In late 2005, I collected seeds of the plant known rather sinisterly as the “Midnight Horror”.

Midnight Horror Seeds

This plant was growing just outside the town of Kuala Pilah in Malaysia. Back home in Singapore, the seeds have finally germinated and now there is a sapling Midnight Horror growing in the garden outside my office.

Can’t wait to see how it will grow into the tree that Paul Theroux described in his book, The Consul’s File as “a tall simple pole like an enormous coat-rack, with big leaves that looked like branches - but there were very few of them. It was covered with knobs, stark black things; and around the base of the trunk there were always fragments of leaves that looked like shattered bones, but not human bones”.

Midnight Horror Plant

For now, I don’t think the Midnight Horror plant will look anything as menacing as its name until it grows up.

- by Wong Wei Har

When I was growing up in the kampong, my mother’s favourite flower was the moss rose or Portulaca Grandiflora, which she called “Kow Teem Fa” in Cantonese (九点花) or ‘9 o’clock flower’. She said that the flowers would start to bloom at 9 in the morning. I have never checked out the accuracy of this statement.

The moss rose is a very easy flower to grow. It can be propagated by 2 ways. Firstly, by seed that can be collected from plants that are already growing. It can also be grown very easily by taking cuttings. To do this, cut off a small stalk that is not flowering or about to flower and place it in the ground. They will grow and multiply very quickly (see photo below).

The moss rose, sometimes called rose moss, can be planted in pots. In fact, you can buy them from the nursery in pots. But I think it is best to have a patch or cluster of significant size to give a carpet effect. A big patch of brightly coloured moss rose is really a lovely sight to behold.

We used to have a huge patch of the red variety growing in the front yard of our kampong house near the main road. Passers-by always stop to admire our flowers and even plucked them at times.

Red and pink are the most common colours found in Singapore. But I have also seen white and yellow ones in the nurseries. They usually bloom in the morning and close in the afternoon. They need plenty of sunlight to flourish.

Today, in my garden, we have a pot of this lovely flower. After nearly half a century, I finally decided to check the accuracy of my mother’s statement and took a couple of photos for you to enjoy.

This photo was taken at 9.00am

This photo was taken at 10.00am. Hey! Maybe we should rename it to 10 o’clock flower eh?

- by Lam Chun See

Can you spot the distinctive link between the 2 pictures below?

Maranthas corymbosa (Merbatu)

Do you notice how the 4 Merbatu trees in the 2nd picture have been planted close together? Very close! Less than 2 metres, I believe. If I had planted trees like that when I had first joined NParks, I would have gotten a good scolding!

You may wonder - Are the trees suffering? Stunted? Unstable? No, of course not; because they like it like that - exactly how it is like in a forest. Their roots are probably entwined, giving both trees extra stability. Their trunks and crowns affort tremendous buffering to each other from wind, and despite the horrible soil in the narrow verge, they are thriving. The person who planted them knew exactly what he/she was doing, and knew about plants which really needed one another in close proximity, in order to grow and flourish.

Now, back to the gardener in the 1st picture (at the top). She has also grown all her plants very close together. She is able to imitate nature well, just like the person who planted the 4 Merbatu trees. They have both realized that gardens are not just rows and rows of equally-spaced plants of the same species, like in an oil palm estate.

And yet, amazingly, that is what we have been doing in building the Garden City in Singapore for the last 35 years! Rows upon rows of equally-spaced plants of the same species like in an oil palm estate!

The Community in Bloom programme of NParks is heralding a change. The Streetscape Greenery Master Plan is a blueprint for implementing this change with a greater variety, diversity of mixed species, clustering and layering in our landscapes. The greater challenge now is for the people who know about plants to come forward and plant them in the way that the plants like to be planted!

- by Simon Longman

“What plant is that?!” - That is the question you would hear every now and then when you walk around the Singapore Botanic Gardens. That all too familiar exclamation rang forth again this morning. As usual, the exclamation was followed by either necks straining or fingers pointing at something and eyes squinting. My immediate reaction was to find and look at the cause of this remark. This time the necks were straining and fingers were pointing upwards. What was to invade my vision were bunches and bunches of velvet reddish-orange fruits hanging from the branches of a tall tree growing in Lawn K (opposite the ‘Lady on the Hammock’ sculpture).

