Gardens by the Bay

Rod and Cornelia are only with us in Singapore for one day. They’ve been here before, so they’ll go on ahead of us to London while we spend an extra day sightseeing. Mind you, in this humidity there have been a few times today when I wished I was going on to London early with them. It was a no brainer that we should spend our only day together in Singapore at Gardens by the Bay. We walked there from our Chinatown hotel. It took about half an hour to get to the gardens, which gave us further opportunity to see some of the city. The streets were spotlessly clean and orderly traffic flowed on well-maintained roads. I don’t recall seeing any older cars at all. I think the government here is very environmentally conscious, and most likely does all it can to encourage people to cut down on carbon emissions. There is greenery everywhere you look, even in the midst of the tall buildings of the commerce sector. The skies were a little overcast, but rain did not look imminent

The path through the gardens took us through the Supertree Grove. The giant structures are essentially vertical gardens, adorned with ferns, flowering and climbing plants, orchids and bromeliads, some of which I recognised from our garden at home. We stopped to watch a gardener on a cherry picker tending to some plants metres above the ground. If time permits we’ll have another look at the Supertrees after dark tomorrow night when they’ll be lit up. A large monitor lizard by the path watched us walk by.

Our first visit was to the Flower Dome. To my relief, it was cool inside and not at all humid. Navigation was by a range of meandering paths and flights of stairs that allowed us to take a leisurely stroll through garden sectors featuring plants, large and small, from different regions of the world. The first gardens featured the native flora of Australia. The range of species on display was impressive, and I began to wonder if different teams of gardeners took responsibility for tending the plants from specific regions. For example, I thought surely someone from Down Under was advising on or taking care of the Australian plants. They really were magnificent specimens. The scent from some of the plants was often so strong, it seemed to clear the nostrils. I could have spent all day in there enjoying those amazing gardens.

We passed a seated lady patiently pruning a flowering plant. I guess she would never be out of work in a place like that. And I’ll bet she finds a great deal of joy from the plants that she cares for. My daughter Tess is a florist, and though her workload might be heavy at times, she never tires of working with beautiful flowers.

Marg is the gardener in our household, and does a wonderful job. She loves taking me around our garden, showing me what’s budding or about to bloom, and telling me about her success stories. I love all of her plants, though I don’t often know their names or where they come from. So it was great to be able to walk through the Flower Dome region by region, and learn about familiar plants that we have at home as well as a few that I had never seen before. A lot of South African plants looked familiar, perhaps because we have a similar climate and they grow well in Australia. In the Mediterranean section I marvelled at the magnificent old olive trees. I’ve always had a soft spot for olive trees. I wonder if they could ever grow to such a size back home. Marg loves her succulents, and she was really impressed with some of the specimens in the cactus gardens. There were several school groups in the Flower Dome, and for a moment I thought of a time when I used to take kids on field trips and spend more time watching that the kids were behaving than I did listening to the guide and learning about the places we were visiting. I was interested to eavesdrop on the guide to hear her explaining how some roof panels open occasionally to allow the heat generated by the growing plants to escape.

I really enjoyed finding all the wonderful sculptures scattered throughout the gardens. Many of them were constructed from twisted and gnarled tree branches and roots. I love public artworks such as sculptures, and I think an enduring memory of my visit to Singapore will always be one of gardens and sculptures, because they exist all around you as you walk through the streets and along the river, and here in the Flower Dome they complement each other perfectly.

We were very fortunate to learn that our visit to Singapore fell right in the midst of the display of tulips from Türkiye (formerly known as Turkey), which only runs for a three week season at the Flower Dome. I’d always associated tulips with the Netherlands, where I know they were once a very valuable trade commodity, but I didn’t know about their association with the Turks. It makes sense, however, to imagine that hundred of years ago traders on the Silk Road must have purchased bulbs and carried them westward to Amsterdam. I loved the many colours and variations of the tulip displays on show here today.

From the Flower Dome, we walked across to the other dome at the gardens, known as the Cloud Forest. Upon entry, your eyes gaze upwards to where a waterfall cascades from high up on a man-made mountainside. The upper slopes are covered in mist, replicating conditions you might encounter in an equatorial cloud forest. The vegetation is lush, with palms, ferns, mosses, flowering plants, rhododendrons, bromeliads, fuchsias, orchids and even carnivorous species densely populating the forest. A soundtrack plays birdsongs, adding to the perception of being in a real cloud forest. We took a lift to the sixth level, then ascended a staircase to a level above, placing us somewhere near the unseen source of the waterfall. From there we took a descending pathway that circled around and around the mountain, allowing us to look closely at the changes in the plant life to be found as we approached the forest floor. We saw quite a number of the plants we have at home, and it was wonderful to see them in surroundings similar to their natural environment. By the time we left the second dome we had spent over three hours enjoying the two most popular features of the Gardens by the Bay and loved every minute.

After finding the humidity of the city oppressive the previous evening, I had really appreciated the time we spent in the cool climate of the domes. I was expecting to walk straight back into the heat and humidity when we left, but was quite taken aback when a mighty crack of thunder greeted us as we stepped outside. Light rain fell, but we didn’t have to shelter long before it ceased and we were able to walk across to the shopping precinct at Marina Bay Sands and find a place for a late lunch. It rained again on our walk home after lunch. We took shelter again until the rain stopped. Surprisingly, despite the rain, the humidity didn’t seem as oppressive as I had found it the previous day. Maybe I’m getting used to it.