Fawning over the flora

With the humidity and heat, gardening in the tropics must be so easy. Today we checked out the Singapore Botanic Gardens so we could visit the National Orchid Garden.



It amazes me that orchids, that are so expensive and exotic back home, grow rampant in the ground here! Singapore cultivates original and hybrid species of the orchid, including Miss Joaquim, the national flower of Singapore. They even developed a VIP Garden where they honor heads of state and royalty that visit with their own hybrid orchid. Both the First Ladies Bush have orchids named after them.



I had orchids like these at my wedding.



I don't know how my dad notices these things, but he found this little bugger begging to have his photo taken.




Inside the Tan Hoon Siang Misthouse, we learned that some orchid hybrids have been cultivated to have a fragrance. One was supposed to smell like vanilla, the other more like a perfume.



I wish Jeff could have come with us, because he would have loved testing his new SLR camera out here. Faithful readers, you can expect the quality of these photos to get much better once Jeff starts shooting with it. I certainly won't mind coming back here so he can do just that another day.