Our jungle

My garden is turning into a veritable jungle. It is messy, crowded and filled with wild jungle plants. The left corner is home to SK's collection of nepenthes (pitcher plants). They are not exactly the most attractive plants to have in a home garden but like I've said, ours is a jungle, so they look quite at home here.

YK's plants invade the rest of the garden. They're mainly categorised under 'host' or 'food' plants. Mind you, they are not food for feeding the family. Rather, these are plants grown to attract butterflies into the garden.

 

Every morning we wake up to the sight of butterflies fluttering about. Curently the most common ones are the Plain Tiger and Lime Butterfly.

 

The Plain Tiger is a gorgeous butterfly but according to YK, they're not very disciplined because they tend to lay too many eggs (no birth control) until the caterpillars run out of food quickly.

The milkweed plants in our garden have been completely stripped bare by the caterpillars within days. Now all we have are stumps.



Spot them if you can.



 

 It makes YK very happy to see wild jungle plants like the snake weed, Melastoma (above) and Passiflora foetida (stinking passion vine) flourishing in the garden.

I don't really mind that the wild vines crawl all over the boardwalk and creep up the palm fronds. Afterall the garden is for all to share but that also means that my share of space has diminished. I can only grow my own food plants in all the nooks and crannies.