Have you ever met the Queen of England? She planted a chestnut tree in the Community In Bloom garden on 17th March 2006 in the neighbourhood of Toa Payoh Lorong 7. It seems that most people in Singapore were a bit like the little girl in the picture - rather bemused by all the attention that this elderly lady in the funny hat was getting.

What a mature chestnut tree will look like

She certainly deserved the attention, I can tell you. She is over eighty years old, but wielded the spade like the keen gardener she is. It was a blazing hot afternoon, and whereas all the overdressed men in full suits were clammy and dripping, she looked as fresh and cool as the St Patrick’s Day dress that she was wearing.

I could almost hear her saying, “Who on earth is this sweaty Brit”?

But no, she was as calm and collected as ever.

“Hydrangeas, aren’t they?” she cooed…

“Yes, your Majesty!” I blurted out.

Simon…a “monarchist”!!! I can almost hear you all exclaim incredulously! Surely not the same Simon who fled the biting wind of Edinburgh in the freezing fog of September 1978, as 1 of over 4 million people unemployed? Who vowed never to look for jobs in the UK ever again, after applying unsuccessfully for jobs with 600-700 other applicants! Who built a life and family in Sarawak and Singapore, and by now is surely no more “ang moh“?

Alamak! She is still the Queen lah. Must show a little bit of face, hor? Not like the little girl in the picture!

- by Simon Longman

You may find it common to see couples taking wedding photos at Fort Canning Park, Telok Blangah Hill Park or one of the many parks in Singapore. The sceneries at these parks are great but many couples have ‘been there and done that’. Where else can one go to take wedding photos with nice and unique landscapes? Well, apparently, one couple found the perfect place - the Singapore Garden Festival.

On Wednesday, 20th Dec, Mr Lim Soon Lee and Ms Wong Hwei Lin came to the Singapore Garden Festival in their wedding gowns for their photo shoots. They had their photos taken in the courtyard of an English cottage, a Filipino Village decorated for Christmas, a Thai courtyard and an American home.

The couple posing at the English cottage

Singapore Garden Festival is on at Suntec City Convention Centre from the 16th to 25th December 2006. Do come down and see for yourselves the displays by world renowned floral and landscape designers. You will be able to vote for your favourite display and stand a chance to win a Hyundai Avante. I would think winning a car would make for a very memorable wedding present!

- by Pong Junxiang

When we think of plants associated with Christmas, the first images that spring up will be that of the typical Christmas pine trees, decorated to the finest details. Some might think of the potted Poinsettias (Euphorbia pulcherrima and hybrids) and Christmas Cacti (Schlumbergera hybrids) that are equally symbolic to this festive occasion.

Now, I’m just wondering…can one steer away from the norm? Perhaps not! Not that there’s anything wrong with the tradition. Still, we can always use other common plants that thrive in our local climate and are widely available from the nurseries.

So, why not create a Christmas Dish Garden (or bascially a container garden) filled with live plants, furnished with Christmas decorations this year instead? You could still create the festive mood when you use plants associated with the typical Christmas colours of red and green.

Try the following steps if you want to create your own indoor container garden to be placed on a mantelpiece or as a table centerpiece.

Steps to creating your own Christmas Dish Garden

1. Select a suitable container for your dish garden. Ensure there is a drainage hole. Otherwise you need to use porous soil with a layer of drainage materials consisting of pebbles, broken bricks, expanded clay and/or charcoal chips to trap any excess water.

2. Any shallow container can be used for this purpose. It should enhance the aesthetics of your display and not draw too much attention. Added decoration can also assist in the final display.

3. Select appropriate plants to fit the container. It is best to choose plants with similar needs with respect to light and water requirements. Consider only using shade-loving plants if you intend to display your dish garden indoors with little natural light about 2-3m away from the nearest window. Also, try not to select fast-growing plants that may need replacement when they outgrow the arrangement. Equally important is to choose plants showing Christmas colours based on their leaves or flowers.

4. Prepare the right potting mix for your dish garden. Generally, a loamy mix made of equal parts of peatmoss, washed coarse sand, vermiculite and burnt earth suffices. Using those ready-made compost mixes from nurseries can also do the job.

