The urban jungle: UNESCO Botanic Gardens of Singapore

Lucky me that I’ve discovered Singapore isn’t just about buildings and modern landscapes. Here, there is hidden the most beautiful and most important Botanic Gardens in the World.

Marina Bay, Gardens by the Bay, Sentosa, Universal Studios Singapore, cable car, museums and modern art…ok, stop! And looked carefully the map! I saw there UNESCO Botanic Gardens. Some pure nature here? That’s great!

The metro let me in front of the entrance into Botanic Gardens. I was surprised to see the entrance is free. So I came in and I started to walk the paths. I felt like I was far-far away from the city, not in the middle of it.

Some details:

The Singapore Botanic Garden has 74 hectares
It was established in 1859 by the Agri-Horticultural Society
It has some different attractions:
- Rainforest – a dense and humid forest where I found a huge lizard
- Ginger Garden – a tropical flora with more than 3.000 species of ginger plants
- Healing Garden – is presenting 400 species of medical plants that were/are traditionally used in SE Asia
- Fragrant Garden – each visitor have an aromatic experience here It’s better to come in the evening when the bees leave and the fragrance is more intense
- Foliage Garden – it’s an incredible part of themed gardens. It has ornamental terrestrial and aquatic plants from the more diverse ones!
- Evolution Garden – is presenting the evolution of the plants. From the dinosaurs times until today!
- National Orchid Garden – presents over 1.000 species and 2.000 hybrids and it is the largest Orchid Garden in the world. It is divided in:
  - Burkill Hall – hosts VIP events. The house is built in colonial plantation style in 1868.
  - VIP Orchid Garden – here you’ll find hybrids named after political personalities that visited Botanic Gardens.
  - Celebrity Orchid Garden – hybrids are named after celebrities to commemorate their visit
  - Tan Hoon Siang Mist House – displays the new orchid cultivars
  - Yuen-Peng McNeice Bromeliad Collection – has 300 species and 500 hybrids of unusual plants from Central and South America
  - Cool House – is a space that imitates a montane tropical forest
  - National Orchid Garden is the main attraction. If you want to visit it, you pay an entrance of 5 SGD.
- Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden – is Asia’s first children’s garden, specially designed for them to have fun.
- Palm Valley
- Sun Garden
- National Biodiversity Centre – today here’s a regional center for plant science, internationally recognized.
- and three lakes named Symphony Lake, Eco-Lake and Swan Lake.
UNESCO listed Singapore Botanic Gardens as a World Heritage Site in 2015, being the first tropical garden included in the list.
The Botanic Gardens are the only UNESCO Site in Singapore.
it has more than 4 millions of visitors per year, meaning that is the most-visited botanic garden in the world.
It has under development the Learning Forest, a part dedicated to botanical studies

A mid-day walk

Singapore Botanic Garden is so much bigger than I taught. I was supposed to see it in three hours, but I did not manage to see it all not even in half a day. I enjoyed the Eco-Lake, I saw herbs & spices garden, I passed through Foliage Garden, I admired some tall bamboos trees, I smelled the Fragrant Garden.

Then, I entered the Rain Forest. There is a trail, made of wood, that you might not abandon because in that forest are protected species of plants and animals. I was lucky! I found, just near the path, a huge lizard that was digging in the soil for earthworms and other insects. Everyone stopped there! Ones were scared, others were admiring it. The truth is I’ve never seen such a beauty!

I made lots of photos in Palm Valley, with the Symphony Lake behind! A good place to stop and rest a little, before entering in theNational Orchid Garden.

National Orchid Garden

Until the National Orchid Garden, there was a nice long road, because I crossed almost all the Gardens. Inside is a little paradise! The orchids are arranged by colors and you feel like you are experiencing different landscapes to each 15 meters. Arches, cages, fountains and orchid decorations…I didn’t know where to look first and which flower to photograph. There, it’s an entire color explosion.

I loved Tan Hoon Siang Mist House with all that kind of strange orchids. I spent some time in the Burkill Hall for the exhibit with orchids named after personalities that came there, then I admired the living plants in the gardens behind: VIP Garden and Celebrity Orchid Garden.

The Cool House was a breath of fresh air in a day with +30 degrees and high humidity. There, I could see some carnivorous plants, too.

You can find more details about this wonderful garden here.