Homegrown talent wins Singapore garden fest
SINGAPORE: Malaysian horticulturist and garden designer Inch Lim took home one of the top prizes for his show garden at this year’s Singapore Garden Festival.
Lim, 61, won the gold and best of show awards in the landscape garden category. He also picked up the horticulture excellence award.
His 80 sq m garden, called The Treasure Box, is cocooned behind a high wall and is filled mainly with rice plants. He picked the plant for its bright green shade.
The 5m tall walls and floor of this box are covered with rice plants to create a cocoon-like effect. The rice plants symbolise the real treasure, representing the life and sustenance that people rely on.
The Kuala Lumpur-based Lim is participating in the show garden competition for the second time.
He said: “I created a secret garden behind these high walls. Once you go in, a surprise awaits you.”
He is thrilled to have snagged the top prize. At his last outing here in 2010, his garden won a silver award.
Lim, who has designed gardens for homes in Sentosa Cove, says: “I’m so happy because it’s not every day that you get the best of show. I never expected anything – I just hope for the best.”
“I love doing show gardens because they are challenging. In a limited time, you have to create the perfect garden.”
The show gardens are the centrepiece attraction at the biennial event, which is held at Gardens by the Bay. The sixth edition of the festival, which also has other exhibits and activities, will run until July 31.
This year, 15 professional landscape designers and teams from around the world showed off their flair for creating stunning landscape and fantasy gardens. They hail from countries such as Britain, Japan and France.
The participants pulled out all the stops for their gardens – some built reflecting pools and tall dome-capped structures, while others were daring in their choice of plants.