My plant choices: Flowering Shrub Plants

At the heart of it all, every plant that I plant has to have some practical use from being a basic edible plant to plants with a therapeutic benefit.  I also love flowers so I combine the two criteria and found many plants that fit them.  My additional criteria was that as far as possible it has to be local and fit in our great tropical climate.  Of course I cannot plant them all and had to make the difficult choice of narrowing them down.  All the choices I list below can be planted either in the ground or in containers.  By regular pruning, the plants can be shaped and kept productive as the pruning encourages new shoots to appear.

My favourites are:
Misai Kuching (Cat's whiskers)
There is basically 2 varieties: 1 with white flowers and the other with lilac flowers.  I have a preference for lilac so I elected to choose this variety.  They are easy to care for and to propagate.  They produce lovely showy flowers and have pretty leaves.  It gives me the added benefit of being able to make organic misai kucing tea which has many therapeutic benefits but the one I love most is as a blood cleanser.  This is my go-to tea who I am eating high sugar content foods and these include fruits like durians and mangosteens apart from those lovely desserts.  These a perennial plants that requires minimal car although with periodic fertilising, it produces more flowers and more leaves.


Roselle (Asam Belanda)
This plant is in the hibiscus family and best propagated from seeds although it can be propagated from stem cuttings.  It produces showy pink flowers with a maroon or deep red centre.  The flowers turn into calyces and these can be transformed to a drink rich in vitamins especially vitamin C.  The seed pods are within the calyx and good quality seeds are produced from fully matured calyces.  The leaves are green with a red tinge to it and can be dried and converted to tea.  Even the leaf stem can be used in making a drink.  Be forewarned, the leave, stem and calyx all taste sour so you might want to sweeten your drinks with honey or brown sugar.  Because of its sourness, the leaves are also used in cooking to flavour dishes.  The calyces can also be turned into preserves and conserves.  These are perennial plants.

Okra (Bendi)
Although this plant is an annual, it is easy to propagate from seeds and easy to grow.  It produced bright yellow flowers with a dark red centre.  The pollinated flowers turn into the fruit, okra, which has many health benefits apart from being tasty.   This plant is prone to some pests that will attack the leaves and fruit but this can be controlled with the use of enzyme fertiliser with pest control that will provide fertiliser for the plant whilst keeping the pest away.




Eggplant/Brinjals (Terung)
There are so many varieties with the fruit being green (bright yellow when "ripe), white and purple.  The flowers tend to be either purple petals with yellow centre or white petals with yellow centre.  Planting these plants give you the added benefit of harvesting for your dinner table.  The purple eggplant is especially beneficial with the nasurin content in the purple skin which is provides beneficial nutrient to our brain.  Regular fertilisation with fertilisers that also contain magnesium and calcium can help in increasing the flowers produced leading to more fruits.