Today marked Green Culture Singapore’s (GCS) first attempt to conduct a gardening hands-on workshop. During the past two to three years, we have been working closely with NParks’ Community in Bloom and the National Library Board to dish out gardening sharing sessions which involved only talks at the public libraries all over Singapore.
Our first gardening workshop’s title was “The Art of Airplants” and the synopsis is given below:
We’ve all heard of how indoor plants can be used to complement home décor. Often plants are chosen because of the touch of nature that its green colour brings and also for its therapeutic appeal. But have you ever heard of using plants that do not root in soil as a home décor ornament?
Also known as air plants, this workshop gives you the opportunity to learn more about the uniqueness of air plants as well as the basic day-to-day caring needs. More importantly, get your hands on these plants to creatively install them as your office or home miniature setups and scapes that will soon be the envy of many. Brought to you by Green Culture Singapore and NParks.
For those participants who have attended this workshop, I am sure it was totally a different kind of experience from other talks they have attended previously. As an observer and assistant to the session, I noticed it was very much like an art class more than a gardening class. Participants were involved in squeezing out their creative juices and getting their hands busy to make the little bamboo ornament which doubles up both as an airplant holder as well as a pencil holder that can be used to decorate a dull corner at home or the office.
An example of the bamboo ornament that was to be made by participants during the workshop.
I thought, since we have touched on the growing of airplants in the past year in a talk done by Xuan Hong, why not have a workshop that will introduce to people ways to use airplants to decorate the home? Like what I have mentioned in the opening of the session, we have seen for the past 10 years after airplants have been introduced to Singapore, we have only witnessed that few ways of displaying airplants – gluing them on rocks, seashells and driftwood logs as well as tying them to branches of trees. Nothing more.
The intention of this session was hence to introduce new, creative and tasteful ways of displaying one’s airplants. As one can see from the pictures I have taken during the session, Phillipe Noor (on the GCS forum, his userID is Wild Ginger), our instructor in-charge of the session, have shown brilliant examples of how one can turn cut bamboo sections into beautiful airplant holders.
The myriad of possibilities presented by Phillipe that can be used to display airplants nicely at the home or office working environment.
Our talks have largely been rather technical and “how to” in nature and that can be difficult for some newbies to follow and also can put off others. Saturday’s session was our maiden attempt to bring in the lifestyle element to our sharing sessions and aimed to share with others the bit on how we can “enjoy” our plants and gardening. We hope more people will be drawn to take up gardening because plants, as we all know, can be used to brighten up one’s home and can be an enriching past time.
At the same time, we also wanted to bring across to all participants that plants are also living things where we also share with everyone the proper care and the right conditions that need to given to the plants so that they grow healthily and look their best.
Participants happily working away with the guidance from Phillipe to make their own decorative airplant holder.
Last but not least, I must thank Phillipe, who has worked intensively over the past one week to make this workshop possible. He has put in much dedication, effort and time that were put in where he actually went through all the trouble to source for the several meters long, thick bamboo poles, that were all sawn up into manageable sections for the session. One must also take a look at the professionally done up pamphlet he has prepared as well. All the materials required for the workshop were put into a neat, simple brown paper bag that participants can conveniently carry home their creations after the session.
