Wild Flowers at Bukit Tinggi

Bukit Tinggi is a resort located about 30 minutes drive from Kuala Lumpur. The name Bulit Tinggi is the lateral translation of High Hill in English. The name is now changed to berjaya resort.

 Beautiful Violet flowers from the crawler.

special tree with the pods to trap insets and small animal. The pods produces slippery chemical that  cause the animals to slip into the pods.

coconut tree

Coconut tree

It is kind of palm that grows in abundant both in the wild at the sea side as well in in large estates. It is a traditional'must have' tree in the Malaysian Malay community.

Uses

The plant is considered as a multipurpose plan. The main uses are:

a. milk from the white meat.Use in the cooking by peoples in the tropic.

b. water in the seed can be a cooling drink.

c. The husk can be turn to rope.

d. the meat can be dried to form copra and squeezed to produce oil. Coconut oil is used for cooking.

Served cooled coconut drink - natural and refreshing

As an industry, the plantation is not known to provide a steady income. This is mainly due to the high fluctuation in price, which some time fall below the the cost.

growing bamboo tree

Growing bamboo tree is not too difficult.

In fact the tree is meant to grow naturally, and that is what happen in nature. The one of the plant gets old or felled by strong wind, the tip will touch the ground and new shoot will start to grow.

Bamboo has many uses, one of which it can be used as cooking utensil. In the early days when there was no metal pot and pan, bamboo was used to replace the utensil, and that tradition i carried on until today.

Lemang is the traditional food cooked in bamboo in Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. It is cooked in bamboo on an open flame. During festive time. it is almost mandatory for the Malay to have the Lemang.

The bamboo plant

Growing bamboo tree is easier now, with the knowledges and equipments. The plant grow in abundant in the tropic. As the jungle is being chopped down, it is harder to find the bamboo to be used for the lemang.

Many had started to plant the bamboo for own usage. The commercial farming is yet to take place.

The seedlings are shown below:

The bamboo seedling can be easily propagated

There are three ways to propagate the plants:

1. from the plants cuttings

2. from the roots and tubers.

3. from the seeds.

I was using both the cuttings and the roots. The success rate for the cuttings was about 50%. For roots and tubers, the success can be a high 80%. From my personal experience, growing bamboo tree was easy.

We many not realize that there is alot of money to be made in growing bamboo commercially. It is easy to grow and the competition is not too intense.

Malaysian Rubber Trees

Those who have not seen how the natural rubber is being produced will be wondering how it is done.
It starts with the rubber three like below. About six years after planting, it can be tapped.

Tapping is the manual process of control cut of the skin of the three. It is normal to tap half of the diameter.

Malaysia was the biggest producer of natural rubber until it decided to venture to palm oil. However it remains as the most effective producer, the highest Kg per Hectare.

Rubber taping requires high labor, as each tree has to be tapped manually.

Uneven growth makes tapping difficult..

The plantation was sprayed with herbicide to get rid of scrub and small trees.

The entrant road to the rubber plantation is full over small bushes. The non-metal road gets a bit slippery during the rainy season.

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The rubber trees are ready for tapping, when it reached the age of seven.

There are basically 3 ways the planter can sell the product.

1. he can leave it in the cup until it harden by itself.

2. he can collect the latex and sell the latex as unprocessed.

3. he can collect the latex and make it into rubber sheet.

Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages.