2 Asian Water Bowls for the front of the House and a Big Vase/Planter

R liked the water bowls to my surprise and even suggested getting one for the patio too. We bought a large black one for the front and found a large planter/vase in dark grey/black to go next to the water bowl. We will eventually get a big plant for it, maybe a palm.

It became clear to me why R had agreed to get the bowls so easily, apparently, he liked something he saw outside a store in Seremban, it was a big water bowl with only big green leaf flowers floating in the bowl. He said he wanted something like that. So I went back to the site of said water bowl and had a look for myself. After doing some searching online, I determined that the green leaf 'flowers' R likes are Pistia or commonly known as Water Cabbage or Water Lettuce. And so I went about finding some Water Cabbage to fill our new bowls. Not easy in Seremban, but I finally found a place and bought all they had. They scouped the Water Cabbages and all of their roots and sludge into plastic bags. I came home and then washed off each 'rosette' and added them carefully to the water bowls. I was going to use the Water Cabbage in the front larger black bowl and add a small flowering Lotus with its lily pad type leaves to the blue water bowl on the patio. However, at the nurseries I found out that water Lotus plants, along with other water plants' roots need to be in soil at the bottom of water bowls.

This was a surprise to me and I wasn't really prepared to put soil at the bottom of either bowl. Because we put pretty black polished pebbles in the bottom of the black bowl and the blue bowl has a beautiful blue glaze color at the bottom (of course now, I see that it doesn't matter because with all of the water plants, the bottom doesn't show anyway). Nevertheless, I opted only for 'floating' type water plants for these water bowls. At another landscape shop, I found a lovely blue flowering floating plant (in the photo above it is the plants with the tube and bulbous stems in the bowl). I brought the plants home with blue flowers, but the next morning the flowers were totally gone. Maybe because they were nearing the end of their blooming, or maybe because of the stress of the transporting/transplanting the flowers died. Weird though, they buds totally disappeared. This blue flowering plant, I searched it and found it, is a "Water Hyacinth" check the wikipedia article on the plant and how they are one of the fastest growing plants in the world. The Water Hyacinth is also considered invasive because it grows so quick that a formation of multiple plants can block ships from traveling through waterways due to their thick roots. Very interesting. Let's see how fast mine grow!

Blue water bowl on Patio with Water Cabbage and some strange flat round floating leaves made up of numerous diamond-like leaves

We went back to get a big blue bowl for the patio so that there could be two, but the large blue bowl was imperfect. We should wait to see if the place gets another or one in black/blue.

Common Myna Birds and Grass

One of our regular visitors in the yard are birds known as the Common Myna which often lurk around the yard pecking the grass and sometimes they sit on the roof and in the Bamboo and Mango Trees. I like their call which is pretty. I looked them up a long time ago and found that they are considered an invasive bird. One of only three birds in the world to be considered invasive because they inhabit an environment and then take over in numbers and they are somehow aggressive. I think this is possibly true because the Common Myna birds in Malaysia, or at least in my yard, are very strong and they seem to always be plotting for food. Our cat T loves to watch them but given the opportunity, I don't think he would attack them as the Common Myna birds might first attack him!

So our Cow Grass after the last mow is looking like this. And in some places you can see the dirt. It seems like the grass is getting very thin. And we had the thought after seeing a bunch of birds pecking in the yard that maybe they were having something to do with the grass thinning.

We sent some photos to Nilai Landscaping, the company that put the grass in and said we were concerned the grass was dying. This is what they wrote back:

It will not die off just like that, don’t worry.

Dead grass visible underneath is actually the “thatch layer” (please google for the meaning). Could be avoided with constant cutting (2 -3 cut per month) and sweeping off the grass clippings after cutting.

Grass that looks like it is growing vertically in certain areas instead of normal horizontal growth is due to lack of sunlight (insufficient sunlight).

Grass colour is too light green and it should be darker green. This is due to insufficient fertilizer.

Trusting the above is in order.

So we will now fertilize and try and mow the grass more often and see what happens.

Mowing Cow Grass

It was time to mow the grass again. During most of the year, the Malaysia Cow Grass supposedly only needs to be mowed once a month. But we are in the rainy season now, and it needed to be mowed after 3 weeks. I've seen that the majority of the time weedwackers are used to cut cow grass instead of push mowers. I'm not sure if it works better, or that many of the gardeners just use the weedwackers because they are easier. We have also seen that the upkeep of goverment land (like along the road sides) is done with numerous workers using weedwackers. So our garderner V uses a weedwacker and he cuts the grass for 30 RM which is about $10 US dollars.

Landscaping complete (finally)!

We had the landscaping completed before the guests arrived too! It is great to see grass instead of weeds and dirt. It really makes the house look better. We went with Nilai Landscape Sdn Bhd because they seemed the most professional and because their price wasn’t bad at all. We did go with cow grass in the end and it cut the price down significantly. We are happy we chose cow grass because it is much easier to maintain.

We used grey pebbles around the front and side of the house which took 140 20kg bags. After filling the space, we think we just barely had enough. We could buy some more to make it look better, but for now it is ok. We also used grey construction pebbles on the right side of the house behind the patio area, as it is not really a used area. It would have taken 50 more bags to fill that area. The construction pebbles aren’t bad at all, they look ok and blend with the asian grey pebbles where they meet. Someday, we can change them to the grey pebbles if we feel like it. Overall price was just over 6,000myr which isn’t bad for a yard as big as ours. Price included the grass, pebbles and the minimal landscaping at the front as well as the numerous Bougainvillea plants for the planters along the wall on the left side of the house.