The spectacular cluster of reddish fruits drew many “Wows” from the visitors and including myself. Now, you must be wondering what is this plant that I am telling you about. Look below…here is the beauty that stopped traffic and was greeted by clicking of cameras.

Sterculia macrophylla

Sterculia macrophylla - laden with fruits

This is Sterculia macrophylla (Family : Sterculiaceae) or commonly known as Broad-leaf Sterculia or Kelumpang. The genus name Sterculia is derived from the Latin word “stercus“, which means ‘dung’ - yes, DUNG! The cause of this unflattering name has been attributed to the foul-smelling flowers of a few species in this genus. The species name “macrophylla“, literally means “long/large leaf” in Greek.

This particular Sterculia species is distributed from Southern Thailand to Malaysia and Indonesia. It can grow up to 40m tall and can have large buttress roots up to 3m high. It has simple, entire, broad leaves with long leaf stalks. Its flowers are tiny, greenish-yellow, in hanging racemes of about 30cm long. Its fruit pods are large and found in clusters of 3 to 5, ripening velvety red as seen by this heavily laden tree. The fruits can take about 4 months to ripen and splits open to reveal 1 to 2 2cm long purple-black oblong seeds.

This tree has also been used as timber. Its wood is suitable to make planks for construction purposes as well, while the seeds have been recorded to be edible and used in traditional medicine.

Sterculia macrophylla - clusters of fruits

So, guys and gals, why not take a look at the spectacular show of clustering reds while it is still hanging out on its branches?

- by Nura Abdul Karim

As I was jogging at 5.30am last Saturday morning, my neighbour’s cheerful “Good morning!” reminded me of an earlier conversation with another neighbour about plants, as well as what my colleague had taught me recently.

I was curious why the Giant Squill (Drimiopsis kirkii) was placed under the Hyacinth family in the “1001 Garden Plants in Singapore” book but under the Lily family when I checked the plant out on the Internet. My colleague explained that based on different systems of plant classification, the Hyacinth and Lily families are either kept as separate families, or lumped together under a very broad Lily family in which the Hyacinth family, among others, would fall.

Giant Squill (Drimiopsis kirkii)

When I remarked that the little plant which I bought from a nursery could be so intriguing, my colleague asked whether my interest in gardening was a sign of ageing.

Actually, since a long time back, I have always kept a few plants in the apartments that I had lived in. They were largely staples like various types of Dracaena, palms and Ficus which I could grow in pots indoors or on the balcony. With a little more opportunity to grow things outdoors now, I enjoy making occasional visits to nurseries and it was on one of these occasions that I chanced upon the Drimiopsis and bought it.

In a way, my colleague was right. Even though I started many years ago, gardening just seems more pleasureable now. See…it’s never too early to start; and it just gets better with age.

- by Lawrence Leong

Me, with the crew’s Assistant Producer, Kathy

On February 6, 2007, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was in Singapore to take footage of 2 community gardens to feature in their two-year production entitled, “Around the World in 80 Gardens”. Singapore’s Garden City story and National Parks Board (NParks) Community in Bloom efforts were covered in this programme. Community gardens in Mayfair Park and Serangoon North were picked for filming for the second segment to represent the 2 different facets of community gardening in Singapore.

The crew and host, Monty (in blue) preparing for the filming

Mayfair Park was picked to showcase an example of an award-winning private housing estate community garden where residents came together to landscape the grass verges just outside their doorsteps to create a unique and welcoming environment for any visitor to their estate.

The community garden at Serangoon North represents a typical garden in a public residential estate where useful herbs and organic vegetables are grown. Unlike many other community gardens, this garden is not fenced for protection against pilferage or to demarcate its boundaries and residents are welcomed to pick the medicinal and culinary herbs grown there. Vegetables are harvested and shared among gardeners and the residents.

