Community & Business
1 October, 2024
Carnival of Flowers reaches Singapore
Singapore horticultural show garden, Gardens by the Bay’s first Australian-themed floral display Carnival of Flowers, inspired by Toowoomba’s ongoing event, opened this week with a mini “floral float” parade.
The iconic Singapore attraction, which was recently named Number 8 in the world by Tripadvisor, showcases plants from all over the world in thematic floral displays.
Sixteen Singaporean preschoolers donning floral floats they made in art class, marched alongside Singaporean horticulturists and an Australian delegation who flew in specially from Toowoomba.
After all, the Carnival of Flowers floral display, held in Gardens by the Bay’s cooled conservatory Flower Dome, is presented in collaboration with the Toowoomba Regional Council.
Following the launch, the floats by the children will be put on show in the floral display, which will run until 17 November 2024.
Mayor of Toowoomba Regional Council Geoff McDonald, who flew in to Singapore with a more than 30-person delegation from the city, High Commissioner of Australia to Singapore His Excellency Allaster Cox, and Singapore’s Senior Minister of State for Defence and Manpower Zaqy Mohamad, launched the floral display together.
Gardens by the Bay and the city of Toowoomba have a longstanding relationship that began in 2017, which through the years, has covered knowledge exchange as well as staff exchange programmes for horticulturists.
Singapore and Australia also have deep ties in areas such as defence, economics and people-to-people relations.
In tribute to Toowoomba’s reputation as the Garden City, over 8,000 plants from 30 varieties feature in Gardens by the Bay’s edition of Carnival of Flowers.
These include native Australian species like the waratah and banksia, which are making their debut at Gardens by the Bay, and have appearances considered unusual in the Southeast Asian region.
Famed for its Supertrees – vertical steel gardens up to 50 metres tall clad with plants and which resemble towering trees – Gardens by the Bay is also known for its cooled conservatories Flower Dome and Cloud Forest.
These reverse glasshouses allow plants from all over the world to thrive in tropical Singapore.
