Author Topic: Singapore Botanical Gardens  (Read 8847 times)

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Online ideasguy

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Singapore Botanical Gardens
« on: November 14, 2008, 04:17:39 PM »
These broadcast message are great for renewing old friendships.
I received a message from Jessie in Singapore. I asked permission and I'm doing this posting on Jessies behalf as she says:
Quote
When I am more proficient, will certainly write in the forum..

Here goes:
Quote
Had been very busy lately.  I have also signed up with Singapore Botanical Gardens in helping them with specimens recordings and specimens photographing and maybe trying my hands with
Botanical drawings.  Am working with this guy from Edinburgh's Botanical Gardens named Mark Hugh .

Still at the elementary stage of collecting specimens of the rainforest and keep learning from those people who has long departed but leaving their hand print behind,  like Sir Henry Ridley and few others...
Saw his specimen date back 100 over years.

If you guys want to know something about rainforest and related vegetations, will be more than happy to share.

Will write when more interesting stuff comes up .
Cheers and best regards,
Well, to me, thats full of interest.

then a follow up email:
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Anyway.. I always like to steal time as it was never a luxury... So I steal time to help out in the Botanical garden as volunteer , taking Rainforest guiding also helping out in the Herbarium - trying to understand the specimens and I will manage to squeeze out some time on Sat.. will try to start my passion..
Botanical drawings of leaves, fruits of the rainforest...Actions speak louder.. embarrassing , so can't show much till I have enough work.

The Botanical Gardens usually organizes talks and also specimen collecting in the forest and perhaps jungle.. if I can I will tag along.. in touch with nature and what better way of enjoying it
when I have experience botanists there to guide me and explain to me how to recognize a calyphyllum or a memecylon   or a melastromoteceae.. so mind boggling...so  this is the
best way to learn... how to differentiate them..

Cheers,
catch up again.. and you have a good weekend. !

« Last Edit: November 14, 2008, 04:21:35 PM by ideasguy »

NightHawk

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Re: Singapore Botanical Gardens
« Reply #1 on: November 14, 2008, 04:38:07 PM »
George I was born in Singapore!

My Dad was in the Army (47 years man and boy) and we had two postings to Singapore. 1st posting was in the late 50's
then again within 3 years.

I have lots of memories, but as I was only 6 when we left I have forgotten too much which is sad..

I do remember what I think was the botanical gardens, my abiding memory is the large number of monkeys. We used to take peanuts in the shell and fed them  ;D

I don't think there will be very much left surviving on the island from our time there. They were reclaiming swap land and dumping huge amounts of earth to enlarge the island.

Kathy :-*

« Last Edit: November 14, 2008, 04:40:54 PM by Kathy & Laurie »

Online ideasguy

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Re: Singapore Botanical Gardens
« Reply #2 on: November 14, 2008, 04:43:56 PM »
Maybe thats where you got you love for gardening, Kathy. Hopefully Jessie will join in and tell us more.


Offline 3fren

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Re: Singapore Botanical Gardens
« Reply #3 on: November 15, 2008, 07:29:55 AM »

Hi guys.. frustrating... I spent half hour writing about Singapore and when
I pressed the Post button, it tells me in the face.. " sorry , you exceeded your time "

Let me organize my thoughts again..and hmmmmm I found a brilliant idea... I will
write on my Words and copy and paste !  wow !   Failure is the Mother of Success !

Heard from me soon..  I will be back !

Cheers !

Offline 3fren

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Re: Singapore Botanical Gardens
« Reply #4 on: November 15, 2008, 09:14:11 AM »
Ah ..ha.. got it !

As far as I knew, forest with natural vegetation are plenty.  There were tigers before the WWII, mousedeers, civet cats, wild boars, monkeys, crocodiles etc.  Now we only have monkeys and squirrels.  One day we spotted a  huge turtle in the rainwater canal and we ?adeptly? called it the ?Lock Ness ? monster !. 

Our kampong folks, when escaping the Japanese soldiers, hid in the jungle.
My mom saw a pair of ? lights? at a distance.. she knew it was a 
tiger and prayed for it to go away.   She also encountered ?green jumping lights?
and said these are ?ghost? lights, perhaps it might be the spirits of the forest.
Interesting thing they did, they started plucking the grass under their feet and
the lights get lower and lower till it disappeared..   

In the early years,  we lived in single storey houses , these are not ?slumps? as we read about Indonesia or India.. but  houses with own  ?compound?.  Several
such compounds will form a village or we called it ?kampongs?.

Kathy may have stayed in special compound, we called it  ?Black and White? and are preserved houses.  They are very popular with expats here ? not cheap though.  Rental can be from Euro 5,000 to 10000 a month.

