Singapore Garden Festival Part II - Nanyang Primary School Foral Art Competition

You all may not know that floral art can actually be a CCA in our primary schools in Singpore, but there is one in Nanyang Primary School. And today all the children are going to compet with one another in creating the most beautiful flower arrangement.

In fact there is a big community of floral art passionists in Nanyang primary formed by the PTA. Needless to say, the competition is organised and conducted but the mothers of the children. Let us take a look what the children had created.






Here are the pieces by parents of Nanyang Primary School.

Singapore Garden Festival Part I - the setting up

Singapore Garden Festival is the first big scale exhibition event in Singapore related to plants, flowers, hoticulture and floral art. This is to further promote Singapore as a Garden City and attract more visitors to this island country. The official opening is being held this evening 15th Dec by President Mr Nadan at Suntec City. It will be opened to the public from 16th to 25th Dec.

Singapore Garden Festival has two parts to it; being simoutaneouly held at the 4th and 6th level of the convention halls in Suntec City. 4th floor consists of the orchid show and vendors from the related businesses. The highlight will be at 6th floor where invited floral artists from all over the world came to set up and display their breathtaking works.

We are one of the exhibitors at 6th floor together with the rest of the floral artists. Chris together with 4 other designers represented Ikebana Association Singapore. The head master Mrs Kazue Kato Kim was there too to work on her pieces.

I was very fortunated to meet Mrs Kim, the head master from Ikebana Association Singapore while in setting up of her structures. Mrs Kim is a very nice lady and I am pleased to have conversed with her in Japanese. She is a very well respected master in Ikebana as I can tell how her students and other designers had shown respect to her.

Once again I met Ms Park Jin Young Jinny as she was working on her display area. I am really glad that she actually rememebers me even I was just a boy carrying flowers and pails of water during her last show in Singapore in May. I also met Mr Naoki Sasaki from Japan, Richard Go from Australia and many other reputated designers from around the world.

Singapore Garden Festival was a really rare and priceless opportunity for me to explore the floral design world. It opened up my horizon further and being part of the effort backstage allowed me to understand and experience more of the whole process. Let us take a look at how it is being built in this 2.2 hectre of exhibition area.

Singapore Botanic Garden

Many times I heard people asking: Why buy cut flower when they are going to wither in a week's time? Why spend so much on getting your girlfriend bouquets when you can buy her more practical things?

I guess the reason to all there is: the beauty of flowers cannot be substituded by anything else.

Almost everyone knows flowers are beautiful. But living in a city, an urban area like Singapore, who will have the time, the luxury to visit orchid nurseries at ulu Lim Chu Kang, or keep a beautiful garden full of blooming flowers. A few lucky ones may be able to go oversea to see lavender fields of France, tulip filed of Holland and Sunflower field of Japan. So after all, it is a florist's job to bring flowers into our daily life. It may not last for long but the prescence of pretty flowers is better than nothing at all.

Cut flowers, bouquets and arrangements aside, today we will enjoy some beautiful flowers and plants from our very own Singapore Botanic Garden. http://www.sbg.org.sg/index.asp













































One thing about this world is that beautiful things do not last. Flowers bloom and wit, that is part of a life cycle. Or maybe it is beacause knowing that their beauty does not last, that we are about to appreciate them more. What is important is probably to show in their best during their life time and treasure those precious moments, then let them go when they have to. Because after which the next flower will be ready to bloom.