Sprout in Singapore

Professor Sprout showed up for the last day of the Singapore Garden Festival and posed for pictures with fans in line to see her miniature greenhouse!

Singapore: Staff Workshop

We held a two-part workshop to introduce staff members of the Botanic Gardens to the principles of miniatures and miniature gardening. After an extensive introduction to the concepts governing Miniature Settings— especially style, scale, and story—we worked on using natural materials to construct mini garden twig furniture, including tables, fences, and chairs. The second day focused on using a kit for making a more formal arbor. The kit was created by Nancy Grube and had excellent instructions. After that, adding plants and creating a story that each person wanted to tell with the dish garden resulted in a quite amazing variety of gardens. We loved illustrating the idea that everyone starting with the same materials will produce something unique as long as they make it their own through storytelling.

THE FIRST DAY

Louise introducing the concepts of miniature gardening.

Construction of twig furniture: fences, tables, chairs, and swings.

A finished fence section.

Not everyone was able to attend both days and other staff members stopped by to see the work.

THE SECOND DAY

Nancy explains the kit instructions.

Assembling the kits.

The color-coded instructions. Very easy to follow.

The final arbor assembly.

And painting to make it look less new.

Deb helps with plant selection.

Adding plants and accessories.

Creating a miniature campfire.

THE RESULTS

Muhammad Taufiq Bin Jumal created a garden for his LEGO mini figures. He inspired me to go home and use our LEGO collection to make scenes with gardens.

Detail of Muhammad Taufiq Bin Jumal’s garden.

Shereen Tan surprised us all with her wonderful fairy garden, complete with a door to the fairy home and miniature accessories.

Detail of Shereen Tan’s garden.

Dennis Sng created a camping retreat with a tent and a glowing campfire.

Detail of Dennis Sng’s garden.

Donna Kok Fee Yin made a beautiful garden that used both the formal arbor and some twig furniture. She will put in a swing hanging from the tree and placed a twig chair under the arbor for a mother to sit and watch her child.

Detail of Donna Kok Fee Yin’s garden.

Bian Tan delighted us all with his “hurricane garden” in which everything is being blown sideways by the mighty winds.

Detail of Bian Tan’s garden.

Singapore Workshop #1

We conducted a workshop for the winners of a essay contest on why they wanted to create a miniature garden. We had a beautiful setting and lots of help presenting the workshop. Many thanks to the staff of the festival.

These are the participants of the first workshop with their wonderful creations.

 

The Singapore Displays, Part 1

Our miniature exhibits are a hit in Singapore, with people waiting in line to see them, just like in Philadelphia. Here are a few pictures, with more to follow. All of the gardens have been re-done since their appearance in Philadelphia.

Fabulous Singapore

We have arrived, unpacked, and set up our miniature exhibits for the opening today of the 2014 Singapore Garden Festival. We have had the most amazing support and help from the staff here as we have worked through the logistics of getting these mini gardens looking good. Many, many thanks to the highly competent and friendly staff of the festival who have made our work so much easier and pleasant.A few images of our setup; the final gardens look better than they did in Philadelphia, in great part because of the fabulous plants chosen for us by Dr. Wilson Wong of the Singapore Botanic Gardens.

Deb and Nancy unpack one of our huge shipping crates.

Wilson Wong selected excellent miniature plants for us.

Just a few of the miniature plants we had to play with.

So happy the birds made it intact.

Deb begins construction on one of her exhibits.

Adding the details.

Adding the plants.

Nancy adds accessories to hers.

Wilson visits to watch the progress.

Deb surprises him by using several plants that are considered weeds in Singapore!

Nancy also used the “weeds” to great effect.

Some of the succulents and Tillandsia I used.

Singapore

Deb Mackie, Nancy Grube, and I have been invited to the 2014 Singapore Garden Festival to introduce miniature settings and miniature gardens to their show. We will be each be bringing two of our previous Flower Show entries and will be teaching workshops for the staff and for the general public. This has been keeping all of us busy since the end of the Flower Show here and in a few weeks we will be sending our exhibits off to Singapore. Since we can’t bring plant materials into the country, we will be provided with miniature plants and will recreate our settings there. It will be quite a challenge since we only have two days to unpack, reconstruct, and plant our settings! Should be fun. We will be posting from the show in August.

Here are the exhibits we will be bringing:

Deb Mackie

2014 The Lady of Shalott

2004 The Fountain of Peirene

 

Nancy Grube

2014 Wright Beside Them

2004 Samantha’s Wedding

 

 

Louise Krasniewicz

2013 Harry Potter Greenhouse

2014 The Birds