Singapore Botanic GardensThe white bandstand before the hedge

A single tree can hold a whole lawn

Singapore — Tropical botanical garden in the city.

First, take in that lawn.

The rain tree spreads its branches sideways, wider than it is tall, leaving a broad shade beneath. The grass is cut short, the slope gently rolling, and people sit scattered, far apart. The wind moves the treetops first, then the grass, and the heat stays trapped under the leaves. Walking beneath such a tree, your pace slows on its own, and the path seems longer than it is.

The waterside path runs along the lake, its brick surface darkened by moisture. Palm leaves hang to the water, round leaves floating one against another with lifted edges. Someone stops at the rail in the distance, their shadow on the water trembling with the clouds. Round a bend and there is another tree, smooth-barked, its roots pushing up ridges on the ground.

Moved to this site in 1859

In 1822 Stamford Raffles ran a Botanical and Experimental Garden on Government Hill, mainly trialling cash crops, but it closed in 1829. The present garden had to wait until 1859, when the colonial government granted 32 hectares to the Agri-Horticultural Society and the garden began on its current site.

The society engaged Lawrence Niven as superintendent and landscape designer, who laid out lawns, groves and water in the English landscape-garden manner. The north–south spine of the garden today is roughly what he set down. In 1874 the society ran out of funds and management passed to the colonial government.

In 2015 it became the only tropical garden among the three botanical gardens on the World Heritage list. The whole grounds cover 82 hectares, the north and south ends 2.5 kilometres apart, and walking it feels less like a square courtyard than a slowly narrowing green belt.

Rubber and orchids

In 1877 the first rubber seedlings arrived from Kew. Henry Nicholas Ridley took charge in 1888, nicknamed 'Mad Ridley', and threw himself into rubber cultivation; later Malaya became the world's largest natural-rubber producer. This episode has little to do with today's flowers, but it explains why the garden was always kept as a research institution.

Orchids are another thread. The National Orchid Garden sits inside the main garden, on a three-hectare hillside holding many species and hybrids and doing breeding too. New cultivars are named for visiting dignitaries and celebrities; behind Burkill Hall the VIP orchid area displays the most famous of them.

The two new buildings in the garden's centre are the Botany Centre, housing the botany and horticulture library, the herbarium and teaching rooms. The old director's office remains in Holttum Hall and an adjacent old building, the former now a garden-history exhibit. These houses are easy to miss crossing the tropical lawn.

Six hectares of old forest

At the garden's far north remains a small patch of tropical rainforest, about six hectares, older than the garden itself — some trees predate Singapore's 1819 founding. The forest records over 300 species of herb, fern, vine, shrub and tree, more than half rare on the island. Few cities in the world still hold such a forest; Rio's Tijuca is another.

The evolution-themed zone models ancient plants as physical models; Palm Valley opened in 1879 on the old economic-gardens site. The garden has three lakes — Symphony Lake, Eco-Lake and Swan Lake — and the lakeside Shaw Foundation Symphony Stage occasionally hosts shows on weekends, with a Chopin statue on the lake's south side.