Friday, March 5, 2010

Ulam Raja celebrating its first burst of flowers

ulam raja
the flower.

 
ulam raja
About 4 feet high, near kitchen.

  
ulam raja
Perched high.

  
ulam raja
The plant is 10 feet high  at the front of our house near the driveway

  
ulam raja

Life is extremely fair, that beauty of flowers is a trade off with less beautiful foliage. Ulam raja, a version of cosmos is an interesting plant. The leaves are perfect, shown in the earlier post and occasionally find its way to dinner table as salad. A fresh ulam raja is a delicacy, always eaten raw as salad.

Ulam raja behave just like marigolds, that blooming starts only when the health level of the foliage is dropping.  Both ulam raja and marigolds look awfully similar, therefore blooming pattern is expected to be similar too. Ulam raja beside the driveway is almost 10 feet high. 
Now they are flowering...


~ bangchik

16 comments:

  1. Beautiful..what a gorgeous little one! I love cosmos too. I always think it is a nice lovely touch to eat and add flowers to food too..and fun when you have guests!
    Kiki~

    ReplyDelete
  2. What an incredibly beautiful flower, and the leaves are so delicate and lovely. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. How wonderful, a edible cosmo. They are so very tall, but beautiful.

    Jen

    ReplyDelete
  4. What a beautiful flower...I can see it's resemblance to Cosmos.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Truly a delicate beauty!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yes, I agree. Ulam raja sangat unik, delicate and sweet.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I didn't realise that it is a relative of cosmos. I'm growing cosmos this year, purely for ornamental purposes.

    ReplyDelete
  8. A nice delicate flower and edible too!

    ReplyDelete
  9. That's a beautiful blooms on the Ulam Raja, BangChik.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Darla
    Kiki
    Rebecca @ In The Garden
    Trädgårdsmakare Hillevissan
    Muddy Boot Dreams
    Noelle
    gippslandgardener
    Stephanie
    Autumn Belle
    Jo
    lotusleaf
    J.C.

    The previous attempt at ulam raja did not end with flowers, because they collapsed prematurely after strong winds. This batch is lucky to go to the end.

    We regularly cut the shoots for salads, but a few are left untouched. They bloom first, whereas those cut for salads hasn't shown indication of blooms.

    The flowers remain for a short while, not as long as zinnia, petals drop off leaving seeds attached to the flower heads, We will save them for the next planting....

    Have a great weekend!
    ~bangchik

    ReplyDelete
  11. Catherine@AGardenerinProgress... The flowers are pretty, but at 10 feet high, cant get too close. ~bangchik

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hello! real nice to see ulam Raja. I'm a chinese but i LOVE makan ulam!

    i am a nob in gardening. Is this plant hard to plant? Where can i find young plants (baka) for a good ulam raja? Do you have any contacts in northern Malaysia?

    Currently i'm planting a few western herbs including thyme, rosemarry, sweet basil, thai basil, dill, sage, oregano. All are grown from seed i pruchased from ebay. i used them with my pasta or salads. I failed on bay laurel though.

    here's my email, i would love to know where i can get ulam raja! lanvin_lcs@hotmail.com

    ReplyDelete