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by GILLIAN
MURDOCH
High-rise gardeners unearth key to cooler cities
SINGAPORE: Koi carp, goldfish, and a
collection of giant tropical ferns: The only thing missing from
this model modern Asian garden is – the garden. Complete with
white reflexology pebbles underfoot, the breezy oasis is situated
high on the 12th floor balcony of one of Singapore’s ubiquitous
government-built high-rises.
Having an apartment garden relieves the “monotony” of living in
concrete, creator Furn Li said. “We needed something natural, like
plants and fish, to add some life. It’s a far-fetched idea for us
to own a landed property, but, anyway, we have a nice garden
here.”
The rapid post-sixties rise of the urban tower block saw landed
properties demolished for mass housing projects; and made
backyards the domain of the minority who can afford detached
homes. It also created a unique urban gardening culture which is
starting to flower as new voices popularise the idea.
Setting himself the goal of “bring gardening to the masses” Wilson
Wong, 28, started the Green Culture website in September 2004.
With no gardening shows on TV and plant nursery staff often
puzzled about how to advise apartment gardeners, the forum has
attracted hundreds of active high-rise gardeners, keen to swap
ideas and plant cuttings.
“I thought I was the only one – the only odd nut, the only crazy
person – interested in growing vegetables” Wong, whose
balcony-less flat houses 80 African violets, South American
bromeliads and pitcher plants, said. “Now people get to know each
other. They exchange plants, meet, make nursery trips together. It
makes gardening so much less painful.”
The same desire to fill the void drove Hong Kong’s Arthur Van
Langenberg to write Urban Gardening, his response to the wealth of
“glossy books dominated by sweeping lawns and massed tropical
plantings”.
Like others he started small – growing vegetables in wooden
packing crates on verandah as a teenager. Now the 66-year-old
doctor, who never dreamed of owning a tree, has avocado, papaya
and lemon trees in metre-deep troughs. Hundreds more plants grow
in pots and in the lawn that he planted on his first floor
apartment’s bare concrete yard 15 minutes from Hong Kong island’s
CBD.
“When people first looked at the photographs in the book they did
not believe I could grow all those plants. The Hong Kong Gardening
Society came over to check!” he said.
Engineer Furn Li’s four-year transformation of his concrete
balcony won him Singapore’s inaugural apartment gardener of the
year award last year. Created for his wife, it reminds him of
growing up surrounded by trees in Malaysia, he said.
While others lack the time and resources to build beautiful
fountains and custom-fit fibreglass fish tanks, many share the
desire to connect with pre-high-rise roots.
But memories of pre-high-rise life in the “kampung” – the Malay
word for village – remain strong, Boon Kiat, whose lush
seventh-floor balcony is alive with orchids, violets, ylang ylang,
and a red flowering rose, said.
“People miss their kampung days when they had durian and banana
trees; so they try to bring their childhood back into the
apartment,” the 36-year old engineer said.
In cramped cities, owning green space ties into wider issues of
who can afford what, Singaporean academic Lai Ah Eng, who studies
community social relations, said.
“Where you live and in what type of dwelling is one of the main
status markers in land-scarce and status-conscious Singapore ...
Though there are also those who don’t care a hoot,” he said.
As well as reducing air and noise pollution, plants lower ambient
air temperatures through evapo-transpiration, and by blocking heat
from the sun with their leaves.
“From the scientific point of view, every plant produces a cooling
effect,” Prof Nyuk Hien Wong, of the National University of
Singapore, said. “The rule of thumb is one degree less is a 5%
(energy) saving. Against this backdrop, Asia’s apartment gardeners
are taking a small, but important, step in the right direction.” –
Reuters
 
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