Progress at Taman Bunga Istana Besar

Starting December 2013, Hj Naza is sending the ordered plants in stages by car. I went to see the garden after the planting.. we'll have to wait few months to see the plants progress.

Trip to Lata Jarum, Ulu Dong - Raub

A weekend trip to a remote waterfall in Raub district. Went with Norli and friends. A pristine jungle with a lot of wild species. I mean orchids and the animals too... huhu!

Submission of Name Plate (Tag) and New Softscape Design

Finally, I submitted the name plates of the orchid to Marni. It will be printed and tag to the plants accordingly. Marni mentioned that there are few changes to the site i.e. no more fountain and less matured plants will be planted. Aduuuhh, got no budget ka? Here's the new layout...

New Design

News From Tambak Sari

Marni called to verify final quotation and appointment letter as consultant for the project. She will email the copy of the letter later. We talked about the preparation of the site and when the selected plants to be delivered on site. Marni sent photo of the site and it seems that the work is quite slow. She said that we can enter the site for planting as early as November 2012.

Actual site as at October 2012

Meeting with Mr. Muhammad

We met again Mr. Muhammad at Putrajaya at 8 pm. Dr Yusof called to say they would be late. We had a chit chat with him before Dr. Yusof arrive. When Dr. Yusof arrived, I introduced him to Dr, and he was quite disappointed that no samples were brought tonight. Nevertheless, Dr Yusof handled it professionally and things went smoothly afterwards.

Mr. Muhammad agreed to visit Dr. Yusof farm tomorrow and will decide how to go about it. Since it was better this way (for Dr. Yusof to deal directly with him), he thanked us for introducing Mr Muahmmad to them. Inshaallah, there will be 'business' for us later...

Meeting Mr Muhammad & Dr. Yusof - Green Hexagon

We met this guy at Putrajaya at 11 am and listened to what he proposed. He is looking for a local middleman to assist him to export orchid cuttings to hotel in Egypt. After discussing few possibilities on what we can do, we shall meet and bring some sample of orchid cuttings for him to see!

In the afternoon we went to Mr. Nam Fook's house looking at his orchid collections! Got some bulbos and few others as souvenirs...

Late evening, we went to Bukit Changgang to collect sample of cuttings for Mr. Muhammad. Since it was late Sunday evening, Wah Sang was closed. We ended up at Hexagon Green and met Dr. Yusof and his wife Dr. We had a long discussion and finally invited him to meet Mr. Muhammad tomorrow at Putrajaya again.

Bohey Dulang Island, Semporna

2012.. how many times I went to Sabah? maybe 4/5 trips.. hehe. The view from on top of Bohey Dulang Island is SUPERB! well.. just that is was hazy during my trip here.

 

Calling from Potential Client

I received phone call from this guy named Mr. Muhammad, insisting to meet him to discus on supplying orchid cuttings to Middle East. Though I am not keen but what the heck! Let's meet!

Save the Planet! - The Ugly Cost of 'Development'

Mr. Kali called us to come to CH. There was an illegal clearing of the jungle near Jabatan Hutan, Cameron Highland. Can you imagine that! What they were doing when this thing happen under their nose? We went to the area... and surely 'saving' as many as we can these 'cool, highland' orchids..

 

 

Tambak Sari Called for Nursery Visit

Called Marni today to confirm her invitation to visit a nursery for selection of trees at Yong Peng, Johor. I can't remember the name of the nursery but she said they have reduced the number of trees to be puchased. Aikkk... that means the place will have less shade and surely hot in the afternoon. Since I can't make it during weekdays, I asked whether we can visit the nursery and tag the trees that we want. She said ok and will email me the trees details later. Hj Naza has no problem with that and thus, further arrangement will be made for this trip.

Visit to Hourai

We went for jungle trekking at Cheras, KL. People call it Bukit Apek - no wonder they call that name 'coz many 'ah moi' and 'ah pek' climb this hill on weekend. The trip was easy but damn it took 5 hours to and fro. Norli said only 1-2 hours! What a lie...

