The story of My "tree" musketeers - Signs of ailing health

After pruning off stalks which had aged beyond their ability for further growth, we were pretty relieved that new shoots had made its way out of the surface of the soil.

However, we did notice that these new shoots aren't as healthy as before because one of them came up with holes "burnt" into the stem as shown in the photograph below.




The rest of the green shoots seemed to have a reasonably healthy appearance as shown in the photographs attached below:

The Yellow ladybird - A faithful friend of my ailing plants

This regular visitor who is a friendly companion to my "Ginger" plants was seen frequently by myself.


Isn't it cute?

Doesn't it remind us all of the Volkswagen beetle as shown here in the photograph below?


Disclaimer: I do not own the photograph featuring the Volkswagen yellow bettle as shown above. Kindly give full credits to the owners of this image. Thank you.


More photographs of my "Ginger" plants in a state of blooming :

The Olive-backed Sunbirds' feast

There was a great feast for those olive-backed sunbirds today.

A hole which is clearly seen on every flower is a clear indication that the sunbird/s had already extracted the nectar. I believe they did it by "drilling" (piercing) a hole into the bud with their long sharp, needle-like beak.


After a heavy downpour yesterday, we were surprised that the "Ginger" plants were blooming vigorously. And as usual, we didn't manage to take any snapshots of the birds becox they would fly off the minute they sense any movements near the plants.

Even though the photographs of our "ginger" plants were repetitive in style, we hope that viewers would enjoy them as much as we do.

 

The Demise of Picnik

It took me quite a while to figure out which editing tool I should be going for after the demise of the Picnik. And with my busy work schedule, it was tough to upload photographs as they could be pretty time consuming when editing is involved.

Finally, I settled down on Picasu & am still fiddling with the software on my desktop. And I hope it doesn't introduce any bugs into my computer.

I'm still trying to fine-tune my editing skills using Picasa but am still fumbling with some of its functions while going "blank" upon revisiting the program on my desktop.



Having pangs of regrets that Picnik is gone for good. :(

A hopeless struggle against Symphylans ...

Although my plants do have freshly bloomed flower buds which are "harvested" by the olive-backed sunbirds within a day of its appearance, it is sad to notice that the green leaves were infested with fungal spots as shown clearly in the photograph attached below:



Those yellow fungal spots were akin to skin diseases for plants & aren't curable. A strong & effective fungicide would have to be applied thinly on the leaves regularly to control the fungal condition.

The latest photographs of flowers that sprung out of the "scales" of the red "corns".





Although it isn't blooming as vigorously as before, having some flower buds is better than not having any at all.

So we've just got to take comfort in being complacent with the existing situation. We're keeping our fingers crossed that these plants wouldn't die on us...

Struggling against Symphylans (pests) ...

After repeated attempts to till the soil & pruning away many "dead" stalks of the "ginger" plants, I observed that there were improvements even though the plants aren't as healthy & lush in its growth as compared to the past.

These are some of the recent collection of its blooms for the past 1 month:

Invasion of the hateful Symphylans (pests)

Finally, killing my plants with kindess - over-fertilisation. :( 

I've been battling against all odds & fighting plant diseases after the use of the organic worm tea.  I shouldn't have experimented the organic worm tea on my plants... *SIGH*

The situation was further exarcerbated by the over-fertilisation quite some time back - I should have simply lay off all forms of fertilisation & flush out the excess using plenty of water (also known as "leaching").

It was a challenging feat & apart from fighting against the yellowing of the leaves & fungus in the form of yellow-spots all over the green leaves, we were shocked to see that white centipedes had invaded the soil!

After googling up some information of the white "centipede", I would like to take this opportunity to share in this forum that those were not beneficial centipedes or garden centipedes that feast on organic matter.

They were infact pests that are out to harm the plants & are known as Symphylans. I read through extensive reports on this pest & methods for eradicating this creature but apparently, there aren't any cures for it where chemicals are concerned.

They take over the tunnels created by earth worms & occupy them. And their behavioural patterns are such that they do not come up to the surface & would only barrow in soil that are hard in structure. As such, the only recourse is to partially reduce its population by digging into the soil & destroying their tunnels below the soil.

The terminology used by gardeners for an attempt to exterminate them is known as tillage. Meaning that we had to till the soil in loosening up the soil. Once the soil is sandy & easily permeable with water, these symphylans would just die off.

However, even with the most effective method being tilling the soil, this wouldn't cure the problem completely as it would only assist in reducing the population of these pests in the soil.

One of the rules for preventing symphylans is to have good cultivation habits, which includes not over using organic matters in fertilising. Reason being that when the organic matters rot, they introduce bad bacteria which inturn invites such undesirable pests such as Symphylans to your plants.

These pests would chew & eat up all the roots & the poor ginger plants would start to weaken & be unable to absorb any nutrients from the soil.

And in severe cases, the plants would die off due to the lacking in nutrients when it's roots are being eaten up by these pests!

These are some photographs of the hateful Symphylans.





Don't they look like white centipedes with many legs & a pair of fillers on top of their heads?


Disclaimer: I do not own any of these photographs of the symphylans which are posted as above. Kindly give the credits of these photographs to the its owners. Thank you.