... and a love for life motivates us all.

I really need to apologize for neglecting this blog. To make up for months of silence on this blog, I've been actively seeking a new direction for the space. In addition to exploring various gardening issues, I've lined up themed interviews with experienced gardeners who will be sharing their experience on how gardening in a small space is like. My "gurus" for this quarter are  Ethan and Irene, 2nd runner-ups for the "Cool Ideas for better HDB living - Growing Vegetables at Home" competition. If you haven't heard of their nifty idea yet, because like me, you didn't have a chance to attend the Cool ideas for better HDB living exhibit, do check it out here. Essentially, their idea addressed a major concern for all of us living in small apartments - that of limited space.

Last Friday, when I was fortunate enough to meet up with them, we had a lengthy talk about various issues of gardening in Singapore. Having lived in Japan before and enjoyed gardening with land and four seasons, I was curious about what they felt were the major differences between gardening with land and within containers. Almost unanimously they voiced out a major difference was the lack of space. We're talking about open land, almost unlimited space for the plants to expand versus confined space within the containers and really, limited storage space for the plant pots. Also, with the seasons in Japan, they experienced a different kind of relationship with the plants -- there, sowing and harvests happened at fixed times of the year whereas in a tropical country like Singapore, we can pretty much sow and harvest anytime. 

"In Japan, we had help from the natural environment whereas here [in Singapore], there is no environment for the plants; We have to duplicate the conditions for them."

Like all amateur gardeners, they started out focusing on ornamental plants back in the 80's, after moving back to Singapore. Like Irene shared, they pretty much grew stuff "the usual way" - plant and soil in pot. If plant dies, just buy another pot. When they were busy, the plants were the first to be sacrificed. So you can expect that over the years, they've had experience with a wide variety of plants and found that aloe vera and bamboo plants are the hardiest. Now, they're moving towards sustainability and so are focusing on edibles like herbs and other greens for their salads. 

I could sense their deep love for the plants and Irene passionately agreed with me when I commented on how hard it is kill or throw plants that we've grown from seeds. This is one of the main motivations for Ethan's small bottle solution; there were just too many plants and much too little space to hold all the plants. For an elderly couple in their 60's, they were certainly active and still dynamic. But Ethan revealed that another source of motivation for this idea came from the fact that he could no longer help Irene move big and heavy pots of plants. There was a real need to think of how they could hold on to the plants in containers that were mobile and still had conducive conditions for the plants.

By the end of the interview, I walked off with a petite bottle in which held a healthy, big-leafed lemon balm. I can't help but agree with them that big solutions can indeed come in small bottles. And maybe all we need is a love of life and all creation to motivate us towards our own big solutions. 

A big-leaved lemon balm held in a petite container