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Sunflowers and us :)

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While I was unable to attend the field trip, seeing the pictures that my groupmates brought back, I could not help by envy the amount of fun it must have been viewing the breathtaking flora in the Changi nursery. Doing online research for this project has piqued my interest in horticulture and has opened my eyes to the amount of hardwork that Changi Airport is putting in to ensure that the every corner of the airport is filled with varying hues of flowers and every breath in the airport invigorates the senses with the alluring smell of fresh flora. Now the next time I'm about the hop onto a flight, I will take a step back and appreciate the meticulous work that the Changi horticulture team has put in to maintain the beatiful landscapes of the world-renowned airport. (http://nowboarding.changiairport.com/discover-changi/fascinating-facts-you-never-knew-about-the-gardens-at-changi-air.html)

-Sim Tao Ming

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Learning from the Changi Airport Nursery, a Garden in a Garden City 

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Learning from the Changi Airport Nursery, a Garden in a Garden City 

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Upon stepping into Changi Airport, Singaporeans and tourists from other countries will be able to enjoy the greenery in Changi Airport, taking a glimpse into Singapore as a garden city. Furthermore, the beautiful plants and flowers in Changi Airport will leave a lasting impression before they leave Singapore. At the same time, instead of just having shops and eateries in the airport, the greens help to soften the physical and visual appearance, providing a unique and more pleasant experience in the airport. Not to forget, this development of Changi Airport Nursery also aims to support our late Mr Lee Kuan Yew's vision to build a clean and green first-world country.

The nursery helps to grow the colourful annuals and flowering plants to be displayed both indoors and outdoors in Changi Airport for visitors to view. It prepares and acclimatizes the plants as well as recuperate and regenerate the plants returned from the display. This allows them to upgrade and revamp existing gardens as well as create new designs that match various festivals and events. There is also research carried out in the nursery regarding the growing of medium, chemical treatments and plants sustainability.

The indoor landscapes include the thematic gardens, photo gardens and general landscape. Compared to the traditional plant nursery, this nursery caters to plants living indoors, hence are not exposed to sunlight for photosynthesis. As such, the growth factors provided for the plants need to be carefully calculated and the light intensity and irrigation in the nursery needs to be calibrated differently. The plants are mainly grown using hydroculture methods to ensure sustainability of plants indoor. As the plants need to complement the features at Changi Airport, the nursery needs to consider several factors such as space, visuals and environmental factors before growing the plants for landscaping. Nevertheless, these plants that are carefully thought through helps to accentuate the features of Changi Airport. Some of the landscapes located indoors in Changi Airport that the nursery is responsible for maintaining includes the orchid garden and sunflower garden.

The outdoor landscaped include the roadways and airside. Unlike traditional plant nursery, as the plants cover a large area, automated irrigation systems are often implemented to reduce cost and manpower. As these plants are located near airways where planes take off and land, plants that bear fruits are often avoided to prevent bird strike and concerns that involve wildlife.

Last but not least, the next time you visit Changi airport, remember to enjoy the greenery!

Ho Pin Hui, M18607

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This field trip has opened our eyes to the unique business of nurseries, and the major role they play. Before this module, we probably never stopped to think where the beautiful plants that make Changi the wonderful airport it is come from while we run to our flights. We also probably never thought about nurseries at all, as working with plants seemed like an unattractive career with not much of a future.

However, this field trip, and as an extension this module, has really opened us to a whole new world where we learnt that plant growing is a very interesting field with need for many young and talented minds. We learnt more about a nursery's role in general, and learnt to appreciate this when we realized how much they have contributed in making Changi Airport the world's best airport. Think about it: although our service is excellent, there is also always a background of peace and tranquility that is made possible by the beautiful flowers everywhere, be it the looming flower wall, one  of the largest in the world, or the various exhibits on display for festive seasons and retail exhibitions. Though we may not notice them often, they definitely have a meaningful impact when compared to many other airports that lack these beautiful flowers.