5. If the container has a drainage hole, cover it with nylon net to prevent loss of potting mix. Fill the container with the potting mix, preferably in moist condition, to almost the brim. Lightly firm the soil mixture before planting.

6. Plan your planting arrangement by drawing a rough plan or arranging them next to the container. Decide also where you wish to place any other decorative materials within the display in this plan. If your arrangement is to be viewed only from one angle (eg. from the front), then consider placing taller plants at the back.

7. Start planting from the back of the container. Remove any dead leaves and trim the plant to the right size. You may also need to trim the roots it they are too excessive to allow new growth. Ensure that the soil reaches the level where the plant was originally used to, so that the repotted plant can adapt better.

8. Once planting is completed, water the plants lightly. Ensure there is a collecting tray beneath the container to collect any excess water. Mist the plants if necessary, but do avoid the flowers or buds. Do not mist if you have sensitive plants like African Violets or certain Begonias.

9. Decorate your dish garden with Christmas figurines as a final touch. You can also place these decorations before watering the plants. If you use candles, ensure these are the non-drip types and that the flames are not big enough to harm the neighbouring plants. Otherwise, just leave the candles unlit for extra beauty.

Well, I personally do not celebrate Christmas. But surely we can add more life to the Christmas spirit with an arrangement of live plants on our dinner table?

What do you think?

P/S - You can catch me demonstrating how to make your own Christmas Dish Garden live at the Singapore Garden Festival on 25 Dec, 3pm.

- by Hassan Ibrahim

Have you been to the Singapore Garden Festival yet? That is where gardens of all shapes and sizes, fantasies and disciplines all come together in one big bang! In this case, in one big fish.

My father-in-law likes fishing. He was as renowned hunter in his time; the scourge of all the wild boar, kijang and pelanduk in the Siburan district of Sarawak. Hordes of “on-lookers” used to follow him into the forest, trying to catch a piece of the action.

But it was fishing he loved, and his durian orchard.

He will be 80 years old next year; his identity card just says “1927″ and no one can remember his birth date. He has had a hard life supporting his 7 children and 35 grandchildren/great grandchildren. I would like him to have the “Garden in the fish” as a present…but there are several slight obstacles to overcome first:

1. I have made a silent auction bid for the fish. There are others much richer than me who made bids too.
2. Cabin-baggage limitations on flights to Sarawak are 7kg. The fish is probably more than 30kg. Fish do not generally travel well in the hold of the plane.
3. The customs authorities are particularly vigilant about detecting travelers carrying soil. Even the overseas exhibitors at the Singapore Garden Festival had to have all their soil scrutinized.

However, all is not lost! Those of you who know me well, know that I have hand-carried a grandfather’s clock on a plane from Edinburgh to Singapore via Prague. What is a mere fish to me?

Wanna’ know the ending of this story - watch this space…and be at the Singapore Garden Festival on Christmas Eve, when the “Garden in the fish” will finally find its owner and a new home!

- by Simon Longman

The torrential rainstorms over the earlier part of this week wrecked much havoc for many Singaporeans. Trees were uprooted, nurseries along Thomson Road were flooded and many of my gardening friends who grew airplants in the outdoors were lamenting that their plants would rot if the rains were to continue.

I was worried sick about my vegetables and herbs that were planted at my open community garden. With the torrential and relentless rain, I reckoned, nothing would really survive. What’s more - there is really nothing much you can do! I was told by my community gardeners that all my fruiting vegetable plants were lying flat on the ground due to the sheer weight of their soaked foliage during this time. I was praying hard that the rains would stop…

I woke up early this morning, feeling elated, as I was greeted by the much welcomed sun rays that shone through the windows. I hope this fair weather would persist for the next couple of days although the weather man had already forecasted that wet weather is to be expected until the end of this week.

I rushed down to the community garden to take a look at my plants. The first thing I did was to check those plots that were recently ploughed to prepare for a new crop of Chinese cabbage. Sadly, many seeds that had been sown in them were washed by the rains. The soil was compacted and those seedlings that germinated did not really survive the floods.

Organic material was also washed away since they float to the surface when the plot was flooded during the rainstorm. The drainage could not cope with the huge volume of water that rained down.

