Speech by 2M Indranee Rajah at Singapore Garden Festival : Singapore Gardeners' Cup Awards Ceremony
Aug 3, 2024
A warm welcome to the ninth (9th) edition of the Singapore Garden Festival. I am very happy to be here with all of you on opening day.
From its modest beginning in 2006, the biennial Singapore Garden Festival has grown over the years and is now an internationally recognised premier tropical garden and flower show, with garden and floral displays by award-winning designers from Singapore and all around the world.
This year, we have more than 60 stunning displays put together by 25 international and 19 local designers.
Community Elements of the Festival
The Festival is an excellent showcase for our rich community gardening culture.
Our community gardens not only provide green spaces for enthusiastic gardeners, they also foster social cohesion.
Many of these gardens are located in neighbourhoods, housing estates, and even in organisation premises. Community gardening allows us to get to know our neighbours better, while building a stronger connection to nature and exercising our green fingers.
To date, we have more than 2,000 community gardening groups island-wide. These vibrant gardening communities are truly a testament to our reputation as a City in Nature.
The diversity of our community gardeners is reflected in the impressive variety of our community gardens.
We have edible gardens where produce can be grown and eaten, habitat-enhancing gardens which support local biodiversity, and ornamental gardens where expertise like orchid-growing and bonsai-cultivation are on full display.
Highlights of the Festival
The Festival displays and competitions aim to foster community partnerships in gardening and landscape design, and showcases gardening expertise.
For instance, the Singapore Gardeners’ Cup is a collaborative and friendly competition among local community gardeners, aimed at strengthening our gardening culture.
The competition features gardening groups from the five districts across Singapore partnering with landscape architects, local landscape companies and NParks staff, to develop a thematic show garden to represent their district.
With guidance from industry experts, these gardening groups have dedicated much time and effort designing these show gardens and preparing the props that accompany the displays.
The collaborative process also facilitates knowledge sharing among the gardening groups and landscape architects.
I look forward to seeing the fruits of love and labour of our community gardeners and meeting them later.
Continuing from past editions of the Festival, we have the Landscape Design Challenge for students from Institutes of Higher Learning, to nurture greater appreciation for nature among the youth.
Ten teams comprising students from the Institutes of Technical Education (ITE), polytechnics and universities are in the midst of the challenge as I speak. I understand that they have only three more hours to complete their displays! Good luck to everyone!
In putting together a landscape showcase, the students make use of their horticulture and landscape design skills that they have learnt as part of their course curriculum. They also combine it with their own styles and creativity, putting together displays that they can be proud of.
Among the participants, Bryan and Fateha from Ngee Ann Polytechnic are returning competitors. They had participated in the Challenge when they were students at ITE six and two years ago respectively.
I am very heartened by our passionate youths, and am encouraged to hear that many of them are pursuing related fields of landscape, architecture, and design. I hope that their passion will inspire other youth to join Singapore’s vibrant landscape industry.
This year, we are starting even younger, by providing a stage for children and youth to share and learn from each other through the inter-school Floral Harmony Competition that will be held this afternoon.
This event is led by Qihua Primary School and will see over 45 students showcasing their creativity and flair in floral arrangements.
I heard that our youngest participants are just six years old!
At Level 4 visitors can view the ‘International Floral Designers Society (Singapore) Cup Floral Designing Competition’ and ‘Penjing and Artistic Stone Exhibition and Competition’.
The theme of the Floral Designing Competition is “Sustainability & Designing in Floristry”, and incorporates the 3Rs of Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle into design tasks.
The ‘Penjing and Artistic Stone Exhibition and Competition’ features tropical bonsai species, including some which are almost a century old!
Aside from the various competitions, there are other floral-related highlights for visitors to enjoy. These include a floral fashion showcase by ITE students, and a photography exhibition on local flora by our migrant workers, organised by Holdinghands Studio.
Rounding up the Festival are beautiful displays presented by floral and community groups including the Singapore Gardening Society, Floral Designers Society (Singapore), Ikebana International Singapore Chapter 135.
This is also the first time that the Festival has partnered a social enterprise – City Sprouts – to present a Learning Garden. Visitors can embark on an experiential journey of viewing the world through the lens of a plant, as it grows from seed to sprout.
These highlights span a range of art forms, so there is something for everyone to participate in or enjoy the Festival regardless of your area of interest.
Conclusion
In closing, I would like to thank all of you – gardeners, floral artists and landscape designers and competitors – for the tremendous effort you have put into your displays, as well as the volunteers whose hard work and dedication have made the Festival possible. NParks colleagues have also worked closely with the community gardeners and partners to bring various displays to life.
It is really heartening to witness the enthusiasm for nature and greenery that all of you have. This passion will fuel our collective imagination of how we can develop further as a City in Nature.
Looking around at the displays, I have no doubt that gardening has much to offer us both individually and as a people. Gardening highlights the very best of our City in Nature; it showcases the remarkable fruits that ground-up community efforts can yield; it reminds us to slow down, breathe, and take time to appreciate the beauty that is all around us; and it promises to bring together people of all stripes who are united in their love of greenery.
I look forward to touring the wonderful displays, and I wish all of you an enjoyable time at the Singapore Garden Festival.
Thank you.