As a friend says, the Botanical Gardens is possibly the best thing about Singapore and certainly, the National Orchid Garden is one key reason. I do a regular Sunday walk at the Botanical Gardens but seldom go into the National Orchid Garden because there’s usually a SGD5.00 fee and it’s not part of the exercise routine. However, it really is a small fee to pay as the area is beautifully landscaped and there is a wide variety of orchids you don’t normally see elsewhere. Since my walking partner had not been there before and there was no entrance fee this weekend, we made a welcome detour at the end of our usual walk.

It was a great morning for a walk given the drizzle cooled down what has been an exceptionally hot few months. The black swans in the Botanical Gardens’ lake were busy preening themselves which made for some fun photos since they are usually looking much more serene on the water. Anyway, back to the orchids.

The key sections of interest are what they call the VIP Orchids area and the Mist House while the Cool House has some rare cooler area orchids and pitcher plants (tropical highland environment). These sections were upgraded in the past year. The VIP Orchids showcases the hybrids created that are named for visiting dignitaries. China has panda diplomacy and Singapore has orchid diplomacy. A couple of the more recent additions are the Aranda Lee Kuan Yew named for the late founding prime minister of Singapore and the William Catherine, which is after the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (aka Prince William and Kate Middleton).

The Mist House is where the bulk of the photos below were taken. This area is definitely used to show case a variety of orchids in bloom vs. the other areas of the garden which are filled with other plants as well. But there’s also an area to try to show what the natural habitat of most orchids would look like (more ferns and palms).

A couple of the rare tropical highland orchids and pitcher plants are pictured below, taken in the Cool House. Some of these orchids were much smaller, demonstrating the wide variety of orchids there are (more than 20,000). 

It’s a larger enclosure than one would think at first and whatever upgrades were made have nicely enhanced the area. There are tons of places for photo ops which is why I was in here for more than an hour.