Singapore Garden Festival 2018 (II): A Visit

August 29, 2018

Singapore Garden Festival 2018 (II): A Visit

Written by: Olivia Cheng and Miranda Ong, Class 1E4

The Singapore Garden Festival was once again held at Gardens by the Bay this year. In order to fulfill the requirement of the Natural Journalism module that we participated in as the school's Community-in-Nature ambassadors, we went there to view the gardens and interview the visitors to seek their opinions on the festival and nature.

Morning Glory

Photo: Olivia Cheng

We got to see many different species of plant that we have never seen before including Musella and Fuschia. Coincidentally, these were the same flowers that caught my fellow journalist's eye and she also wrote about them in the post preceding this. According to Wikipedia, 'Musella is a formerly accepted plant genus in the banana and plantain family', considered by most authorities to be a taxonomic synonym of the genus Ensete' [1]. Prior to visiting Gardens by the Bay, I did not even know that these flowers actually existed. Their colours were vibrant and vivid and they captured my attention.

We had expected the gardens to be outdoors and so we were pleasantly surprised to see that most of the exhibitions were air-conditioned. This could be a pull factor for the many visitors there. We had a lot of fun exploring the gardens and observing the different types of plants.

Ixora

Photo: Olivia Cheng

We also had the chance to look at different floral artworks that were made by talented artists from the region. One thing that all the artworks had in common was that they were so creative and so we spent quite some time to admire them.

The people we interviewed were very friendly and were willing to share their opinions on nature. The responses they gave us were interesting. One of them stated that she felt that 'nature transports you to another world and provides you with hopes and dreams. Also, it gives you an environmental feeling' in response to our question on why nature is important. We guess what she meant was that nature enables one to be one with it and thus become connected to the environment.

Even though our bags were heavy, it was well worth the trip as we got to appreciate nature more. It was indeed a privilege to be there.

Here are some of the photos that we took of the flowers that attracted us. We could not identify them but you can help us by posting their names in the comments. Enjoy.