Various scenes during the filming

As the initiator of this community garden, I am proud that it had been chosen by NParks to represent the public community gardens in Singapore. I felt as if I was performing additional “National Service” for the country. To quote my friends and residents, this interview by the BBC could potentially be my one and only that I will have in this life. I was also glad to be able to share with an audience about the success of promoting gardening amongst Singaporeans via the Green Culture Singapore (GCS) website and discussion forum.

Me, with Monty Don

This community garden was a dream that became reality within a month after my request was put up, thanks to the support from the NParks’ Community in Bloom programme and Aljunied Town Council. A parcel of land in the neighbourhood park was transformed into community garden. As an apartment gardener, I have never dreamt that I would have land near home to grow my herbs and vegetables.

Many thanks to my friends and supporters who came

The community garden’s Official Opening was scheduled during the Clean and Green Week last year. Mrs Lim Hwee Hua, Member of Parliament for Serangoon North constituency, planted a Tecoma stans tree in the center of the European-styled medicinal herb garden located near the garden entrance. I am proud to announce that I was the one who chose the tree! The community garden was named “Our PRIDE in Bloom”, where PRIDE stands for “Promoting Resdents In Direct Engagement”. It was an acronym conjured by my Residents’ Committee (RC) Chairman, in hope that the garden can be another venue to residents to meet and interact.

Posing for a picture with the BBC crew

The host of the BBC programme was Monty Don, a renowned gardening personality from the United Kingdom whom I have also seen in the BBC Gardening magazine. Filming started around 2pm under the sweltering heat and glaring afternoon sun. As I was not given a list of questions prior the interview, I felt rather lost and anxious as to what would be asked. I am grateful to my friends and supporters from GCS who took time off from school and work to be at the community garden with me during the filming. Their presence gave me the confidence to speak in front of the camera.

We will all have to wait awhile before this interview will be shown on our local Cable TV.

- by Wilson Wong

When we mentioned the term ‘orchid’, many of us would conjure a stereotypical image of a flower looking like ‘Vanda Miss Joaquim’ or ‘Arachnis Maggie Oei’ or Phalaenopsis, the ‘Moth Orchid’ or an Antelope Dendrobium. In the wild, however, most of the orchids are not inclined towards these horticultural molds and many of us may be surprised with a plant looking nothing like the usual breeds being one.

The world of orchid is a world of superlatives. Besides being the largest family of the flowering plants consisting of more than 25,000 species, the sizes of Orchid plants range from leafless orchids with just roots (Taeniophyllum spp), to that which are only a couple of centimeters high (Microtatorchis spp) to a Tiger orchid clump (Grammatophyllum speciosum) that could weigh more than a ton.

Taeniophyllum obtusum Bulbophyllum medusae

Some orchids are terrestrial (growing on ground), some climbers, some saprophytic (obtain nutrition entirely from leaf litter), some lithophytic (growing on rocks) while many are epiphytic (perched on tree branches). The color of the flowers also come in almost the entire color spectrum from white to almost black and the forms vary greatly as well.

Some orchids are terrestrial (growing on ground), some climbers, some saprophytic (obtain nutrition entirely from leaf litter), some lithophytic (growing on rocks) while many are epiphytic (perched on tree branches). The color of the flowers also come in almost the entire color spectrum from white to almost black and the forms vary greatly as well. So then, what makes an orchid an orchid?

There are of course enthusiasts who could recognize many sterile orchids (not in flower) from a distance, but generally, botanists rely on the flower structure to classify plants. So, an orchid flower, which may be single or borne in a cluster would have the following characters:

• The male and female parts are housed in a structure called a column, the female part (anther) at the tip and the female part (stigma) lower down separated by a rostellum that prevents self-pollination;
• Having 3 sepals, 2 of them identical or sometimes fused into a 1, known as the lateral sepals and the third which is different in shape, known as the median sepal;
• Having 2 identical petals as well as a modified petal known as the lip within the sepals, making an orchid flower irregular (bilaterally symmetrical and not radially symmetrical).

Bulbophyllum makoyanum Flickingeria frimbriata

So, the next time you look at an orchid flower, try to spot these defining charaters (see illustration below).

Bulbophyllum lobbii

- by Paul Leong