We also learnt about how much effort it takes to grow a plant from scratch to maturity. The nursery grows various plants locally, but also imports various unique plants. The guide informed us that these plants may not be ready for our climate, and thus needs to be slowly exposed to the climate before being moved to the airport or it is almost immediately transported depending on whether it will be placed outdoors or indoors. Even though they could have simply used easy to grow local plants everywhere, the effort they put in to go the extra mile by purchasing and acclimatizing the plant really astounded us.

It is also important to not that although horticulture has been around since human first started to grow his own food, till this day, it is still growing by small steps ad large leaps. Although nurseries have to concentrate on their business thus, they are still able to contribute in their own way. This nursery has created new tools as shown below, and this is really impressive as we got to observe first hand how easily they could make various small holes or one big hole in the soil (for example) with specialized tools that let  them speed up menial processes. Such creativity is a small example why we still need young and talented minds in the field.

Although many of our friends  found this job to be unattractive as it seems to be such a waste of time and resources to have unsustainable growing habits (the guide informed us that sunflowers in the sunflower garden have to be swapped out regularly due to their short lives before they start wilting) just to put pretty flowers  everywhere, it is important to note that this field also needs  innovation when it comes to  landscaping and the development of green buildings around the world. Who knows - maybe we could find a solution to extend the longevity of sunflowers!

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Challenges and uniqueness of  indoor and outdoor landscaping

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Challenges and uniqueness of  indoor and outdoor landscaping

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Perhaps one of the main challenges faced by the Changi Airport Nursery is the fact that they have to produce plants that are acclimatized to both the indoor landscaping of the terminal gardens and the outdoor landscapes along the roadways and the airside. For traditional nurseries, the plants grown are not made for a specific purpose of environment.

For indoor landscaping, the nursery has to mimic light intensity and temperature conditions that are similar to that of the indoor gardens to acclimatize the plants to that environment. Unlike traditional nurseries, they have to consider the type of medium (hydro vs soil) that best suits both the plant and the environment in the indoor gardens. Lastly, due to the lack of wildlife indoors, the plants often lack the biotic components of the growth factors required for plants  to grow well. This often results in the plants having to be frequently replaced. Alternatively, the nursery can consider growing plants that have a longer flowering time.

For outdoor landscaping, the nursery have to produce plants in large quantities/ensure they have a long lifespan, as often, a large amount of plants are required to line the boulevards to the airport. To ensure that these plants are consistently irrigated and to cut down costs of manpower, the nursery employs an automated irrigation system. Additionally, plants that attract wildlife are often avoided as they attract birds and other wildlife which can result in birdstrikes due to low flying aircraft.

-Ethan Ho
M18607

References:
https://www.advancednutrients.com/articles/special-challenges-while-indoor-gardening/

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The wild-type flowers in contrast to the mutated flowers, have leaves with a larger surface area.

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The mutated Bougainvillea flowers are an example of how genetic engineering can come into play for aesthetic purposes.

When the International Monetary Fund came to visit Singapore, the organizers wanted to ensure that the Bougainvillea flowers would flower during the period of visit. They contacted the botanists who came up with this breed of Bougainvillea flowers which were guaranteed to flower during the desired period. However, this breed of flowers are not viable.

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How the nursery supports the operation of Changi Airport- a look at the floral landscape

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How the nursery supports the operation of Changi Airport- a look at the floral landscape

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This year, Singapore's Changi Airport has once again retained its spot as the world's best airport on the Skytrax top 10 list. Undoubtedly, the world's top airport is bustling with activity and attractions including a movie theater open all day and a rooftop swimming pool that sometimes even the most seasoned travelers can forget that they are in the comfort of an airport. What takes the cake among all the attractions in Changi Airport has to be the beautiful floral landscape in its numerous nature-related attractions.

