The Journal
Notes from the ground.
Most gardening advice online was written for a place with four seasons and gentle rain. It does not survive a Malaysian afternoon.
These are notes from our own work here: what we have learned about soil, mixes, and gardens that are easy to keep, in clay and heat and monsoon. We have made plenty of mistakes and we write about those too.
Latest
Fresh from the field.
- Categories
- Soil
- The Mix
- Easy to Keep
- Rooftops & Edibles
- Indoors
- Wild Things
Why your new-house garden keeps dying (it's what the builders left behind)
What is really under the turf in a new Malaysian housing estate, a ten-minute drainage test with a cangkul and a bucket of water, and the fixes in the order that works.
Eleven design decisions that make a garden easy to keep
Drainage first, right plant in the right place, grouping by thirst, planning for grown-up size, and seven more. Our checklist for a garden that stays handsome with very little help.
Office plants that survive air-con (and the ones that never will)
Low light, cold dry air and a colleague with a watering can. Which plants cope, where to stand them, and a watering rule simple enough for a whole office to follow.
How to write a landscape maintenance scope of work for your condo (a guide for JMB and MC committees)
"Maintain landscape, two workers" is how condo gardens decline and disputes begin. What to specify, how to inspect it, how to compare quotes fairly, and a checklist to copy and adapt.
Coming up
On the potting bench.
Pieces we are working on. No dates. They are ready when they are right.
- Wet feet: the number one plant killer in MalaysiaMost plants here die from too much water around the roots, not too little. How to read the signs, test your drainage with a bucket of water, and stop loving your plants to death.
- Worms at work: what vermicompost does that fertiliser can’tFertiliser feeds the plant. Worm compost feeds the soil. A plain-language look at what happens inside a worm, why castings are so gentle, and how to use them in pots and beds.
- One soil does not fit all: how we think about a mixWhy an aroid, a chilli plant and a patch of lawn want completely different things around their roots. The four things every mix has to balance, and how to judge one by squeezing a handful.
- The aroid mix, explained without the hypeMonsteras and philodendrons grow on trees in the wild, and that tells you what their roots want. How to tell whether your mix is too dense, and when to repot.
- Plants we won’t put next to a pool (and what we use instead)Some lovely trees spend all day dropping leaves, flowers and fruit into your filter. Our avoid list for pools, drains and car porches, each with a better-behaved substitute.
- Growing food on a roof: sun, wind, weight and waterWhat a rooftop does to plants and to soil, and why the mix has to be light, fast-draining and moisture-holding all at once. Lessons that apply to any condo balcony.
- A frog in the garden is a complimentFrogs drink and breathe through their skin, so they only stay where the habitat is clean, damp and full of insects. What they tell you about your garden, and how to make them welcome.
- A small pond without the mosquitoesA bowl of still water brings dragonflies, birds and life into even a tiny garden. How to set one up with plants and a few small fish so it never breeds mosquitoes.
- Mulch: the cheapest gardener you’ll ever hireBare soil in the tropics bakes, erodes and sprouts weeds. What to mulch with in Malaysia, how thick to lay it, and the one mistake that rots tree trunks.
Ask the keeper
Got a soil question?
Send us a photo on WhatsApp. If it makes a good story we will write it up here, with your permission.