Bangkok Chatuchak Flower Market

One of the the places that any gardener should visit when in Bangkok Thailand, is the Chatuchak Market. Whilst this market is more well-known for the weekend stalls that sells everything from clothes to nick-knacks, books and crockery, many do not know that the internal road that goes around the market is transformed into a humongous plant nursery cum garden center on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Waterlilies in all sorts of colours.

The sellers apparently come in on Tuesday night to set up the stalls, and the market goes into full swing on Wednesday. By Thursday afternoon, most of them would have packed up and cleared out. 

Lovely orchids and cheap too... Flowering Vandas as low as 50baht (~ RM5).

With the stalls there, the Chatuchak market area is transformed into a sea of colours and textures - from all sorts of common garden plants to the rare and exotic. Here you can find all sorts of trees for sale, in all sizes, with roots wrapped in burlap and ready to be transported to your garden. Waterlilies in all sorts of colours imaginable, roses and orchids that are so bright and cheerful that makes you think for a moment that they are not real to bulbs and seeds that you didn't believe existed. All sorts of garden decorations, pots and planter boxes, tools and even chemicals and fertilisers are on sale at this market.

Various types of slipper orchids on sale

What to see:

All the different types of flowering plants, herbs, fruiting trees and even large ornamental plants that can be transported to you if you are willing to pay the price. Waterlilies are astounding, and so are the various types of gingers and orchids on sale - they look like a supermarket shelve with lots of rhizomes/bulbs in containers.

The colours and scent from the waterlilies on sale will make your head spin.

All sorts of Hibiscus flowers in pots for only 50baht.

Bromeliads and various pot plants for sale.

Elatior begonias

More waterlilies

Golden Ficus deltoidea (Mas cotek emas).

Also do take a look at the various garden ornaments that are reasonably priced, as well as planter boxes, pots and vertical pot holders.

Cutesy garden ornaments and containers

All sorts of garden ornaments

How to get there:

You can easily get there via public transport (i.e. either one of the trains)

MRT

•  Kamphaeng Phet Station
• Exit Chatuchak Market (enter the market fenced area directly)
• Exit Kamphaeng Phet - there are some curio stalls but have to walk across the pedestrian bridge and enter the fenced up market area (through the books section).

• Chatuchak Park Station.
• Exit ChatuchakPark - walk down the road

BTS Skytrain - Mo Chit Station

• Cross the road to the MRT station side and walk down the road (facing the traffic).

Happy New Year 2015

Ahhh, one more year gone, and now it is 2015! A Happy New Year to all my friends/readers/followers. May all that you aspire and wish for come true in 2015.

Seen in MAHA 2014 - Moris Gajah Pineapple

At the Pineapple Showcase grounds in MAHA 2014 at MAEPS Serdang, one of the pineapple that was planted along the paths to the information center was an eye-catching, humongous pineapple. Some of these pineapples also have abnormal double or fused crowns. The plant immediately reminded me of a little Agave plant, with a large fruit sticking out on top.

Huge pineapples - wonder if they had been on steroids...

After looking around for the plant labels, I finally found one staked next to one of these pineapple plants. They were Moris Gajah (literally Elephant Moris) pineapples. They basically look like a large varietal form (the on steroid version) of the more commonly found Moris pineapple.

Moris Gajah - Elephant Moris pineapple. Everything seems to be big for this cultivar, the leaves, the fruit, the crown and even the thorns.

The wild, not so interesting ancestors of our modern day pineapples are native to Southern Brazil and Paraguay. They were apparently domesticated by the natives there and spread northwards to South Central America and the West Indies. From there the Spaniards spread it to the Philippines. Then it spread to India through the Portuguese and onward to Europe, China and the rest of the world.

Today, various cultivars of pineapple exist in the world, but they can be group into four main groups or classes - Smooth Cayenne', 'Red Spanish', 'Queen', and 'Abacaxi'.

Moris pineapple (also know as Mauritius or Malacca Queen) belongs to the Queen group of pineapples. The fruits are typically pyramidal and tapering to the top, and are commonly used as fresh fruit over here in Malaysia. Fruits usually weight between 800gms to 2.0 kg, and are crisp and have sugar content of 12%-14% Brix.

The Moris Gajah is similar to the Moris pineapple in terms of the sugar content, but differs in the individual weight of the fruits - they can weigh a hefty 3kg to 6kg per fruit! Imagine how many slices of pineapple you can get from a single, 6kg fruit!

Characteristics of Moris Gajah pineapple - note the fruit weight (from cultivar brochure published by MOA - Malaysian Pineapple Board).

One downside of this cultivar is of course the thorns. Moris pineapples (or rather most of the pineapples in the Queen group) have thorny leaves, but boy do the Moris Gajah pineapples have thorns. They are sharp, big and form a complete row on each side of the leaf blade, very much like a saw blade.

Love the double crowns on top of this Moris Gajah pineapple. Imagine tying some red ribbons around it and presto - Chinese New Year decorative plant!

Despite the thorns, I could see that this pineapple also has a decorative potential, if you have the space for it. They look like a miniature Agave plant, and with the huge fruit sitting on top, they definitely will be a good showcase or accent plant in a spacious garden.