Changi Airport boasts a 13-man strong team of Horticulturalists who care for more than 500,000 plants scattered across the airports 4 terminals. The many plants in Changi Airport form the bulk of the breathtaking landscapes in attractions like the Butterfly Garden, the Cactus Garden and the Enchanted Garden.

An unassuming plant nursery built on a 3-hectare plot of land about 25 minutes away from the terminals of Changi Airport houses over 500 different species of flora and plants. The nursery provides a controlled environment for horticulturalists to grow the necessary plants and ensure that they look the best before carefully transferring them to the captivating landscape displays.

The nursery is equipped with state of the art technologies such as a self-irrigation system which carefully dispenses just the right amount of water for the plants!

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Introduction to the Changi Airport Nursery

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Introduction to the Changi Airport Nursery

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The Changi Airport Nursery grows plants that will be transferred to the various gardens in the different terminals. A ground for production, acclimatization and recuperation of plants. The nursery is also an important location for research involving growing mediums and sustainability.

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The highlight of the trip! - Changi Airport Nursery grows 13 different species of sunflowers and imports the sunflower seeds from many different countries. Their most successful plants are grown from seeds imported from Taiwan.

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The automatic irrigation system is one of the innovations of the Changi Airport Nursery. The system serves to irrigate the many sunflowers in the nursery automatically and is connected to solar panels. It is a smart and efficient way to keep the plants irrigated while saving on manpower!

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We learnt how to re-pot a potted plant quickly and without the plant's root system being destroyed:

1. Fill the desired new pot almost completely with new soil.
2. Using a shovel, create a center portion in the new soil that can accommodate all of the original soil.
3. Use your hands to compact the original soil by pressing on the sides of the original pot.
4. Carefully remove the plant (with the soil intact) from the original pot. The root system should hold the soil intact.
5. Place the plant with the intact soil into the empty portion in the center of the new soil.

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Just another spark of innovation - a shovel made out of PVC pipes!

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Transferring plants from soil to water medium

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Transferring plants from soil to water medium

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Often, plants are transferred from soil to grown in a hydro medium (in this case Leca) before it is used for decorative purposes.

1. Three of the shoots are uprooted and placed together in a cyclic fashion.
2.  The desired pot is filled halfway with Leca medium, and stones are used to weigh down the medium particles.
3. The 3 shoots are placed in the desired pot and the pot is filled to the top with leca medium

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After germination, the sunflower shoots are left to grow under controlled conditions (less sunlight) for 1-2 weeks. Thereafter, the shoots are transferred to a larger pot to allow expansion of root system for it to grow taller

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Here, we were showed how to re-pot a Coleus plant from its cutting:

1. Cut of the stem slightly below a low leaf branch.
2. Trim of some of the leaf branches to allow for a long enough stem to insert into the soil. (and to prevent the leaf branches from rotting）
3. Prepare 2 of such cuttings.
4. Fill the desired pot completely with soil.
5. Insert the cuttings deep within the soil, a slight distance apart from each other.

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The nursery equally mixes washed sand, compost, top soil and coconut husk for their soil. The sand has to be washed after obtaining it from the beach to get rid of its salinity. It is washed by the rain and hence it is left outside the shelter!

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From top down, moving across: Perlite, Vermiculite, Water Retention Gel (Water Absorbent Polymers),  Leca Chips, Peat Moss,  Pine Compost (Commercial Type),  Leca, Bark (Pine), Sand (Washed), Coir Pitm, HFFY 7, Top soil,  Rice Husks,  Clay,  Compost (from CAG nursery), Pumice Stone

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These tools were created specifically for planting seeds and transferring plants by the Changi Nursery employees. It truly speeds up the process, and is very innovative indeed!

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http://www.changiairport.com/en/airport-experience/explore-changi/things-to-do-articles.html

http://nowboarding.changiairport.com/discover-changi/fascinating-facts-you-never-knew-about-the-gardens-at-changi-air.html

https://qz.com/410561/the-worlds-best-airport-has-a-horticulture-team-a-butterfly-garden-and-500000-plants/