My Botak Frangipani

One of my neighbours moved away and I've noticed he left many of his plants behind. For a couple of weeks, I watched in dismay as the plants in the balcony die off. There wasn't anything I could do because the balcony, whilst visible from my place, was not accessible to me.

When I saw the new neighbours throwing out some of the plants today, I decided to be thick skinned and ask if I could adopt some of the plants that they didn't want anymore.

Turns out that most of the plants have died and gone to heaven.. and there were a couple that the new neighbours wanted to keep.

"But you can have this one.. if you like." The new neighbour gestured at a very bald frangipani.

Oh... I always liked frangipani but for one reason or another, never bought one for my apartment. So I thanked the new neighbour and took off with the frangipani before he could regret.

The Husband raised an eyebrow and pointed out that the frangipani plant is very bald.

"It has almost no leaves."

He is right. In Singapore, we would call it "botak". (Botak is the Malay word for bald)

So here you go.. My Botak Frangipani. She only has one leaf currently, but oh.. she has such a lovely clump of white/yellow flowers.

I'm going to put her into a bigger pot and take care of her. Hopefully, in time, she would have more leaves.

The botak frangipani

I like the white and yellow flowers. See the one and only leaf it has on the right?

I usually like the white and pink frangipanis.. but this colour is really lovely too..