Laman Nurani...Our Tropical Sanctuary

We have not been doing justice to our garden since our previous maid left us. We have allowed the little area crumble into dilapidated disarray and it was just an uninspiring sight! That was in July 2009 and it has been more than a year now that we have abandoned our “Laman Nurani”. Nenek left us just before the last Ramadhan and we were without maid until end of the year. Thereafter, we were busy with Faiz’s schools’ applications and were travelling back to Kelantan quite often. When the new year began, almost all our weekends have been occupied fetching Faiz and sending him and his laundry back to IQKL.

The last few weeks before Ramadhan, I told myself that I have to overhaul the garden but transforming it back into what it used to be seemed like an impossible task! I just don’t know where to start. The plants have outgrown the pots and some just died because of lack of fertilizers. The wooden bench and garden chair started to rot and algae and moss have occupied the water features. The white shinning pebbles, the pavement and the slabs have changed their colours! The lawn once used to be so green now looks scruffy.

I started flipping back my collection of Laman magazines from Karangkraf since it was first published in 2006! Luckily I never missed any single issue of Laman since then. Just by looking at the lovely gardens featured in the magazines inspire me to make instant changes to our garden and so the journey began.

Last two weeks, I asked Sultan, a Myanmar guy who works around our area maintaining the roadsides to help me with the plants outside the house. Bought a few plants from the nursery and asked him to plant for me. The result was good since he has been helping us maintaining the landscape outside the house with a small fee of course.

Last weekend, we started the major project of transforming the garden within our compound. There are several spots and corners in our garden that made it easier for us to plan what to do first. Sultan and Bibik helped us removed the pots and plants and cleaned the area. We replaced the old and dying plants with new ones. Since majority of the plants are planted in pots of various shapes, sizes, designs and colours, it is easier to move them around and rearranged them to give a fresher look. Of course the big ones are not that easy to shift, they are just too heavy and for some, the roots have gone into the ground! It’s a guarantee that you will get back ache for lifting these big pots!

We made a few trips to Jalan Subang Lama to look for plants and new hardscape to replace the rotten garden furniture. We finally settled for a wooden swing and a small water feature as new additions to our garden. The final touch is when we added some garden accessories here and there just to give some colours to the garden. Although there are still a lot more to be done like replanting the grass, painting the slabs and the old garden furnitures, the little area has now transformed into a secluded haven just for us. Our very own private tropical sanctuary called Laman Nurani.