I am now a CIB Ambassador!

I am honoured and pleased to announce that I have been nominated as one of the Community in Bloom (CIB) Ambassadors 2009 by National Parks Board. I received the award from Singapore Prime Minister Mr Lee Hsien Loong at the launch of Clean & Green Singapore 2010 on 30th October 2009.

Five other ambassadors, some are my good friends, contributed to community gardening in their very own community garden and activities. The Community in Bloom Ambassador Award is presented to individuals who have contributed through activities and events to foster the love for gardening to people from all walks. Ambassadors are passionate in gardening and go an extra mile to spread the gardening bug and help others to realise their green fingers.  They contribute time, effort and resources regularly and actively in gardening events.

I was extremely nervous to receive my award and I almost walked away without a photoshoot with Prime Minister Lee! Its definitely a proud moment when I saw my parents, who were there, had tears in their eyes.  The Award trophy is made of lead crystal and with words and my name etched inside it. The trophy weighed almost 3 kilograms and many joked that it is “ a heavy responsibility” of the future work for us!

I am very happy that my efforts and contributions during gardening events and in Green Culture Singapore forum have been recognised. Being the youngest Ambassador, I hope to attract more young people to take up gardening hobby, which can be of any scale and can be done anywhere! I would like to express my sincere thanks to teachers of Tanglin Secondary School and my ex-colleague Ai San for their nominations and all my friends who congratulate me on facebook and here in my blog, NParks and CIB for confeering me this prestigious Award, not forgetting my friends and members of Green Culture Singapore, especially my mentor, also CIB Ambassador 2008, Mr Wilson Wong for his guidance and support over the years!

Green Culture Singapore 5th Anniversary

The #1 Gardening Forum in Singapore, Green Culture Singapore, celebrated its 5th anniversary in a function room of a condominium. More than 70 members turned up at the event and many brought plants for exchange! Members also brought their home made food for potluck session. Everyone enjoyed the event and I believe many of us had gained more tips and ideas of growing plants!

Below is the video which shows the enthusiasm and support of Green Culture Singapore members:

 

Video Blog #3: Wick Watering System

Many members from the Green Culture Singapore forum use the wick watering system for their plants. It is a hassle free, easy to make system which eliminates the need for regular watering, which is very suitable for busy gardeners in the office or home.

In this video, I will share with you the steps of building your own wick watering system.

 

Gardentech Talk on Sunday!

It was a busy Sunday at Hortpark and crowded with people! I was invited by the Community-in-Bloom team of NParks to talk about carnivorous plants. This time, my talk was held at the much bigger multi-purpose hall. Around 80 people attended my talk and many are interested in growing carnivorous plants.

 

During the talk, I gave out copies of my two ebooks, one on carnivorous plants and another on starting your gardening hobby. I have given out free carnivorous plant seeds to those who participated during my quiz. Not only just carnivorous plant seeds, those who received my ebooks got a packet of seeds  (Star Glory, Ipomoea quamoclit).

Heartfelt thanks to Ai San and Cheryl, my friends from my ex-company to give me the necessary support I needed during the talk. Special thanks to Community-in-Bloom team of NParks and Mr Ng Cheow Keng for their wonderful logistic support. Thanks to Sandy and Cindy who provided the photos and plants for my talk!

It was a wonderful experience to see many like-minded people coming to this Gardentech event and learn more about gardening. There are also stores selling various plants and products which are new and innovative! Gardentech 2009 will end at 18th Aug (Tue). Do go down and experience it before it’s too late!

Gardentech 2009 Talk “Growing Carnivorous Plants”

Gardentech 2009, an event which exhibits horticultural technologies and garden plants will be held at Hortpark from 14th -18th August, which is a weeks from now. The event will not only showcase gardening technologies and equipments, but it will also a rare chance to get plants from overseas nurseries!

There will be lots of gardening talks held everyday and I am honoured to be invited to talk about carnivorous plants by the Community-in-Bloom staff of NParks. In the talk, I will share the basics of growing carnivorous plants and some gardening tips too.

                         

My 2 ebooks, “Growing Carnivorous Plants” and “Starting your Gardening Hobby” will be available during my talk. The first ebook I launched during my first gardening talk in March was a popular item and I have limited copies for my audience. I will bring along more of my ebooks this time round.

My gardewning talk will be held at the Multi-purpose Hall, Hortpark Visitors’ Centre, on 16th August (Sunday") at 2pm. Do come down early and visit the numerous booths at Gardentech 2009 too! For more information, do visit the Gardentech 2009 official website at: http://www.gardentech.com.sg.

Sinningias

I received this plant from an experienced Gesneriad grower from Green Culture Singapore. It is a miniature Sinningia, as compared to my previous post on the  micro Sinningia “Little Wood Nymph”, it is much bigger than the latter. Sinningia belongs to a big plant family called Gesneriaceae, which also consist the African Violets (Saintpaulia ionantha), Gloxinia and Kohleria.

This plant has very similar leaves in a rosette arrangement as the African Violets. Flurry leaves and stem are nice to touch but delicate too. Water droplets on the leaves need to be removed to prevent “sunburn”. They are grown in the “universal” soiless mix with the wick-watering system.

Wick-watering is not a new horticultural methodology as it has been around for the past few decades. Using the capillary action, water is drawn up to the soil from a reservoir via a “wick”, which can be a cotton string or polyester string. Polyester string is preferred as it doesn’t break down like the cotton counterparts.

Bright-light and morning sun will be optimal for these plants and regular light feeding of fertilizers is preferred. They enjoy high humidity too, which I placed the entire plant in a much larger plastic cup so to retain the layer of humidity around the plant. This is one of the many gardening tips by our experienced growers from Green Culture Singapore.

 

Generally, Sinningias are hassle free and mini plants. Suitable candidate for office gardening. But these plants are hardly found in local nurseries and we got our plants from overseas orders or through the gardening enthusiasts.

Carnivorous Plants Talk at Hortpark!

Yesterday, I delivered my first full scale gardening talk on growing carnivorous plants. I was very surprised to see that such a big crowd turn up at Fruit Room despite the gloomy weather! I did not have enough handouts for all and thankfully Shirley from NParks, helped to print more copies for me. Thanks Shirley!

                                            

I was very glad that the audience there that day was a good mix of different ages. Over 70 people were there. It was very heartening to see children taking up gardening as their hobby and this really motivated me a lot. They are enthusiastic and inquisitive, asking me lots of questions and sharing their experiences with me!

Many thanks to my friends, Wilson, Xuan Hong, Uncle Eng Ong, Sandy and Elgin, all from Green Culture Singapore who came down to support me. I was very touched to see my colleagues from my attachment company, Ai San and Alicia with friend Kareen, make time to take photos and attend my talk.

                       

During the talk, I introduced various carnivorous plants which are easy to grow, like the popular Venus Flytrap, beautiful Sundews and Nepenthes.  I have prepared my ebooks to give out as gifts. The audience was amazed and “wowed” at many of these exotic photos taken by Sandy and Cindy.

 

Thanks for everyone’s support and hope to see you again in many subsequent gardening talks in the future!