Most Lammaites have either a G/F garden or patio, a balcony or a rooftop, so they all have the opportunity and space to garden. This forum is for anybody interested in starting this healthy, fascinating and relaxing hobby or to improve their knowledge, skills and success ratio as a gardener.
Let’s start a little online community of current and wannabe “green thumbs”, ask any garden-related question and get advice from our local, resident experts:
Jane Ram from the
HK Gardening Society, living in a formidable jungle lair up in Tai Peng, has agreed to moderate this forum. You can hear her gardening advice every few weeks on RTHK’s Radio 3. Many thanks for taking on this little moderating challenge, Jane!
Dave Sanders from
The Green Patch will answer your questions about growing edible plants like vegis and fruits.
Tavis from the Tai Peng Community Garden project will answer questions about shared gardens.
I’ll be trying to help out with questions about purely decorative rooftop gardens like my own, especially the special challenges of intense heat and wind these very exposed gardens face.
This Gardening forum will also showcase YOUR gardens, send in photos and they might end up on the home page of this website or even in the printed wall calendar of the HK Gardening Society, like 3 Lamma gardens that made it into the 2008 edition, all photographed by Jane, our moderator (see other topic in this forum). Anthony has sent in photos already and he’s the first Lamma garden to be featured in this forum and in the Lamma-zine.
This is your forum, post your tips and photos, let’s discuss topics like organic growing, seasonal planting, best places to get plants, exchange seeds, seedlings and cuttings, composting, etc.
Below are a few photos that Jane took of her own Tai Peng garden a few days ago. I think you'll agree with me that she is superbly qualified to moderate this new forum!
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Introduction by Jane Ram
I’ve been gardening on Lamma for almost 30 years. It continues to provide a steep learning curve, but it also continues to be enjoyable and absorbing. One side of my garden is very shady and I’m still experimenting with decorative foliage plants. I’ve never tried to develop a true roof garden: it’s more of a holding space for plants that enjoy full sun throughout the day. Herbs flourish up there as do Bougainvillea and many different types of lilies.
After more than a few false starts, it seems that autumn 2007 has truly arrived. This is perfect weather for sowing seeds that gardeners in temperate climates would start in the spring. Think herbs, tender leafy vegetables, even carrots and new potatoes. And of course flowers and more flowers. Seed shops in Connaught Road West are well stocked at the moment, although they seem to have run out of Rocket (Arugula). Chan Man Hop at Number 8 specialises in herb seeds, mainly from Belgium. The gardener’s equivalent of Aladdin’s Cave is Number 11, Wong Yuen Shing. Last week his shelves were well filled with a wide assortment of seeds. This shop has some seeds from Taiwan and Malaysia, plus some European imports.
But the most reliable are the Yates seeds from Australia, which are ideally packed for tropical conditions; their germination rate is almost embarrassingly good – but that means plenty of surplus seedlings to give away or trade with other gardeners. Wong Yuen Shing also sells wholesale quantities of Chinese vegetable seeds, so if you want a field full of Choi Sum, this is your starting point.
In the absence of Rocket (and I’m reluctant to order from the UK at current exchange rates) I bought Mesclun seeds. According to the label, the packet includes Rocket along with other fashionable salad leaves. The birds and the caterpillars of cabbage white butterflies eat most of my rocket anyway: maybe we can come to an agreement that they concentrate on the other vegetables. Mesclun seeds were already sprouting yesterday – less than 48 hours after I sowed them! How’s that for gardening gratification? Flower seeds are proving slower, although I am confident that Nasturtium and Linaria will soon be stirring.
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