Botanical Garden of Singapore
While the oldest museum in Singapore is the National Museum at the age of 122, the Singapore Botanic Gardens is even older, celebrating its 150th anniversary this year in 2009. The founder of Singapore, Sir Stamford Raffles, was a natrualist who began a botanical garden for the purpose of research on Government Hill in 1822. Raffles hoped to grow crops like nutmeg and cocoa. However, after his death, the garden closed in 1829. The Agri-Horticultural Society restored the Gardens in 1859, and planned the site as an ornamental park and a garden of leisure. In 1874, the government took responsibility for maintaining and managing the site. The first director of the site, Henry Ridley, had a vision that the Gardens could help to make growing rubber trees productive, figuring out a way to harvest the latex without harm to the trees. Eventually, the Gardens plants were the start of the rubber industry in Southeast Asia.
If you’re in Singapore, either on a visit or for business meetings with a Singapore private bank, a good side excursion would definitely include the Gardens. The Gardens contain many attractions, divided into several core areas. There’s the Bukit Timah core, containing Bamboos and Bougainvillea, Herbs and Spices, Medicinal Plants, and the Nuts and Beverage Crops, as well as Eco Lake. There’s Tanglin core, which contains Swan Lake and the Swan Lake Gazebo, as well as Sun Garden Sculptures, Bonsai, the Swiss Ball Fountain. There’s also the Central Core, which contains a portion of a rainforest, the Ginger Garden, Palm Vallley, Evolution Garden, Symphony Lake, and the world famous National Orchid Garden. In the same area, you’ll find Symphony Lake as well as the EJH House.
All of the regions of the park contains a variety of trees, some as old as the Gardens themselves, including the Kapok Tree, which is eighty to ninety years old, and the Tembusu Tree, which is at least a hundred years old.
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