Kathy, can you tell me where you stay and I will seek it out.. It may still be around.
Gillman Heights used to be populated by English Army personnels.

Houses back then  are constructed with dried palm leaves (known as atap leaves) as roof and real timber for pillars, beams and wall ? these are painted white.  Our floors are plain cement and we fill it up with one or two pieces of  traditional furniture from China. ?  it is very valuable antique now ? I still kept one.

Within the compounds, we would have our fruits trees such as durians, rumbutans, mangoes, mangosteen, bananas, custard apples, soursops, and many more.    We have our own home grown greens , farm poultry and diary,
fresh fishes are plentiful cuz we are surrounded by sea.

Treatment for ills:

For  constipation, we would gather some weeds and grass, boil with brown sugar,
down  2 to 3 times, and it was gone.

Stung by bees ? easy fix.. get the honey and rub on it.

Skin disorders, boils .. gather some herbs and weeds, boil it and bath in it
several times and it subsided. 



Cancer, diabetics, kidney problems, all these are unheard of .   sounds like a dream? so distant.. no? it was  real?recollecting my childhood days.
   
Now,  all these kampongs are gone.  In it places are all the highrise.
up to 50 storeys ? housing, offices-cum- shopping.   

Our gardens and playgrounds are on the.. maybe  10th or 30th floor
or the roof top of the shopping centre.. there is always a niche somewhere
up there for the office workers to relax and have a stick. .

Our National Library, located in the city.. about  16 storey high, has many gardens , 2 are opened to public .

The roof top of commercial buildings are converted to rooftop gardens for
relaxation.

The National Park Board (Npark) has done a fantastic job.   Many specimens
from all over the world are brought in and planted on all roads and every parts of the island.  We are testing the stress level of these trees and flower shrubs  when planted beside the heavy traffic.

These migrants, gets very complacent here, plenty of sunshine, water and clean air.. they just grow fat and green but refuses to flowers and fruits.  The Npark is facing the challenge to make them procreate.

Singapore Inc Is very business savvy?we had exported our knowledge to the
Arabian peninsula, starting with  Dubai and moving inwards.

Cheers ! 



Online ideasguy

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Re: Singapore Botanical Gardens
« Reply #5 on: November 15, 2008, 11:36:08 AM »
Hi Jessie

I'm delighted to read your reply.
RE:
Quote
" sorry , you exceeded your time "
I really feel for your frustration when you tried to post, after preparing a big article.
If its any consolation, its happened to others on the forum, and to me on other forums before I found the solution.

Theres a mechanism to prevent that happening again (Fortunately).
When you log in, click the option to stay logged in forever.
When you do that, you never get timed out.
The good thing is you are not under pressure to get your article posted within a time limitation (who wants deadlines when on a forum!!)

Its beyond me why that silly restriction is in place in the first place.
Hope that keeps you right in future




Offline 3fren

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Re: Singapore Botanical Gardens
« Reply #6 on: November 15, 2008, 01:28:45 PM »
Here are pictures of our National Library and the highrise garden.

cheers
 :)

NightHawk

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Re: Singapore Botanical Gardens
« Reply #7 on: November 15, 2008, 08:04:21 PM »
The 1st time we were there was during 1958 (year I was born :)

We stayed in blocks of flats in an area called Holland Village. I have no memories of this time :)

2nd time around 1963/4 we lived on Cassia Drive number 36 I think, it was a large stone bungalow with a large garden. At the end of this road it became jungle. My brother and I would explore :) I told my parents not that many years ago some of the places we went and they were horrified! ha ha

Anyway if you walked long enough through the jungle you would eventually come out overlooking the race course.

Not far from our house was an enourmous quarry and every minute of the day masses of earth were being trucked out and dumped in the sea to create more land. On the other side of the quarry was a malay village. We often walked through it to get to all sorts of places I just wish I could remember more.

I still remember the smell of that fruit..is it the durians?

Every day we went to Changi beach to swim. I went to school in Pasa Panjang.

I loved the (excuse the spelling) Haw Pah Villa?

AS far as I know its still there. I remember the huge gorrilla...and all the chinese mythical creatures.

My Parents loved The Gap...has that survived? It was the regular place to go on an evening for a tiger beer.

We went swimming to the Dover Road pool...but mainly to the pool in Pasa Panjang.

I was born in the British Military Hospital and even have a singapore birth certificate.

I remember a large store called Cold Storage...it had two large lions outside I think if its the shop I am thinking of.

I used to sit on one :)

I need to dig out my Mother's photos there are tons from Singapore.

We went on holiday one year up to the Cameron Highlands in the then Malaya, no Malaysia, we arrived just as a tiger was killing locals left and right  :o
We had the place to ourselves as everyone else went home in fear. Sadly the only real memories I have are 1) getting stung by a hornet on the foot 2) How lovely and cool it was. I have hundreds of stamps from Malaya, all the different leaders/kings/sultans etc of the time.

