Malaysia's Tropical Garden Bags Gold At Chelsea Flower Show

LONDON, May 26 (Bernama) -- Malaysia's Tropical Garden, with its distinct rainforest feel and a wakaf, won a Gold Medal at the Chelsea Flower Show 2010 on Tuesday. Announcing the victory at the launch of the first full-size tropical garden in the history of the Royal Horticutural Show since it started in 1804, Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen said the win had given the ministry the impetus, confidence and commitment in creating parks and gardens as its newest tourism product. Designed by Amphibian Designs and owned and run by Malaysian-born ethnobotanist and TV presenter of the programme Grow Your Own Drugs, James Wong, and David Cubero, the chic, ultra-modern reinvisioning of a traditional Malay village has a calm reflective pool and a pavilion framing and providing a shady retreat from the sun. Happy and elated over the success, Ng said she has invited the Royal Horticultural Society to come to Malaysia to help establish a similar structure. "Perhaps we can then identify all the appropriate gardens with potential, develop upon them so that they come under the umbrella of gardens to visit in Malaysia. "With this also, we want to develop a new career path, a career growth of Malaysia's economy and human resource development, related to gardens and garden designing," added Ng.

The minister said the concerted effort and the government's faith in the ministry to take part in the prestigious event had paid off. Since the announcement of the award, the 220 sq meter garden with more than 50 species of plants and trees from all over Malaysia has been the subject of media coverage in the UK and has created a lot of publicity and awareness of what Malaysia has to offer. The minister said that the project, which cost RM2 million, was money well spent. "This is one way to promote to the world what Malaysia is all about. Malaysia is about progress as well as nature. It is not just about beaches and islands but also about parks and gardens," she said.

For Wong and Cubero, it was 365 days ago to the day when they were introduced to the minister visiting the show and given the task to build a Malaysian garden. "The garden is inspired by both traditional kampung architecture and also the Malaysian rainforest -- two different concepts. We turned them into a garden which shows a very modern and contemporary part of Malaysia. "We've got clean lines of white limestones and the wakaf which would create interest amongst the UK audience," said Wong. The ethnobotanist turned TV presenter who grew up in Malaysia and Singapore said he was proud to be able to create the award winning garden and hoped that Malaysian gardeners would appreciate and use what was around them. "It has been a real tricky job bringing plants here. For nine months we had to look for the right species, sizes and combination but we feel that we have done Malaysia proud in creating a small piece of rainforest here," Wong added. The Tourism Ministry will donate the plants to parks and zoos around the UK after the show this weekend. "There will be pieces of Malaysia all over the country," said Ng. Also present at the launch were Malaysia's Tourism Ambassador to the UK Datuk Jimmy Choo and Malaysia's Deputy High Commissioner to the UK Datuk Rustam Yahaya.