Beyond Gardening 2!

Echinodorus Cordifolius Ovalis

Wow, the name is a mouthful! I love this plant. It is very easy to grow, I did not use any fertiliser, I guess they get it from the natural organic fish fertiliser in the little mini pond! This plant can be found in most nurseries. 

One of my 'mini-pond' with some goldfish

"Echinodorus cordifolius "Ovalis" is a small, orbiculate "sword" plant whose low, wide growth makes it suitable for small aquariums. A nutritious bottom promotes growth, and if the leaves turn light this indicates a shortage of micro-nutrients. The plant forms stems which (unlike most other "sword" plants) bend down towards the bottom and form their own adventive plants. It is hardy and easy for both beginners and the more experienced". That is the description I got from the internet.

But to me this is not a small plant, it can grow as high as about 5 feet and I really like the flowers. The flowers are about the size of a 50cent coin, white in colour, papery thin and extremely dainty and lovely! But these flowers are short-lived, they can last about 2 days and will wilt and dry off. The flowers grow along the long stem that grows from the centre of the plant.  There can be many 'tiers' of flowers along this long stem.  Plantlets (new small daughter plants) will develop from the nodes of this 'tier', and can be propagated by cutting just below the plantlets. However when grown permanently submersed in the aquarium, most species will not flower. 

I have two of this plants outside my house and two small ones in the aquarium which I posted here, earlier on.

I got one small plantlet from my neighbour several years ago and it has been growing well and flourish and over the years I have given many small plantlets to my sisters and friends. If you have a pond in your garden, this would be the ideal plant.

Another one of the 'mini-pond' with some Guppies and Red Mollies.

Close-up picture of the leaves.

The tip of the long stem with flower buds

The beautiful, white and dainty flowers fully bloomed

Another photo of the lovely flower

More pictures!

More pictures!

The small plantlet. The flowers has wilted and new leaves are growing. To propagate, just cut below the plantlets.

Some cute Goldfish

Another picture of the 'mini-pond' with Guppies and Red Mollies.

Guppies and Red Mollies

A heavily pregnant Guppy!

This post is for Stephanie of Steph's Green Space, who has asked me before about this plant. (Stephanie, I was waiting for the flowers to grow and bloom to show you the beauty of the flowers!) and also to Autumn Belle of My Nice Garden. Autumn Belle, there were four pregnant guppies, one has already given birth, now waiting for the other three. The picture above shows one of the pregnant guppy. When you buy guppies, make sure you buy more females than males!)

Happy Gardening !

Beyond Gardening!

A short break from gardening!

Balloon Molly
This is a cute fish with rounded, large belly. 

This little mama is pregnant. Look at the rounded belly. We were waiting almost very patiently for the babies to appear!

 Can you see the baby's tail coming out from the mother?  I actually waited and wanted to video the birthing, waited for more than half an hour and finally gave up, as I really had to go out at that time. When I came back more two hours later, she has already given birth to a few babies! But sadly, this mama fish died the next day, and she's the prettiest mama in the aquarium!

See the two little fishes following closely behind? They love to do this, I guess it's one their natural habits. These two are siblings! The are about 3 months old. The rest of their siblings died, along with their mother.

This cute little yellow molly is another little mama. She gave birth to more than 20 baby fish about 2 weeks ago. She seems to be doing well.

These are some of her babies

This is one mighty proud male fish.  He likes to spread out his top fins when pursuing the female, male ego? I don't see other male fish doing this! 

 Baby fish gets to hide in little caves and holes. The bigger fish, even their own mother are known to eat their young, and I have seen this before.  My hubby and myself witness the birthing of the babies a couple of months back and saw the mother ate one of her young just minutes after birth! Both of us are speechless at that very moment! But that is nature.  

There are four of this little fish with the black stripe, all siblings.  They are about 3 weeks old. 

Our little aquarium! Watching the cute little antics and habits of these little fishes can have a calming effect. They always seems to know the feeding time, they will get very excited and swam to the top waiting for the food when its time for feeding.  The lovely green plant is from our own bigger plant (this will be a separate post). It can last for at least 4 months, sometimes even longer,  in the aquarium. 

Beyond Gardening shall continue.... in due time!