February 25, 2025 – Written by Kevin Chen
During the 2025 Lunar New Year that just passed, Gardens by the Bay in Singapore set up a large-scale of flower displays around the theme of the Lunar Year of the Snake. This festive tropical display captures the essence of spring for those of us still enduring the cold season.
Not many people may know, but Gardens by the Bay and TERRA NOVA® are well connected. Gardens by the Bay is a long-term customer of GP Plants, one of our licensees in Europe. Because of this connection, TERRA NOVA® plants had landed in Singapore and had been used in the displays of Gardens by the Bay many times, especially our Begonias, Coleus, Fatsias and other heat tolerant plants.
In 2017, our TERRA NOVA® team visited Gardens by the Bay for the first time. Then in 2018, the two companies met each other again in Beijing, China, at the Spring Variety Show of Beijing Florascape, one of TERRA NOVA®’s licensees in China.
Beijing Florascape (BJFC) is one of the largest landscaping companies in China. At that time, as is one of the main suppliers and constructors for 2019 Beijing HortiExpo. BJFC undertook multiple landscaping projects for Beijing HortiExpo. At the same time, Gardens by the Bay (GBB), represented the Singaporean government for the 2019 HortiExpo and set up the Singaporean display garden. Through the introduction of our managing owner Ken, BJFC and GBB got to know each other. The three-parties meeting brought together the owners of a renowned exhibition garden, a well-known plant breeding company, and an exceptional landscaping firm. From then on, GBB invited BJFC to Singapore every year to set up a themed landscaping project for GBB. This year, the themed display is called “Legend of Lady White Snake”.
This themed display was set up in the Flower Dome. At the center stage of the whole garden, there is a 4.5-meter-tall floral rendition, which is the protagonist, Madam White Snake, meticulously crafted through plant mosaiculture.
Legend of Lady White Snake
Because this year is the lunar Year of the Snake, Gardens by the Bay uses a series of floral displays which inspired by Legend of the White Snake, one of China’s four great folktales, which tells the story of the union between a mortal man, Xu Xian, and a female snake spirit, Bai Suzhen, also known as Madam White Snake.
The Flower Dome is the largest of the three cold greenhouses of Gardens by the Bay. Different flowers and other ornamental plants from five continents are gathered here. Different themed plant displays from all around the world are regularly updated, attracting thousands of tourists every year and becoming a world-renowned gardening destination.
Gardens by the Bay is the largest public park in Singapore and is an important site for people in Singapore to enjoy flowers and relax. This year, right after the “Legend of Lady White Snake” displays opened to the public, it quickly became the focus of the media and received unanimous praise from tourists from all over the world. All the “Lady White Snake” themed displays were produced by Terra Nova licensee, and the leading China landscaping company Beijing Florascape.
The comparison of the landscaping work in GBB with the original pavilion in Hangzhou, China (The scene in folktale).