Team retreat this afternoon. So we went to the Singapore Garden Festival. It was the last day but there were still quite a bit of people walking around. There were a lot of plants and flowers outside as well as inside the exhibition hall. We could smell the strong flowery scent as we came up the escalator. It was pretty but at the same time it felt a bit strange to me to see all the plants indoors, in air-conditioned rooms and carpeting. Everything feels somewhat artificial somehow.
For most of us, it was the first time we came to the garden festival. So one of colleagues liaised with the organizers and got us a free tour. Our tour guide was a friendly Malay woman. We start on the level 6 where all the competition displays were. There were 3 categories: fantasy garden, landscape garden and floral display. Each designer was randomly paired with a local supplier so that’s why a lot of the plants used were tropical plants.
The tour guide explained that each category has a best of show, then followed by gold, silver and bronze. Someone commented that there weren’t a lot of entries so it seemed almost everyone had a chance to win a prize. The tour guide said that some of the displays will be moved to Hort Park after the exhibition is over. I thought it was a pretty cool idea but I didn’t get to find out which were the lucky displays.
The floral displays were along the sides of the hall. Some were quite elaborate while others were simple and sparse. I’m sure that the designers spent a lot of time setting up the details. The tour guide informed us that some designers took the trouble to ship unique plants to Singapore to be used in the display.
This silvery display won a silver prize. The tour guide told us that the silver containers were actually wheelbarrows which were spray painted by the designer. It was supposed to be a tribute to the gardeners. A few of us looked at the display and wonder why it won a prize since it looked pretty ordinary to us.
I liked this display best among all the floral displays. It’s simple but there’s a sense of fluidity and movement. It didn’t win any prize so I guess I don’t know how to tell a good floral display from a bad one.
These were the red flowers that were in metal tubes in display in the previous photo.
This was another simple floral display which I liked. I don’t remember if it won a prize, but knowing my taste, it probably didn’t.
Yet another floral display. The interesting wall was covered in lotus leaves. Hmm, makes me think of yummy lotus rice.
This is one of the landscape gardens. It reminds me of Genting Highlands.
Sometimes it’s easy to tell which country the designers came from. I’m sure that everybody could guess that the designer for the above display came from India. The tour guide told us that the display was meant to recreate the feeling of ruins so the designer knocked off the noses of the elephants sculpture (right of photo). I wished the designer hadn’t done it as the elephants looked strange without their noses. Now they looked more like boars than elephants. I guess this is a case of a good idea in theory but not so good when put into action?
It is easy to tell which country the designer for this display came from. The tour guide told us that much effort was made in getting the craftsman to build this display like the real thing.
This is my favorite of all in the garden festival. The window frames surrounding the garden were actually made of living pear trees. The tree branches were shaped as they grew so it could take a long time, likes years, before the tree reached the desired shape. This method was called arborsculpture. The tour guide told us that a tree cost around US$10,000 and there were over 10 of them surrounding the garden. Originally there were pears growing on the trees but they were knocked off during transportation. So pears were bought from the supermarket and tied to the branches.
After we finished touring level 6, we bade goodbye to the tour guide and went down to level 4. Level 4 housed the orchid displays and gardening shops. Level 6 was pretty dim while level 4 was very bright. We were all pretty tired by then as the tour took around 2 hours. So we just quickly walk around a bit and then left.
If I wasn’t so exhausted, I would have liked to walked around more and see all the different types of orchids.
Now I know why we were all given a well done stamp on our arm when we left. It’s really tiring to walk continuously for a couple of hours without resting.
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