In the afternoon we went to visit Hourai and looking around his nursery. Nothing special but to ask list of his current protocorm for future exchange. Reen will email the list later. Some flowering orchids at their nursery-

What's New After Raya?

Not much! The lab work resumes as usual after Hari Raya with so many seed pods to be sown. Hj Naza made another media for flasking - can't remember what number. Reflasking work is also in progress and now I realize that additional staff to do the reflasking work may be needed in near future.

Visitors from Switzerland

Roland and his friend, orchid nursery owner and collectors, came to Malaysia collecting miniature orchids from jungle in Cameron Highland. They dropped by at Hj Naza's house to look around for interesting bulbos. Next destination is to Sabah. 

Revising Quotation and Confirming Orchid Species for Tambak Sari

As promised, Marni sent us the new garden plan and we worked out on Sunday morning to finalize the list of species to be used. The original quotation figures remain the same but we had adjusted the number of plants and also introduced new species. A total of about 100 species (including 3 hybrids) were sent to Marni to be confirmed. Hopefully everything will be fine and we can start collecting and gathering the plants soonest possible!

Orchid Garden landscape with proposed trees during the meeting

Many original species were adjusted to give space to new ones

Meeting with Tambak Sari, Johor Bahru

Few months ago, we have been approached by Tambak Sari for its landscape project in Johor Bahru. They had invited us to meet them at their site office to discus in details of plants requirements and to see the actual site. We went to JB on Tuesday and met Puan Marni, the site officer. She brought us around to see the area specifically the proposed orchid garden.

Actually, they are upgrading Taman Bunga Istana Besar, into a more presentable garden. It was divided into few sections i.e. Orchid Garden, Hill Garden, Bonsai Garden, Herbs Garden etc. So what they actually needed from us is to establish an orchid garden. Further to our discussion, we proposed it to be a 'species orchid garden' (ain't that our specialty?!). They accepted the idea as it is unique and not adapting with what Singapore is doing (their reference or rival?).

Later in the afternoon, we met the landscape architect, Puan Siti Saudah (?) and discussed further on suitable landscape plants, general garden features and types of orchids that can be grown there. Among the host trees that we proposed include tamarind, dracaena, wrightia and cinnamon. We would also look back at the proposed species list in order to increase in the number of plants at few sections so that it could give high impact.  

Once again, we visited the whole garden area and saw 'tembusu' tree logs which can be used as natural landscape feature in the orchid garden. Marni would give us the revised plan before we could decide on the species to use.

Proposed tree - Hopea odorata

Another one - Callistemon viminalis

Reflasking Works Has Started!

I haven't posted on the lab progress for quite some time due to my busy schedule. But Hj Naza has informed me that he has started reflasking. It means the protocorm is being divided and transferred into smaller numbers into another flasks. This will enable the protocorm to grow faster and form into proper seedlings/plants.

Hmm.. I think this will take another 2-3 months before the first flask can be sold i.e. when the seedlings reach 2-3 inches size. Be patient....

Seeds are growing vigorously and need to be reflasked to avoid overcrowded

Imagine, there are 'thousands' of seedlings in this flask!

After reflasking. This will give space for protocorm to grow faster

Status of Sowing Seeds

There is a good progress on the seeds sowed on all media, including M39 which is prepared using expired ACA

Preparing Culture No 32 (M32)

Went to the lab tonight and assisted Hj Naza to fill up the bottles with M32. M32 was prepared using new Peptone and Bulbos like it! How's the progress from the sowed seeds? Quite slow... Zzzz

Purchased ACA from Hourai

So many plans this weekend but somehow managed to go to Hourai to pick up the ACA. This chemical, 500ml, costs me RM700! Duuhhh...

Went to the lab tonight and just fill up the record book. Only sowed 3 species... perghh so slow!

