About

Here is our story of how we came to love caring for our pandan plants.

My (now) wife C, always had a keen interest in taking care of plants and herbs, but never really had the green fingers for gardening, especially when confined to the space constraints of a low-rise apartment balcony. Having personally been part of the gardening club in high school (which we mostly did weeding only), I managed to convince her to buying a few plants for the balcony which included a chilli seedling, as well as an apple mint plant. Seeing how the plants continued to grow quite successfully, she mentioned of an interest in purchasing a pandan plant, so as to harvest leaves for her cooking and baking interests.

As many of you may know, the pandan plant (Pandanus Amaryllifolius) is a tropical plant which grows easily in the tropical climates of Asia and the northern regions of Australia. Having a temperate climate here in Perth, Western Australia, meant that these plants would possibly grow well in the warmer months, but are highly susceptible to frost during the colder (not that cold) winter months, which often leads to death of the plant. As these plants would usually struggle below the temperatures of 8 degrees Celsius, it would pose as a challenging task to keep them alive during the colder windy months of June – August. As life is usually more interesting with challenges, I decided to contact a local seller here in Perth during summer, and bought an XL sized pandan plant for C’s birthday (best birthday present ever). It was a small shrub size plant of maybe 20 cm in diameter when we first got it and it had two sucker branches as well. This meant that we had a plant which had the potential to be potted as three seperate plants should it survive the winter months. This then sparked the love for growing pandan with the sheer challenge of keeping it alive in spite of the temperate conditions.

With much love and care (and common sense), unlike many whom have seen the death of their beloved pandan plants, ours not only survived its first winter, but continued to grow with many little baby pups as well. As the story goes, the rest is history and now we have a constant supply of fresh fragrant pandan plants for all including friends and family.