Garden Mania in Singapore

The Supertree Grove in Gardens by the Bay and you can walk the walkway

Just a few more posts on Singapore before we catch up on Hong Kong and China...

The Lion City is very lush and green, even more so with a relatively new additional garden -- Gardens by the Bay near Marina Bay Sands.

Gorgeous orchids in the Cloud Forest garden

It's a massive 101 hectares (250 acres) that offers a respite from the humidity and heat with an amazing array of flowers, plants, trees and sculptures. There are various sections and a lot of ground to cover.

While most of the park is free, there are areas where you need to get tickets and it's definitely worth it.

We first ventured to the Supertree Grove, and my first reaction on seeing these tall verdant columns was feeling like we were in Pandora, the setting for the movie Avatar.

A levitating baby, a sculpture by Marc Quinn called "Planet"

Visitors can buy tickets to go up to the vertical garden columns via an elevator and walk along the elevated walkway to get a panoramic view of the city, and in the evening the Supertree Grove lights up with a colourful display.

One garden had a massive sculpture of a baby -- floating. UK sculptor Marc Quinn's Planet features a baby boy -- his son -- who seems to be levitating, if it weren't for its right hand on the ground. It was quite bizarre, but the sculpture is made of heavy metal, making it seem like more of an engineering feat than an artistic statement.

Wonder what his son thinks of himself immortalized in a park in Singapore!

Plants found in semi-arid conditions are in the Flower Dome

The themed gardens like Chinese and Indian were stereotypical, and seemed like token gestures that weren't impressive in their execution.

Nevertheless, we were completely wowed by the Flower Dome, one of the conservatories we had tickets for.

It's a massive dome covering an area of 1.2 hectares, or 3 acres, and it's the perfect place to spend the afternoon because of the cool temperatures in there. Inside is a massive collection of all kinds of plants, trees and flowers found in semi-arid tropical regions, like Australia, South America and South Africa.

There were so many kinds of succulents and cacti, and there were even very old olive trees, and aloe vera plants.

Beautiful tulips in bloom in the seasonal floral display

As you wind your way down, there's roses, more olive trees, and shrubs. But interestingly there were no bees or insects that we could see. At the bottom is a seasonal floral display and when we were there, it was tulips. There were all different kinds and colours, some seemed wilted, others had yet to bloom.

When we asked about this, we were told the flowers were replaced almost on a daily basis. Imagine how much money was spent to do this. My Singaporean friend told me before tulips it was sakura, or cherry blossoms. Did they import the trees over? And did they survive? What did they do with them after they finished blooming?

The 35-metre high waterfall at Cloud Forest

Then we headed next door to Cloud Forest, which is more vertical. Right at the entrance you're greeted by a massive waterfall that has a 35-metre drop, immediately creating a naturally cool (and wet) start to the visit here. People can slowly wind their way up and just marvel at how cool (temperature and hip factor) it is.

We took the elevator to the top and walked along an elevated walkway before going down again, and marveled again at the waterfall and soaked in the lushness and cool temperatures.

There were a few exhibits of stalactites and stalagmites that seemed incongruous with these gardens, and there were also videos about what the world would look like if the earth was five or six degrees hotter (flooding, drought, water refugees).

One small exhibit showed flowers and pitcher plants that catch insects made from Lego -- while it was cute, nut why not see the real living thing? It was quite amusing to see these colourful bricks integrated with real plants, but seemed out of place.

Nevertheless we still enjoyed these gardens and have already recommended others check them out too. If anything they're a wonderful place to beat the heat and take in some nature too.

More beautiful floral and verdant displays at Cloud Forest

Gardens by the Bay

18 Marina Gardens Drive

Singapore 018953

www.gardensbythebay.com.sg

Roses bring Overwhelming Response

Tamar Park is covered in white roses -- 25,000 of them -- until February 22

Yesterday was the start of Light Rose Garden, a public art installation at Tamar Park. It features 25,000 white roses (not real) that are lit up with LED lights and will be showing there every night from 6pm until February 22.

The white roses are lit with LED lights

Thinking today many couples would be busy indulging in their Valentine's Day dinner, I thought I'd take a look after my workout at the gym in Central.

However I was so wrong -- everyone else had the same idea as me and there was a massive crowd converging on the escalator at United Centre to get up to the overpass to Tamar Park.

There were so many people that the escalator going up was shut down, forcing people to walk up. But that was not the end of it -- we had to bypass Tamar Park and walk all the way to Citic Tower, down three flights of stairs to get to the ground floor, walk across the street to the Legislative Council and then encounter another backlog of people before entering the park.

It's pretty neat to see them if you squeeze past the crowds

While it was neat to see so many people "occupy" the area since the Umbrella Movement, the detour to get back to Tamar Park was insane, but I could see why. There must have been tens of thousands of people there and the maze we had to go through was an attempt at crowd control.

When I finally managed to get close to the edge where the roses were, people whipped out their smartphones above my head to get pictures.

Seeing so many people there of all ages, it made me wonder why they were so drawn to something like this, and not say, the other public art show going on now, Antony Gormley's Event Horizon, where his 31 life size bronze statues are placed on the roofs of public buildings in the city, save for one on Queen's Road Central at D'Aguilar Street.

There were tens of thousands of people there tonight

While Gormley's statues encourage viewers to examine the relationship between man and buildings, man and cities, as well as looking at new perspective, what is Light Rose Garden about?

Are Hong Kong people unable or unwilling to be reflective and understand how art enhances our lives? Or are they only interested in straight-forward ideas that are easy to grasp?

I really wondered about this while I was at Tamar Park, the hordes of people jostling around trying to take photographs.

While I thought the installation was pretty, the crowds were overwhelming, making it difficult to appreciate the beauty and expansiveness of it.

The view of nearby Central was a neat sight to behold

Or am I looking way too deeply into this Light Rose Garden, and it's like the massive Rubber Duck @ Harbour City by Florentijn Hofman, where we should just enjoy it for what it is?