Taking a closer look at the Chinese cabbage seedlings:

That was the fate of unprotected plots. Some of the plots with protective tents made from agricultural fleece and bamboo poles did not suffer as much from the rainstorm. It is perhaps time to construct more!

Take a look at the rainclouds congregating in the skies outside my window at 11am. No more rainstorms, please!

- by Wilson Wong

The Singapore Garden Festival is finally here after 2 years of organizing, involving more than 500 volunteers and over 125,000 plants were brought in to create the dazzling garden and floral masterpieces by participants ranging from more than 20 countries.

Jacky, How, Robert, Ali, Tan, Haron, Ahamad, Bari and myself are helping out on some days during this festival and we hope to see you there as well!

Here are some of the photos I took:

The completed masterpieces on 13 Dec (3 days before the official opening of the show)

My photos doesn’t do justice to the beauty of the masterpieces over there, so it’s best for you to visit them personally.

A little tip: You might want to be there early as it might take one more than 2 hours to complete exploring the whole of level 4 and 6 of Suntec Convention Hall. After the festival, you can even go shopping! Many of the shops at Suntec City and CityLink open till midnight on weekends before Christmas and many offer discounts between 8pm - 12 midnight. That explains why I reached home near midnight yesterday. Hee…

- by Adelle Wang

Does your mind feel overloaded and cluttered? All the day-to-day emotional and mental stress accumulating until a point where you lose your bearings?

Perhaps, the quickest way is to hold a garage sale where you can ‘lelong‘ away all the excess, irrelevant information.

Most people nowadays go for Yoga or Pilates - the modern solution to life’s stresses and annoyances. However, my preferred solution is considered by some to be a dull activity - gardening.

Yet to me, there is nothing more calming and satisfying than watering and tending to plants, after coming home from an honest day’s work in the concrete jungle.

Greenery just don’t look quite the same in the dusky twilight. Coupled with trilling bird songs that herald the sinking sun, all the stress from the day just melts away. Problems don’t feel quite as large anymore. I feel exultant when I notice “anaks” sprouting from one of my beloved orchids. I find myself having to hold back the urge to give the growing plants that extra bit of water, fearing that my enthusiasm might end up drowning it.

As glistening drops decorate the lush emerald foliage, the scene looks picture perfect. In that moment, I understand why garden scenes are such alluring subjects for many painters. With one last satisfying look around my garden as the golden glow fades, I let out a soft sigh of blissfulness.

- by Soh Weijing

Have you ever encountered the blood red durian? It is a durian for connoisseurs, and has:

• A skin which is almost impossible to penetrate
• Flesh which has the texture and cloying smoothness of very fine liqueur Swiss chocolate
• A taste which you will remember and treasure for the rest of your life
• A “belch-ability” quality, which sustains the fond memories for at least 24 hours
• A price tag so high that the only way to get it is to go to the forests of Sarawak……

……or plant the seed yourself, and wait 25 years for it to grow!

Which was what I did. On my wedding day 25 years ago, my wife and I each planted a Durian Hantu in the back garden of my father-in-law’s house in Kampong Siga, about 19 miles from Kuching, Sarawak. It was a sort of “amazing race” to see whose would bear fruit first.

My wife’s tree is now about 0.7m girth, straight as an arrow and shooting up into the sky with no signs of fruits for many years yet.

Mine is now about 1.2m girth, low branching, twisted and contorted, and battling for space with my father-in-law’s favourite Jering (Pithecellobium jiringa). Mine has flowers though, masses of them yellow, creamy and glorious, all over the branches.

Were there flying foxes (fruit bats - Pteropus spp.) to pollinate the flowers this year? Did the flowers set fruit, and am I going back to Sarawak at Christmas to bask in the greedy glory of a durian fest, as “amazing race” winner?

No! No! No!!!! - The wretched haze has put paid to that! No bat this year; the flowers all dropped, and my wife has a large smirk on her face at my punctured self-satisfaction. She knows that the Bidayuh people of Sarawak have a saying - “The heavier the padi plant grows with its grain, the lower it bends with the wind and rain”.

Oh well, happy Durian Hantu hunting to all!

- by Simon Longman