Landscaping Pebbles

We had a landscape company out to the house to give us their thoughts on our plan. They said that the small pebbles are too small to use as they will spread even with a plastic barrier between the grass and rock.

So we bought a few larger rock samples. These cost 15myr per 20kg bag.

We are thinking of going with this darker color rock for the front and left side of the house.

They estimated that we need roughly 92 square meters of rocks! Which adds up in cost. So the landscaper suggested we use 'construction stones' (pictured above which are 60myr per bulldozer 'scoop' making them much cheaper). But we don't like the whitish grey color or the weird shaped rocks as much as the curved stones. Nevertheless, as we are on a tight budget, we might use these rocks at the back right side of the house behind the patio area where there is little sun and mainly just space for a pathway to the back of the house. We'll see what the landscapers overall qoute on the Cow Grass, Pebbles and plants for the planters on the long wall comes out to. If it is not too high we can use the nice rocks everywhere (provided we can get the 180-200 bags we need).

Above is the revised layout for the rocks in front. It starts by the tile instead of up farther by the driveway, and I widened the rock coverage in front of the patio area in case we want to put some chairs or lounge chairs out on the rocks (this is instead of building an expensive additional cover to extend the patio as most of the neighbors have done or to add flat wood decking which would be flush up to the patio tiles. Both options are too costly for us right now but maybe in the future).

Landscaping: Planters and Pebbles

We have been taking a much needed break from contractors at the house. There has been a bit more roof work done, but for the most part it has been quiet for awhile and we are feeling less tense now and actually enjoying using the kitchen. The Tuscani stove and cooktop is working fantastically and the rest of the kitchen is great as well. Hopefully the 4 stools we ordered for the kitchen to place around the stainless steel table will be ready this week. Still haven’t ordered the exterior lights because when I went to get the two round black lights I saw for the ceiling which will be placed near the front door and near the back door, they were out of them and now I don’t know what to use with the long black cylinder ones we are planning to buy for the front columns of the house.

Landscaping is our next big job. I bought a sample pink plant after the dark wall was finished to see how it would look. I don’t know the name of these plants, I think they start with a B. And they are very common all over Malaysia.

Here is a photo of some in purple from a house that I snapped a long time ago.

I wanted to use this plant in the 9 planters along the long wall at the side of the house. But, the landscape shops tell me these plants mostly grow up and need lots of room for roots. I had also planned to put these in the long planter on the second story of the house outside the big windows.

Metal holder where a long planter can be added on the second floor

But, I’m not sure they will work as the flower pot (which will have to be custom made can’t hold a lot of roots).

We weren’t really liking the pink color of the plant anyway, so I went to another landscape shop today and the woman there told me that this orange plant which looks similar to the pink but is different will grown down instead of up. I think I am liking the orange color better than pink on the dark grey wall, R hasn’t decided yet. She told me that these orange plants are much less common than the other ones and she isn’t sure she can get 40 plants in that color which is how many I think I might need for the 9 wall planters and planter on the second story.

Orange plant at left and pink plant at right which has lost its flowers

We have had a lot of rain since the house was painted. And since there is no established grass or landscaping, the dirt is already hitting up onto the house and exterior property walls making a big mess. To combat the massive amounts of water which come down on to the ground during a Malaysian rainstorm, we thought about using pebble rocks (need to see what these are actually called) all around the house so that it will absorb the rain (we need to get professionals onsite to tell us if rocks or grass would be better at absorbing the water). But for now, we are thinking about putting pebble rocks all around the house just on the outside of where the water hits the ground.

The arrow shows where the water comes down off the roof and has eroded the land

The rest of the landscaping for now will be grass. I had wanted to make a space for a vegetable garden in the back, but we are not sure the soil is good for it so we will just plant grass. Most likely we will go with Cow Grass which is a local type grass instead of the more expensive Carpet Grass which is harder to maintain and harder to take when it is first put in.

I have been looking for BIG black planters or dark grey to put on the front tiled sections and patio. There are many beautiful flowering plants that can go in them or palm-tree-type trees that can be planted in big pots. A few of these big plants and then the colored flowering plants in the wall planters and second story planter, that should be all the landscaping we do for now. There is aleady wiring on the ground all around the property, but we won’t do any spotlight/accent lights on the landscaping for now.

Below are some photos of where I am thinking of using pebbles, this is the first day I did the sectioning off, so I might change it. May add more pebbles outside the patio, not sure. The sample pebble bag I bought in ‘grey’ when put down seems too blue!

So we will be looking for a more grey or a lighter grey pebble to use. The other question was if we should use the big large Asian pebbles in some parts (maybe around the patio) these are very common in Malaysian and Singaporean landscape design. But at the present moment I think we will go only with the small pebbles which are being used in more comtemporary architecture whereas I think the large stones make the property look more ‘tropical’. We’ll see what the professionals think. Actually, I don’t think the large stones cost much more than the small pebbles so if we go with the small pebbles it is mainly for aesthetic reasons not cost.