The Gardens by the Bay is a huge park that sits on 101 hectares (1 hectare = 2.47 acres!) of reclaimed land between the Marina Bay Sands and the Barrage. Actually, everything from the Fullerton on out to the Barrage sits on reclaimed land. But, the Gardens is a pretty incredible place. Singapore has decided that it wants to increase public green space and make Singapore the City in a Garden, and it is well on the way.
Looking towards the Gardens by the Bay from the other side of the river just beneath the Singapore Flyer. The Barrage is visible at the end, just above the boat in this picture. Those two buildings are the conservatories and the tall structures are the Supertrees.
A closer view of the conservatories and Supertrees.
On our daily walks, or nearly daily depending upon the storms, we usually end up in the Gardens, and I’m not sure we have been in every part of them even yet, though we are working on it. The Gardens themselves are free to walk in and lead up to the Barrage, a dam built across the Singapore river where it meets the sea in order to keep the river water fresh as it is used for drinking water. You can spend many, many happy hours wandering the different areas of the gardens, which include water areas, a children’s garden, a succulents garden, a great food court with a green roof, and gardens representing the ethnic heritage of Singapore’s citizens.
Amazing and huge sculpture of a baby floating above the meadow
Part of the Hindu garden
The Supertrees from a distance. Part of the cooling system.
I’m just going to stop right here and warn those of you who don’t like lots of photos, and/or who don’t care for pictures of plants and flowers. The rest of this post has A LOT of pictures, many of them of plants.
Just one of the many sculptures within the park.
Some of the Supertrees with the Flower Dome behind.
The Garden also sports two gigantic conservatories, each one around a hectare each. The buildings are the largest columnless conservatories in the world and were designed by Wilkinson Eyre Architects. The admission into the buildings is a bit steep ($28 SGD per person), but entirely worth it if you love either plants or architecture (or both). One of the conservatories is called the Flower Dome and houses 7 different gardens of a mostly mild to arid type, and an olive grove with very old olive trees, in addition to seasonal displays (Christmas! Lots of poinsettias!), an event hall and a bistro.
First view inside the Flower Dome, looking up towards the succulents and arid garden
Cacti in the succulents garden of the Flower Dome
Amazing succulents collection in the Flower Dome.
One of a number of sculptures within the Flower Dome gardens. This one is a wood carving from Timor.
Events hall within the Flower Dome. Love the lights.
The second conservatory, the Cloud Forest, is slightly smaller but also taller to accommodate the 5 story cloud mountain structure within it. The Cloud Forest features tropical plants and especially epiphytes. Both of the buildings and the gardens inside are, if nothing else, amazing displays of technical effort and planning, I can’t imagine what went into creating the spaces, let alone the collections, some of which are very large plants and must have required incredible care.
From the ground floor of the Cloud Forest, looking up the Cloud Mountain and part of the ‘trail’ leading down the mountain.
Close up side view of part of the Cloud Mountain.
Worker all roped up planting and weeding the side of the Cloud Mountain.
A green footprint was a requirement for the buildings as so they collect rainwater and circulate it through the cooling system, the Supertrees Grove is part of the venting and cooling system as well as being a very cool visual feature of the gardens.
Since our walks usually take us down as far as the conservatories we decided, after our first visit, to become annual members of the conservatories, which allows us to stop inside whenever we want. This means that when we are sweating like crazy and feeling overheated we can enter one of the cool, lovely domes and wander for a while in the chilly air until we feel prepared to sweat our way back home. Every time we venture in we see something we missed before.
At night the gardens are transformed into a nearly magical place by intricate displays of light in the Supertrees Grove, often accompanied by music (seasonal music….if I hear Mariah Carey sing ‘All I want for Christmas’ one more time I’m going to be sick). I can’t wait to see the Chinese New Year decorations!
Enjoying the Gardens!
Libby Scofield 