The Orchid and the Dandelion

It seems that Singapore’s mission, while closed off to the world is to continue to rebuild and improve itself. This past week, a new giant section of the orchid garden opened. Singapore is famous for their orchids. When a head of state visits or a VIP, the botanists will create a new orchid hybrid and name it for that person as a gift. They are serious here about their orchids. The new orchid section in the botanic gardens opened last week. There was a queue of over 2 hours last weekend to get in. Being the “tai tai” that I am, I went on Monday morning at 9 am and basically had the place to myself.

Within the existing orchid garden, is a new section that looks at orchids that grow in mountain settings. One is an amazingly cool indoor building that is my new favorite place in Singapore.

The second building is the secret ravine that represents orchids in tropical mountains. Orchids grow on the ground, on the trees and even in the air!

The last area in the new section represented middle elevations and highlighted orchids from north and South America.

After the new section, I paid a visit to the VIP orchids. Prince Philip had just died when I visited, as he doesn’t have his own (that I’m aware of), I visited queens Elizabeth’s orchid, princess Diana’s and finally Michelle & Barack Obama’s. Such a fun tradition.

Last stop was to see where the orchid magic happens,the propagation labs. I think it’s so interesting, so I tend to visit this area each time I come here.

Finally, the whole time I was here, seeing all the ways that orchids literally grow like weeds here, I was thinking about the orchid vs dandelion child theory. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/03/04/699979387/is-your-child-an-orchid-or-a-dandelion-unlocking-the-science-of-sensitive-kids

One of the scariest parts of moving here was worrying how Ella would respond to the move. She had been struggling for a long while with debilitating anxiety. I had always thought of her as my orchid child.

But then, just like an orchid, when we planted her here in Singapore, she thrived! while she still has struggles, overall she’s a much happier and well balanced person here. As we look to move her home, we are very aware that we need to keep her “planted” in the right place for school. We’re hopeful a new school at home will be the soft landing she needs to keep her orchid growing in a weed like way. Meanwhile her more dandelion-ish siblings will be back to public school and hopefully they will remain the hearty dandelions they have been throughout.