TIFE Pt.5 Gardening Competition

Took the bus shuttle from the Yuanshan Park station and alighted at Gate 5. This was where the Taipei Gardening Community had their landscape competition displayed. Some ideas are new and some are traditional. Still there are ideas to gain and appreciate.

TIFE Pt.4 Global Gardens

We crossed over to the Yuan Shan Park Area and visited the Global Garden Displays and Singapore participated in this segment.

Entries from ......

Malaysia ........................

Philippines ................ I was taken in awe by the way the Bromeliads were displayed. They definitely attracted my attention.

Thailand ......................

Indonesia ............

Singapore .... Steel Cities Moving Gracefully To New Horizons.

Very disappointed with this display. The three red balls are no landmarks to Singapore. Maybe the Esplanade durian shaped domes could have done better or the Merlion displaying its chracteristic sputting of water. Bougainvilla blooms could have provided a better color scheme except that I wonder if they can keep their blooms here in the winter season. I did see a bonsai bougainvilla bloom in the bonsai garden here in the Pavilion of Regimen.



Oman ......

Amsterdam .........

TIFE Pt.3 EcoARK

On my first visit on a Saturday morning at the expo, many people were forming a very long queue to get into this ECOARK. My estimate was that the last person in the queue had to wait at leat 60 mins. to get to the entrance. So we changed plans and returned the next day in the evening at about 8pm and the queue was much shorter. Still we had to wait for 20 minutes before we could enter the ark. So here is an entire building which had the outer walls made out of pet bottles.

Below .... the hype of the pet bottled walls lite up using LED lightings and the walls can change colors. It is a pretty sight seeing the colors alternate between blue and white lights.

The inside had these bamboo poles constructed to form barriers next to the pet bottled walls.

As it was Fashion Week ..... the displays had these themes and I saw three get ups put on mannequinns , all made from recycled material. They were showy pieces but what left me wondering was that they were placed somewhere away from the centre of attraction. They should have been put together with the attractions on the first floor and there should have been more pieces to show off the creativity of the Taiwanese Fashion Designers using recyclable material. I felt let down by the displays on the first floor .... put together by Vogue magazine using multimedia .... haiz!

TIFE Pt.2 Gold Award For Floral Display

This entry has been given a gold award. It has tillandsias, cactii and succulents on their vertical walls. Interesting ideas and feast for the eyes .... on shades of green.

Below ...... are some perculiar displays seen in the same area .......

Look at what they do with Earth Stars ...... when combined with so many of the them together and also with the orchids displays ...... they do catch my eye.

Taipei Int'l Flora Exposition Pt.1

Had a chance to visit the Taipei International Flora Exposition and so we found ourselves at the entrance of Yuanshan Park buying tickets for a three day visit pass.
On our way there we already saw signs of massive flora and foliage displays lining up towards the entrance.



Below ..... vertical garden walls seen on almost every wall that advertised for the Expo.



Begonias growing so well on the grounds and it's already the beginning of the winter season for Taipei.

The Coleus varieties color up the pathways leading towards the Expo. sites.

We visited the Expo. Dome which housed the Floral displays by the commercial artists.

Below .... Orchid Flasks stacked up as a centre of attraction ....


A Musical Fairy balancing on a ball of flowers .....

Deorated Harp .....

A 'Coffin' of Orchids .....

Cups of Anthuriums and Bromeliads ....

Brugmansias Buds Bloomed!

I remember it was only in August this year when I planted the one foot high plants into the ground. I thought I had to wait for a year before I could see flowers. But last week when I checked the plants I noticed that one of them had something different growing and realised that these were flower buds. Due to the rains I noticed that some buds had also dropped off. On Sunday evening I was greeted by two CGers who were working in the CG and they said that the flowers are very pretty as they had never seen such kinds of flowers before. One of them even asked if she could have a pot of such a plant and I just frowned at her ... LOL

These blooms greeted my dd and I when we visited the CG to do weeding. Dd was so curious and even took one of the flowers to sniff for fragrance .... it's sort of lemony she said. I did like wise and well .... the fragrance was very light. Maybe got to sniff the flowers sometime in the night to breathe in the more concentrated scent. Who knows ... and maybe then you find some strange on goings in the CG in the night ..... LOL

(It was written somewhere that the brugmansia flowers when eaten or sniffed at can produce a high in the human brain. The plant is not edible.)