I would love to know if any of my memories still survive today...


I would give anything for a map of then and now to compare  ;D

Kathy :-*

NightHawk

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Re: Singapore Botanical Gardens
« Reply #8 on: November 15, 2008, 08:09:11 PM »
Tiger Balm

I just noticed these posts from last year.

Is Tiger Balm Gardens the same place as Haw Pah Villa? With the large chines mythical figures?

My Mother brought some to the Tiger Palm Ointment back from Singapore and was very very stingy using it for years as it was fabulous for taking the pain out of a sting etc...

I think its had its ingredients chagned since the mid 60's didn't it have opium or something in it?

I assume you can still buy it....the smell was wonderful.

Kathy :-*

Offline 3fren

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Hello from Singapore
« Reply #9 on: May 28, 2011, 12:54:59 PM »
Thanks George for dropping a reminder.  Was reading the past posting and Oops ! was in 2007 and 2008 !
what happened to those in between days/years ?? 3 years since last posting !!!

Everyday seem to be in a quick movie slides.  not living like a real "living ".
No time to thinking , to reflects,  just move on and move on and move on :-((

I envied the four seasons in your country.  There is rest period in Winter.
 Summer is  whole year round here, but cant complain , sunlight is good to us.

We just had two casinos opened last year and jobs had been comfortable
aftermath , with the opening of stores, eateries, amenities, fun parks.

Fortunately, with the Green Movement, the Govt is ever ready to green
up our little "turtle" of a island state.  We are still able to retain whatever little patches of green we have.
 Also all buildings are adding on vertical green walls - How interesting.






 




Online ideasguy

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Re: Singapore Botanical Gardens
« Reply #10 on: May 28, 2011, 11:31:51 PM »
Lovely to her from you again Jessie. After a very unusual sunny and warm April, its cool and breezy here in Ireland and I'm beginning to wonder just what season it is :D
They appear to be a bit mixed up. We could do with some of your sunshine.

I heard about green walls some time ago. Its a great solution in a region where there isn't much space on the ground level for gardens.
I did a quick surf and found this so other members know what you mean:
http://www.crookedbrains.net/2009/04/garden.html
Interesting indeed!


Offline 3fren

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Re: Singapore Botanical Gardens
« Reply #11 on: June 04, 2011, 08:53:50 AM »
I guess green walls are nothing new, considering the ivy covered walls I have seen in England, France - Europe.
Except ours are covered with all types of tropical ferns - green all your round - pleasant and cooling to the eyes during
hot weather we have here.

With the fruits and vegetables scare - the e-boli coming from Europe, it might be possible that all these high-rise green
walls and roof tops be covered with edible greens , with organic soil and fertilizers.  Twenty years back when I was working
on the 40th floor and looking down at all the other rooftop in downtown financial district and was wondering how self
sustain we can be if we plant edible stuff on the roof of the building..now I see the citiscape is changing.

We have 50 storeys high builidng, there are jogging paths and playground on the 10th, 20th and 30th.  The carparks
are from level 1 to 5th.  The recent Marina Bay Sand boasts a Sky Park on top of the 57th Storey .  Shaped like a ship eveready to set sail - which I called it Singapore's Noah Ark.  This was built on reclaim land, a complex that has state-of-the art convention, exhibitions, world class casino.  Visitors can feast  on the panorama view of Singapore .  Pls check it out on marina bay sands skypark
http://www.marinabaysands.com/
« Last Edit: June 05, 2011, 12:05:23 PM by ideasguy »

Online ideasguy

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Re: Singapore Botanical Gardens
« Reply #12 on: June 05, 2011, 12:10:35 PM »
Singapore is such a different place to live Jessie. Everything is vertical! It must be a frantically busy place.

The link to Marina Bay Sands wasnt working. Ive editied your posting to change the link. Is that now the link you intended?
Its an incredible place. Our forum friend Eric Hardy is a retired architect. I wonder what he thinks of the architecture?


Offline Eric Hardy

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Re: Singapore Botanical Gardens
« Reply #13 on: June 05, 2011, 09:46:58 PM »
Our forum friend Eric Hardy is a retired architect. I wonder what he thinks of the architecture?
That Marina Bay Sands looks amazing, Jessie. Something completely outside my experience. Of course you do not get a true feeling for this sort of architecture without walking round it inside and out. I would love to explore it and then I could tell you what I really think. This type of building has to be a one off and I wonder whether it will be still there in 100 years time or whether something even more fantastic will be there in its place. When you are young you think everything is permanent. Now I have grown old I realise that most buildings are temporary and only truly monumental buildings survive.