Recently, I scored a free ticket to the Singapore Garden Festival that was held at Gardens By The Bay on the 16th of August. It's an annual show that showcases all kinds of beautiful floral and botany displays. Usually, it's held at the nearby Suntec Convention Centre but this year, they moved to the Gardens By The Bay's Flower Dome conservatory which suits the nature of the event. Don't worry if you missed the event as I have tons of photos and I'll share my experience of the Singapore Garden Festival right here. Scroll down to find out more.
What is the Garden Festival?
The Singapore Garden Festival (SGF) is a yearly show that showcases beautiful floral displays and botanical designs to the public. The show is in its fifth year and for the very first time, the Garden Festival was held at Gardens By The Bay, a botanical garden located beside the famous Marina Bay area. There were some parts of the festival that were free and some were ticketed. The ticketed part of the Festival was located in one of the two conservatories of Garden called the Flower Dome. Getting there from the MRT station (Bayfront) was quite far but you could still get there within 5 to 10 minutes (depending on your walking speed).
Entering the Flower Dome
Entry was seamless. And once I entered the Flower Dome, the sight of the conservatory was definitely breathtaking. What's great about the conservatory is that the temperature would adjust itself depending on the needs of the plantations and in the day, it looks stunning as you can view the city area and the Singapore Flyer in a distance. The SGF's floral displays were further in so you may need to walk in before you could actually view the cool displays.
Displays by winners
Some of the flowers and plantations that were on display were actually created by winners of various garden shows around the world. Touching isn't allowed but they were so beautiful to the point where I was this close to touching the displays. It's amazing to see the sheer amount of effort these garden enthusiasts put in to make their floral displays that amazing. It really takes a lot of time and passion to carve out such a beautiful piece. Congratulations to the winners whose displays were featured during SGF.
Orchids on display
I'm not quite if Singapore's national flower, the Vanda 'Miss Joaquim' was featured or present at SGF, there were plenty of amazing orchids that can be found at the Flower Dome. If you're an orchid junkie, this is heaven for you. Although a small selection of orchids can be found here, there's more variety at the National Orchid Garden within the Singapore Botanic Garden. What I like about orchids are the shape of the flower and the colours. Some can be purple, some can be white.
The Flower Tower
I'm not sure what it's called but one of the most sought after attraction at the SGF was this tower. This tower was fully covered with a wide variety of beautiful flowers from the bottom to the top. The tower was lit-up which gave the impression that the tower was made up of ice. As the attraction was quite popular among visitors, there was a line and for safety measures, only a small group of people can enter at a time with the help of some personnel.
Once you're in, the feeling was like as if you're standing inside a Christmas tree that's been decorated with all sorts of flowers. A lot of visitors took the opportunity multiple photos with their DSLRs and cameraphones. The "Flower Tower" was also a great opportunity to take 'close ups' of the flowers presented. Although the space was a little bit tight, it was still a great experience.
A Fairy Tale Experience
There were some places that you can stand at the Flower Dome which gives you nice vantage points to take beautiful photos. The photo above which I took at one of the corners of the conservatory gave a very nice bird's eye view of the whole Singapore Garden Festival and Flower Dome. The whole Festival looked as if it was decorated and presented in a fairy tale experience. The experience, although slightly marred by the huge crowds (I went on a Saturday), was still overall an experience you can never forget.
The Flower Dome in General
The Flower Dome itself is a pretty great attraction of Gardens By The Bay. Even if no events are currently taking place at the Flower Dome, it's still worth the money and time to enter and take a look around. Also, depending on the event, the so-called "Flower Tower" will be decorated to suit the event.
As of writing, the tower was decorated with tons of lights and Christmas decorations for their Christmas Wonderland event. If the Flower Dome isn't enough for you, there's also another conservatory just right beside called the Cloud Forest which has a pretty cool man-made waterfall. You'll save some money if you get the bundle deal which gives you access to both conservatories with one ticket.
Learning more about flowers and the ecosystem
The Flower Dome also lets you learn more about the flowers, trees and plantations featured in the Dome itself. There are plenty of informative boards and if you want to, you can even rent a device which gives an explanation of the plants using a pair of headphones which is rather cool if you're lazy to read. When you're heading for the exit, there were even some interactive touchscreen displays which let you play some games while also learning about plants, trees and flowers. It's a great experience for both the young and old.
Conclusion
Overall, my very first visit to the Singapore Garden Festival and the Flower Dome was an awesome and a memorable one. Entering the Flower Dome conservatory was a really a surreal experience because of its space-age design and the cooling technology was really cool and state-of-the-art. As for the Singapore Garden Festival, I have learnt a lot about the floral displays featured and that nature is just wonderful. The Flower Dome conservatory is open every single day of the week and it's a great place to take a look and explore with your family and friends (along with the Cloud Forest). Next time, I would like to take a look at the neighbouring conservatory, the Cloud Forest and climb up the OCBC Skyway at the nearby SuperTree Grove.
More Information
Singapore Garden Festival website: https://www.singaporegardenfestival.com/
Gardens By The Bay website: http://www.gardensbythebay.com.sg/en/home.html