Rooftop Secret Garden

First and foremost,  I would like to thank Dr. Francis Ng for inspiring me with his passion and vision in gardening.

Below is a picture I took in March 2010 of the award winning extraordinary scientist, botanist, forester, plant explorer and walking dictionary that I had the privelege to meet. He has green fingers and the Midas touch in gardening where anything and everything he cultivates, turn into gorgeous blooms and luscious plants.

Once he remarked that Malaysia is an equatorial country with everlasting summers and no harsh winters, so we should be growing flowers and having gardens that bloom the whole year through. But many of us started with flowers and ended up growing only 'leaves'. How true!

Dr. Francis S.P. Ng is the botanical consultant of The Secret Garden of 1-Utama, reputed to be the first rooftop garden in Malaysia. He has many years of experience in plant exploration and scientific research while attached to The Forest Research Institude of Malaysia (FRIM), the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, and  the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in Bogor, Indonesia. Dr. Ng has an extensive knowledge of thousands of species of tropical plants in our region. Recently he was the recipient of the David Fairchild Award for botanical exploration 2009 which is a timely recognition for his contribution to plant conservation.

Dr. Ng writes a blog, "Tropical Gardening" which you can visit here.  He is still actively involved in consulting, lecturing and writing. The Secret Garden of 1-Utama which I often feature here in my blog is only one of the many projects he consults.

picture courtesy of MPH Bookstore

Dr. Ng's latest book, "Tropical Horticulture and Gardening" is now available in soft cover edition at MPH outlets. For details, click on MPH's website here. I have a copy of the hard cover edition with 360 pages and I find that it contains a lot of information about the plants of Malaysia and the tropical rainforest. It is fully illustrated with a pictorial guide to 1,000 types of ornamental plants. Certainly a great reference book to look up tropical plant names and profiles.

My favourite post: Coffee From The Rooftop.

To read more, please click on the links provided below:

1.  About The Secret Garden of 1-Utama - A Rooftop Garden

Visiting Hours: 10am - 10pm

Opened on Saturdays, Sundays and Public Holidays

FREE Admission

Photograpy allowed but No-Smoking

Contact: 1 Utama Shopping Centre Customer Service Centre: 603-7710 8118

2. The Rainforest of 1-Utama - A rainforest inside the 1-Utama Shopping Complex.

3. The Giant Water Lily - Victoria amazonica at 1-Utama Shopping complex.

All my posts on flowers from The Secret Garden are labelled "1-Utama".

You can also look under labels at the bottom of my blog.