Toh Garden

The Singapore Garden Festival is fast approaching on the 15th of July. Setups have already begun for a few days now with heavy hardscapes making the initial entry whilst the softscapes coming in batches. Vendors and designers are also promptly preparing.

Here’s a glimpse of the entrance of the 4th floor’s orchid show still at work :

The Oncidium Walkway

Be dazzled by these Oncidium trees along the aisle leading to the main site of the orchid show. The trees look like a mass of gold from afar and when passing beneath them, there’s some resemblance to cherry blossom trees during their seasons but with yellow blossoms instead of pink ones.

(The Oncidium Golden Shower/Golden Wish, also known as the “Dancing Ladies” in layman term, is one of the major cut orchid exported by Singapore. This hybrid is also commonly used for orchidscapes and displays that augment its characteristicly elegant arching manner of its flowers, in an outward manner, as its flowers matures.)

Another spectacular view that was close to completion yesterday was the stalagmite and stalactite orchidscape fixated and blended into the main entrance just outside the site of orchid show. The ceiling of the entrance and a few other trees that are also covered with a range of different coloured hybrids from the Oncidium Alliance.

Orchids secured to the ceiling

Stalagmite & Stalactite

Those who are keen on attending the Garden & Orchid Show, you may grab your tickets at
http://www.singaporegardenfestival.com/ or at the front desk of the showroom at Suntec City Convention Hall. The Garden Show will be on from the 15th to the 22nd of July.

For vendors, traders, growers and societies who are exhibiting/visiting Singapore during this period of time may contact us for a visit to our nursery to learn more about tropical orchids that we grow in Singapore’s nurseries. We will be available to bring visiting groups from the 18th of July on.

More pictures updated below just before the start of the show:

In commemorating the centennial celebrations in the year 2010, the Singapore Scout Association has adopted a unique Orchid hybrid, and named it the Dendrobium Singapore Scouts. The Dendrobium Singapore Scouts is lime green in colour, which is the blend between selective colors extracted from the classic (khaki) and current (olive green) scout uniform colour. The blended colour signifies recognition of Singapore Scouts’ past contributions, and also their present and future endeavour. Apart from its representative colour, the Dendrobium Singapore Scouts is a productive Orchid plant which is vigorous and free flowering. It is also fragrant! With sufficient nourishment and sunlight, the flowers are long lasting and the sprays of flowers bloom all year round.

The Dendrobium Singapore Scouts was registered on the 20th Jan 2010 and officially unveiled during the 100th Year Anniversary Dinner on 27th Feb 2010 at Suntec International Convention & Exhibition Centre. The Dendrobium Singapore Scouts’ unveiling ceremony was graced by Guest of Honour, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, who was a Scout during his former years as a student.

Scouts and friends who wish to purchase this orchid now may do so by placing an order with the Scout Shop (In Singapore Scout Association HQ). If you desire to visit and purchase directly from our nursery, kindly remember to bring along your Scout membership card for exclusive discount entitlement to the Dendrobium Singapore Scouts & other potted Orchid varieties.

In line with the centennial celebrations, the Singapore Scout Association have a few major events lined up this year for Scouts and their families to get together. For those who have missed the anniversary dinner, look out for the next event, the ‘Centenary Scout Rally’ on the 22nd May 2010 (Saturday) at Hwa Chong Institution. More details can be found on Singapore Scout Association website at http://www.scout.org.sg/.

*This entry was backdated.
**Photos courtesy of Singapore Scout Association

We have found a peculiar anomaly within our nursery. Previously, we have reviewed ‘Splash Mutations’ that involves a rare splash-patterned pigmentation on the petal/sepals. In a nutshell, mutations are changes in plant/flower anatomy and characteristics, brought about by environmental and/or genetic factors. For this anomaly in particular, we have queried several growers whom have decades of experience;  and none of them have yet to witnessed such a peculiar sight. Perhaps this (quoting one of them), is indeed  a “once-in-a-lifetime” experience.

Before we review the anatomical anomaly in fuller detail, it should be known that Dendrobium flowers typically have 2 petals, 3 sepals and 1 lip (actually a modified petal). Anatomically speaking, a flower is enclosed by 3 sepals (within a flower bud); and through the process of blooming, the inner surface of the Sepal is showcased, together with the enclosed petals and lip.

Found amongst a patch of Dendrobium Red Bulls, we came across a peculiar  “rose”. We have observed the fusion of at least 3 sets of flowers, into one single “rose-like” entity.

The above anomaly, technically termed as “fasciation”, occurs whereby several sets of petals/sepals are fused together into one flower. Fasciation could be attributed to many possible factors like pathological infections; introduction of chemicals/ hormones; physical injury to growing tip of bud; amongst others. Certain sources of research also highlights that conducive conditions for rapid growth is a necessity for such a phenomenon to occur. In this anomaly, we can observe that a certain degree of anatomical integrity being maintained, whereby the flower bud still involves the enclosure of floral parts within 3 Sepals. It is only upon blooming, then fasciation can be observed. It was most fortunate that such a rare sight has been captured on camera, as it is believed that such anomaly occurs highly randomly, and that chances for a second sighting would be extremely hard to come by.

Frequently unknown to most layman, orchids can produce many phenotypic colours and traits in a single cross with multiple alleles suppressing each other. Taking for example the above crossing between the brown curly, purple lipped Dendrobium Spatulata and yellow and red lipped Dendrobium SGH. Their progenies gave rise to a bizarre phentypic combination of  orchids as shown below.

Note the number of different variant from this spatulata type x with phalaenopsis hybrid type of Dendrobiums. Some have more curly petals as they gain more Spatulata characteristics, while others have less curly petals due to the influence of the Dendrobium Phalaenopsis genetics. Note that most of the progenies retained the red/purple lipped characteristics of both mother plant, however for some of them, the red/purple lip characteristic is missing. This is probably attributed to a pair of double recessive alleles resurfacing in progenies without this characteristic. Some gain more brownish characteristic, other gain more yellowish characteristic and the rest have intermediate colours between brown and yellow for their petals.

This example was specifically used to illustrate that phenotypic traits can be derived from both parent plants. Some progenies may have traits from either one parent strongly expressed while other progenies may have an intermediate between various characteristics of the two parents. Secondly, recessive traits underlying both parents plant may also resurface (E.g. for some of the progenies, the red/purple lip characteristic is absent despite being present in both parents). Recessive traits may stay dormant for several generations before resurfacing again many generation later.

That’s how interesting a single cross can be and particularly in this crossing as the colours and traits of both parent plants are greatly different and where recessive traits were observed. The greater number of difference in phenotypic traits, the greater number of variants in the offsprings. In fact, for this crossing, almost every single plant were unique from the others. =)

Splash mutations are well sought after by many collectors and hobbyist as they occur very rarely, maybe one plant in a thousand of non-mutants. Splash mutations are mostly unstable mutation and can only be propagated vegetatively to reproduce more of them. Thus, their rare occurence and difficulty to reproduce augmented their value as collectibles.

If you were to tissue culture one of these mutation, its very likely (based on our experiences) that the non-mutant form will be reproduced. Although for some, there’s a chance of obtaining a very small percentage of the tissue cultured crops with splash mutations.

Here at TG, we’ve been trying to stablise the splash mutation by hybridizing splash with splash for a few years. Theoretically, we believe that if the resultant seedpod produces splash progenies, the chance of the progenies being capable of being tissue culture with retained splash characteristics will be much higher. However the chances of producing such a crossing would probably be extremely slim.