New Diamond Award Accorded to Consistently Outstanding Gardens at Community in Bloom Awards 2014

Community Gardening enters its 10^th year of existence with new award and record number of gardens at nationwide gardening competition

Singapore, 2 July 2014 – Fifteen community gardens now have the right to call themselves a Diamond Award Garden, a new award accorded only to gardens that have achieved three consecutive Platinum Awards in past Community in Bloom (CIB) Awards. This prestigious apex award – the highest achievement banding after Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze – was created to celebrate the Community in Bloom movement as it enters its 10^th year and to recognise gardens that have consistently been outstanding in their quality, community involvement, environmentally friendly practices and biodiversity.

First held in 2005, the biennial CIB Awards recognises excellence in gardening efforts by community groups in public and private housing estates, educational institutions and organisations. This year’s Awards saw a record breaking number of 343 community gardens take part, an increase of 86 gardens or 33% over 2012. The increase is due to there being more community gardens now than two years ago and also because more gardeners are keen to enter the competition to see where their gardens stand nationally. Of the 343 gardens that took part, 174 were from the categories of Public Housing, 26 from Private Housing, 86 from Education Institutions and 57 from Organisations. This represents an increase in the number of gardens across all four categories from 2012, with nearly half of all gardens in Singapore taking part.

Chief Judge, Mr Tan Jiew Hoe, who is also President of the Singapore Gardening Society, said, “The standard of our community gardens never fails to delight me; the bar is raised higher and higher by the gardeners at each competition. Maintaining a good garden is not easy and the gardeners are getting better at improving their garden design and maintaining it. Many are also creative in using the space, making it a relaxing and enjoyable place to be in. Occasionally, a whimsical design even appears and surprises. The gardens are lovely places that bring people from different ages, races and religions together.”

Mr Ng Cheow Kheng, NParks’ Director of Horticulture and Community Gardening, added, “As we enter our 10^th year of community gardening, we are encouraged to see what the community gardeners and the Community in Bloom family have achieved. There are now more than 700 community gardens all over Singapore and many of them are very beautiful, injecting vibrancy and impetus into our City in a Garden vision. The gardeners also continue to build social capital through the CIB initiative, thereby growing and gardening from strength to strength. NParks is ever ready to assist people coming forward to build quality gardens for their communities and neighbours.”

In its 10^th year now, the CIB Awards 2014 saw 169 gardens achieving the Platinum and Gold Awards. Some highlights of this year’s Awards are:

1)    Woodlands Zone 2 RC: a Diamond Garden which has been around since CIB was introduced in 2005. This pioneer garden has an open section that is conducive for residents to visit the garden anytime they want. The team of 20 gardeners from different ethnic groups grows a large variety of plants such as vegetables, TCM herbs and ornamentals. Crops harvested are shared with the community’s residents.

2)    Ang Mo Kio My First Skool: A Gold Garden which collaborated very well with various stakeholders and received strong support from the Town Council and residents, some of whom approached the school on their own accord to volunteer their time. The school encourages its school children to do simple planting while learning about the life cycles of common vegetables and garden insects. They hope to inculcate a strong sense of appreciation for greenery in their students from young – something they believe to be critical in this age of increasing technology addiction.

3)    Community Garden @ Chinese Garden (2CG):Winner of Best New Community Garden, this multi-faceted Platinum Garden is one of the largest community gardens in Singapore measuring close to 10,000sqm. As the agency managing the Chinese Gardens, JTC Corporation supported the initiative by the People’s Association (PA) and the Active Ageing Committees to promote active ageing by dedicating parts of the Chinese Garden for community gardening. This also fosters community interaction and enables Jurong residents living around the area to have greater ownership of a park they love and frequent. The garden space is located near the Confucius Court and consists of a variety of smaller gardens for the growing of herbs, vegetable, padi, and ornamental gardens such as “kampung’ style and ‘butterfly’ gardens catering to the different interests of gardeners and visitors. The gardeners have also conscientiously and creatively decorated their gardens with many recycled consumer/household items to support sustainable practices of reusing and recycling.

4)    Yu Neng Primary School: Winner of Environment Quality and Biodiversity Award, this Platinum Garden actively conducts experiments in its garden, with one of the most successful experiments being the composting of coffee powder into fertiliser. The school has collaborated with a corporate company for the supply of coffee powder, which students and staff will compost in big bins pumped with oxygen to hasten the process. The coffee compost is then packed and distributed to nearby CIB gardens and at the quarterly Gardeners’ Day Out, which is a full day event of interactive gardening related activities held at HortPark.

Besides the main awards, excellence awards like “Best Community Garden”, “Best New Community Garden” and “Environment Quality and Biodiversity” are given in honour of the exemplary achievements by community gardens. Please refer to Annex A for the recipients of these awards.

The CIB Awards judging panel consisted of 10 representatives from government agencies, professional bodies and interest groups. The awards will be presented to all gardening groups during the Singapore Garden Festival 2014 at Gardens by the Bay in August:

(i) 23 August, 2014, 5pm

Diamond, and Excellence  Awards

Guest of Honour: Mr Desmond Lee, Minister of State for National Development.

(ii) 24 August, 2014, 2pm

Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards

Guest of Honour: Dr Maliki Osman

Annex A: Results of Community in Bloom Awards 2014

Factsheet: Community In Bloom Awards 2014