Gardening with Wilson

Remember the news published on the Tropiflora website? If you haven’t, do refer to the link below:

 http://tropicalgardener.wordpress.com/2007/10/31/singapore-will-buy-over-everything-in-tropiflora/

The news that Singapore bought a bulk of bromeliads numbering 50500 plants from Tropiflora for the megaproject, Gardens by the Bay, had been made public two days back on the headlines in our main local English newspaper.

In the article, bromeliads have been described as “resilient plants, often visually striking due to the patterned foliage and colourful blooms of some species.”

“The plant was chosen, he [Anton van Der Schans, Assistant Director (Gardens by the Bay, Horticulture, NParks)) said, because it was relatively low-mintenance and also provided a wide range of attractive textures, foliage and flowers.”

That two lines basically sums up the reasons of having chosen bromeliads but I think, later on, the public will ask as they know more and needs to be assured that some effective measures are taken to control the possibility of mosquito breeding in the water-filled tanks in these plants.

Singapore has actually bought over an earlier bromeliad collection from yet another nursery in Pacifica, California - Shelldance Nursery - in 1994 (view their website at http://www.shelldance.com/ ). The total number of plants bought at that time was 30000 plants and are housed in the Lady Yuen-Peng McNeice Bromeliad House in the National Orchid Gardens.

For those of us who has gone to view the bromeliads there, we would have wondered where did all that large number of plants gone to? Are they stolen, mistreated and died or hidden elsewhere? Here’s an interesting article that was written by Derek Butcher on the FCBS:

http://fcbs.org/articles/Singapore.htm

Whatever the case, I hope by now Singapore is ready and has hired the right expertise to take care of the new collection of bromeliads on the long term. Two million dollars is a lot of money and the effort to collect and grow those bromeliads by Tropiflora is not easy feat. We don’t want to see it just go down the drain after a few years of the opening of the Gardens by the Bay.