The Garden by the Bay is located on the Marina Bay in Singapore. It is next to the Marina Bay Hotel and is within walking distance from the Downtown Core. It is a large garden that covers 250 acres of reclaimed land. The Garden by the Bay is one of the top attractions in Singapore and is one of the must-see attractions when visiting Singapore.

The garden is not what you would expect to see in a city like Singapore. From a distance the strange looking structures can be seen surrounded be jungle but these structures and jungle is the garden.

These large strange structures are called “Supertrees”. Supertrees look like something seen in Avatar or a futuristic Sci-fi movie. These Supertrees are between 25 and 50 meters tall and are actually vertical gardens. In total there are 18 Supertrees that support over 160,000 plants with over 200 species which include bromeliads, orchids, ferns and tropical climbing plants.

To get an aerial view of the gardens the OCBC Skyway is a 128 meter semicircular aerial walkway that is suspended 22 meters in the air and connects between 2 Supertrees. The skyway allows you to walk among the Supertrees and see a bird’s eye view of the gardens.

The Supertrees are not the only distinctive feature of the Garden by the Bay. The gardens also includes two large domed greenhouses that are designated as the Flower Dome and the Cloud Forest.

The Flower Dome is the largest glass greenhouse in the world. It contains 9 garden areas with flowers and plants from around the world and has separate garden areas for a Mediterranean garden, an olive grove, South African garden and South American garden.

The Cloud Forest Dome contains an indoor cloud forest set on a 35 meter tall mountain that includes the world’s tallest indoor waterfall. The Cloud Forest Dome houses plants from tropical highlands that will make you feel like you have been transported into a tropical paradise.

Aside from the gardens over-the-top features of the Supertrees and the domed greenhouses, the main park area is a lush setting of tropical trees, flowering plants and lakes. Bridges allow you to cross over the lakes, boardwalks allow you to walk alongside the lakes and walking paths allow you to walk though out the other parts of the park.

As you walk through the garden you will notice that there is more to the garden than trees, plants and flowers. The area is decorated with sculptures and other decorations. Dragonfly Lake has two large stainless dragonflies and a fountain, some areas have themed statues and other areas have decorations scattered through the park.

It seems like the garden has so much to see that you almost overlook the flowers but of course there are lots of flowers in the garden. The gardens are full of tropical flowers and I have included a few photos of some of them.

Many times when you visit a major city garden the activity ends when it gets dark but not the Garden by the Bay. When the sun goes down the Garden by the Bay comes to life with an array of night lights. The pathways are lit up, the lakes are lit up, the OCBC Skywalk lights up and the Supertrees begin to glow creating a nice ambiance throughout the gardens.

If you didn’t feel like you were visiting Avatar during the day then you will when walking through the Supertrees at night. The nighttime atmosphere is really something special.

The finale of the day is when branches of the Supertrees begin to twinkle in rhythm to a soundtrack against the night sky and the color of the Supertrees randomly change colors. This is a free show that is called the Garden Rhapsody show and happens nightly at 7:45PM and 8:45PM. The photos below don’t capture how spectacular the show is but they will give you an idea of how wonderful it is to experience.

When visiting Singapore make plans to spend one afternoon and evening at the Garden by the Bay!