Ichi's Garden: Devil's Pumpkin - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti
Some people might think that this plant is an invasive weed and useless. However, from my personal perspective, I have different thoughts about this vine plant. Instead of pulling them from my flower pot, I am willing to grow them to attract birds coming to my mini garden.
The story of the Devil's pumpkin in my garden has begun when Yellow-vented Bulbul often visits my greeny space. As result, the bird brought the Devil's pumpkin seeds inside their poop. The bird's poop fell directly on the soil of the flower pot. Without warning, the seed just pops up from the ground. I was curious, and I decided to take care of the baby plant as I wanted to know what kind of plant it could be. One thing is for sure, it must be one of the Yellow-vented Bulbul diets!😉
Ichi's Garden: a couple Yellow-vented Bulbul perched - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti
I did not remember how many weeks the plant had to become mature and produce the fruits. However, I took some pictures since the Devil's Pumpkin started producing fruits in November last year. Today I have 2 pots of this berry and they are producing fruit right now. If you recognize Passionflower, this berry has a flower that is exactly the same as Passionflower but it is tiny with green color. The fruit's color is green and turns dark purple when it ripens. And the birds such as Yellow-vented Bulbul and Myna love the ripe one.
As it is wild fruit, this plant is low maintenance which is good news for me!👊 However, as the berry has grown in a pot, it needs water almost every day. Otherwise, they will die. How about soil, it is able to grow in hard soil for example low nutrient soil or common soil. What does common soil mean? The common soil is the soil that same in our yard. In another word, Devil's Pumpkin is easy to grow everywhere whenever the birds drop the poop. Of course, the bird's poop itself is the fertilizer for the seed to grow. No wonder, when I walk, it is easy to notice this kind of berry on the side street climbing the big trees or bushes.
Ichi's Garden: Devil's Pumpkin fruit - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti
As far as I know, Devil's Pumpkin attracts not only birds as I mentioned above, but also pollinators for instance bees and butterflies. I have seen the bees come and circle the flower of this plant. If we are talking about bees, the leafcutter bees also visited my garden last year as they were interested in one of my Hibiscus flower leaves. Another bee was the one that collected nectar from my Pedilanthus or Devil's Backbone flower or Pink bird flower. Seriously, am I collecting Devil's plants in my garden?😅
Now, sometimes I do collect the seeds from the bird's poop and then put them in the empty pot. The result is amazing as some seeds sprouted from the ground and it is not only one but several. One of them is the Curry plant. Yes, another Yellow-vented Bulbul diet is a berry that produces from the Curry plant. The bird picks the black or ripe one. Meanwhile, for the others, I haven't discovered the plants' names yet. I do still remember when I picked the Curry plant's seed. That day I saw the bird drop poop with something with green color like jumped.🤣😅 Then at late noon I came out and collected that green thing and put it on the soil bed. Surprisingly, a few days later it sprouted!🤩 That is intriguing, right. If I want to know about the Yellow-vented Bulbul diet, I need to collect more seeds from its poop.😄
Ichi's Garden: the seeds that I collected from bird's poop were sprouting. This picture was taken on January 28th, 2023 - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti
Since my Devil's Pumpkin produces fruits, my garden is more lively. Myna bird is the one that frequently checks the fruit whether they are ripened or not. Whereas the Yellow-vented Bulbul sometimes eats the Devil's berry as they come for the banana that I place under my Kaffir Lime tree. If you are following Ichi's Garden, you have already known that the Bulbul bird helps me to eradicate the caterpillar on my Lime leaves. Therefore, I send my gratitude for their hard work by providing a little banana. Moreover, I have seen Dove as well. Not sure what they ate. It looks the Dove picked the Sweet William flower seeds or Oxalis seeds or seeds from Bulbul's poop.
Amazing, is not it? By growing wild plants such as Devil's Pumpkin, we can create an ecosystem in our garden. I am fascinated to do this thing to support wildlife in the urban area. It sounds small act, but when you see the result, you can see how big our role is to keep wildlife surviving in the modern world where many green spaces have declined drastically because of city development. If we ignore it, someday that wildlife is just a history, which means they are extinct. And I do not want it to happen. Therefore, this is my small contribution to creating a better world.
Note:
- Written by Acik Mardiyanti
- Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti
- Do not copy this article without permission
- o not reuse these photographs anywhere else without permission
