MCA Penang State

Flower show exhibits to continue blooming at Devon garden

The Star, Sunday, 12 June 2011

 GEORGE TOWN: Some plants used in Malaysia’s gold medal-winning exhibit at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show will be handed over to the Paignton Zoo Botanical Gardens in Devon, England today.

Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen said many of the plants, which are all commonly found in the country, were actually sourced from Europe to build the rainforest-inspired show garden.


“If we took the plants from Malaysia, there would have been a quarantine period of nine months and all the plants would have died.

“So, we sourced the plants from Europe as the quarantine period from EU (European Union) countries is much shorter,” Dr Ng said after launching the 1Malaysia Parks and Gardens Festival at the Penang Botanic Gardens here yesterday. She said Malaysia’s high commissioner to Britain would hand over a number of these plants to the botanical gardens in Devon.

“All the plants that we used will be donated to various gardens in Britain, including Kew Gardens (in London).
“I’m very proud that we managed to ‘recycle’ all the plants and they were not thrown away,” Dr Ng said, adding that over 10,000 plants from 51 plant species were used in Tourism Malaysia’s Chelsea Flower Show exhibit this year.

The exhibit, visited by Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Andrew, Prince Albert of Monaco and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, was designed by garden designers David Cubero and James Wong who is originally from Sarawak.