Not very productive...

Visitors from Sabah

Cikgu Abas and his wife, Kak Siti came to KL since last week. He attended OUM Convocation on the weekend and dropped by at Seremban since yesterday, visiting his friend Richard Ng at Mantin and also planning to visit few nurseries around here. I fetched him at the hotel and we had breakfast with Hj Naza at Ampangan. Cikgu Abas is an orchid collector who has explored many jungles in Sabah and Sarawak. I've ordered orchids from him few times and planning to go into jungle with him in the near future.

Lab Update

Nothing much! Hj Naza is still sowing orchid seeds. There are so many of them and this may take weeks to complete. From these mother flasks we will cultivate hundreds if not thousands more flasks. So far we are using 3 types of media, M39, M16 and M26k. Seeds sown using M39 were mostly burst seed pods and ACA used has already expired. Thus, there is not much progress. But most 'green seed pods' (not burst yet) show good progress. They are sown without using ACA. So can it be that expired ACA is not effective anymore?

Keeping Proper Record of Lab Work

Went to the lab tonight and keyed in data into laptop for orchid seeds that have been sowed in flasks. So far we have sowed about 21 species starting on 23 may 2012.

Before... from this ancient book

Now... looks better and easy to read

M39 Status... Unsuccessful?!

Hmmm... it has been more than 10 days and the spore has not yet germinated. What's the reason? What went wrong? I know that there are few things that we did not really follow closely i.e. testing using filtered water instead of distilled water. Using expired ACA. Are there any other factors that we have overlooked? Perhaps low lighting or not enough lighting hour? We have rectified that issues for M09 and we'll see the difference later.

Talking about contamination, Mikail said usually there will be 10%-15% chances of contamination. How about ours? For M39, so far there are 32 contaminated flasks. That is about 16% and can be considered very high. We must be careful with the next batch.

We talked to Reen (from Hourai) about ordering new ACA. 500ml of ACA costs about RM700! Wow.. that's expensive but what can we do.. we need it!

Will it germinate?

Contaminated flasks from M39

Cleaning up Front Porch for Future Shelves Area 2

Horay! Today we finished clean up the porch. Though there are still some more works to do but the temporary shelf / table can be placed before the real one later.

This will do for now..

While walking in the nursery, I wonder whether Durio can be used as culture medium? Sounds crazy but perhaps possible .. who knows?

Hmmmm.. yummy!

All types of banana can be used as medium

Wait until it naturally ripens

Looks delicious!

Sowing Seed Using Culture Medium No 16 (M16)

Hj Naza made another medium for seed germination - M16. Starting from M09, we used distilled water instead of filtered water. We suspected that the first medium was unsuccessful due to few factors such as using filtered water and expired ACA. Hopefully this one will produce good result!

Hmm.. should be ok this time, inshaallah!

For trial..placed near window for natural light

Preparing Culture Medium No 09 (M09)

'Helmi.. I want to prepare medium no 9. You want to see how?'.. Oh yeah! In less than 10 minutes I arrived at Hj Naza's house. But firstly I checked the delivery order from Mikail. Seems everything is there!

Medium no. 09 will be used to germinate seeds and for growth of bulbophyllum and phalaenopsis. Ingredients used include fruits and vegetables such as banana, apple, potato and tomato. Seems like we are going to make cookies again...

The 'secret' recipe

Fresh fruits

Some potatoes

Activated charcoal

Bananas

Peptone

N63 fertilizer

Sugar

Agar

All these items will be blended together tomorrow. After that, it will be cooked and adjusted for the right ph. Finally, it will be filled into the bottles/flasks and then the same cycle (autoclave) will be performed. Germination process will be conducted 3-5 days later after ensuring that there is no contamination on this medium. Usually, there will be 10-15% chances of contamination for every batch of medium. Thus, cleanliness of the lab must be given the highest priority.