! The flowers do not last long though. Just 2-3 days the most.

More flowers! I just choose plants that can really withstand the hot weather. It can gets really hot sometimes, up to 38 degree Celcius or 100 degree Fahrenheit. Lately it has been raining towards the evening, so they are pretty lucky.

Still in pots. Waiting for the roots to grow stronger before transferring them to land. They are from plants that I have to prune/trim coz they grow too high but you know when you get attached, it's hard to just throw them away.

This is how the left side looks like 2 months after we first worked on it.

And this is how it looks like now. Still need to get more grass.

And here's a video of the house 3 months ago. Watch out for a rooster. I think it's adorable =)