Gardening with Wilson

Today, I had the honour to be able to host a guest who came to Singapore all the way from the Philippines. My guest was Mrs Maria Victoria C. Jimenez who is the owner of the Green Planet Flower Garden. She is also a former president of the Floriculture Industry of Davao and Orchid Society of Davao. Mrs Jimenez had been the Chairman of the Araw ng Davao and Kadayawan Festival before. She has been a judge in the numerous flower and landscaping design competitions held in the Philippines.

I met her for the first time at Paragon this morning and her first stop was my community garden where she got to see the Zingiberales and Kitchen Gardens at Serangoon North. At Serangoon North, she took some photographs of the plants that I have and also got to met up with two other members from the Green Culture Singapore discussion forum, namely Lily and Chong Ren. At lunch time, Mrs Jimenez met up with another member, Xuan Hong, who joined us shortly at the place where we had a satisfying meal.

Mrs Jimenez posing for a photograph with Chong Ren (left) and myself (right) at the entrance of my community garden.

After lunch, we proceeded to World Farm, also known as Hua Hng, located at Bah Soon Pah, which is a wholesale and retail nursery that has been cited countless times on the GCS discussion forum as a must-go place for plants in Singapore. At first, I was kind of worried that there may not be any thing that Mrs Jimenez would be interested in, since to me, many of the plants available there are more inclined towards the local retail and landscape type. I have always thought that the grass is always greener over the other side. But I am glad that she managed to buy some plants from the nursery. I guess what we take for granted and regarded as too common a plant may not be always be true and applicable to another country.

After the plant shopping had been completed at World Farm, we moved on to HortPark, the gardening hub managed by the National Parks Board (NParks) that is located at Hyderabad Road. Today’s trip took place about three months after I last visited HortPark and I observed that the plants there have grown quite alot and the landscape is now nicer and more natural. Mrs Jimenez told me that she is quite impressed with the landscaping concepts presented at HortPark and many of them served as valuable sources of inspiration for her landscaping work at the Philippines.

The entire day’s trip was long and indeed tiring one for all of us. But it was one that is memorable and enjoyable. Friendships are forged and exchange of knowledge and experiences took place. We will all be meeting Mrs Jimenez again in the coming week as she will be paying a visit to the Singapore Garden Festival at Suntec City, which will commence this coming Friday.

Mrs Jimenez posing for another photograph with Lily (left) and Chong Ren (right), together with a colony of very nice Bauhinia species at HortPark.