An Extraordinary Orchid Garden

Some readers may be weary of seeing gardens, but I'd like to show you one more before finishing this garden series. It's an extraordinary garden known as the Orchid Garden, and it's tucked away within the Singapore Botanic Gardens.

Many people I know have visited this place on stopovers but I'd never taken the time to do so (and very ashamed of this now, having seen how beautiful it is). I adore orchids but can't seem to grow them very well. They've gone into the 'Too Hard' Horticultural Pile (aka the compost) along with a lovely white Chanelesque camellia and a pink Barbra Streisand rose. (Like her namesake, she only appeared briefly and then retired from public life.) So visiting Singapore's Orchid Garden made me feel very inadequate. 

That is, until I saw the Singaporean gardeners with trolleys full of orchid pots 'planting' them (pot and all) into the beds and then hiding the pots with moss. Clearly, they have trouble growing some of their orchids too! Or perhaps some grow better in pots? I don't know, and was too shy to ask.

I thought I'd show you few images of this 'garden within a garden' that's hidden away in a corner of the Singapore Botanic Gardens. Singapore may be the world's new financial hub but its astonishing gardens and lush landscaping make it a destination for garden lovers too.

Some of the orchids are grown in vertical gardens, such as this. Just incredible.

But what was more incredible was that they stand there under the hot Singaporean sun, day under the day, with no shade, and seem to relish it.

There were hundreds of different kinds of orchids, including many named after prominent people. 

This white one was a favourite with the visiting schoolkids, who dubbed it 'Dad's Shaving Foam Orchid'.

The architecture of the Orchid Gardens was lovely too. Here's an example of the old black and white colonial architecture that Singapore is famous for, set back into a corner of the garden. 

A garden of frangipani trees. These weren't quite in bloom yet, but the grouping of them, into a copse, was very clever.

Singapore Botanic Gardens

1 Cluny Road, Singapore

www.sbg.org.sg

Free admission. Open 5am – midnight.