by Camillia Anum Mohamad Ashraff (24S03B) and Michelle Lee (24A01A)
It’s no secret: school is tiring. Whenever we have an opportunity to shut our brains off, we’re more than happy to.
Which is why we may not have noticed that an empty grass patch was wrapped in blue tarp overnight. After a few months, a garden bloomed in its place.
It’s now home to the Sensory Garden, a serene place tucked away near the Marymount exit. The almost magical atmosphere seems to come straight from a childrens’ book, and like all the best gardens, the Sensory Garden comes alive at night.
The garden has most likely caught your eye as you leave school after dark. Twinkling fairy lights adorn the archway to the garden, while lanterns line the paths. However, the garden is more than just a sight for sore eyes—it’s also a labour of love.
Sowing the Seeds
Raffles Press was given the opportunity to interview the team behind the garden—Mrs Christina Khoo, Mrs Selvamani Nair and Dr Abigayle Ng—to learn more about how the project came to fruition.
We also had the pleasure of meeting Mr Zaid from the Estate Department, whom the teachers say played a big role in helping the garden come to life. His expertise in logistical management and knowledge of safety precautions helped to ensure everything went smoothly!
A seamless marriage between beauty and sustainability, the Sensory Garden is meant to be a “treat for all the senses,” says Mrs Nair. “We wanted students to have a place to feel nature at its best.”
Lined with pandan and lime, which produce calming fragrances, the Sensory Garden represents the culmination of the teachers’ goals. It is for students to experience nature at its best, and to have a place to ground themselves when stressed.
However, this is not the first time that flora and fauna have been incorporated into the RI environment. Mrs Khoo and Mrs Nair have been planting plants for the past 15 years to promote biophilia and encourage butterflies to visit.
The Sensory Garden is simply an attempt to create a stress-free environment for students that piques all their senses, bar taste: windchimes (hearing), a textured walkway (touch), lemon and pandan plants (smell), and colourful flowers (sight).
Every aspect of the garden was thought out to the finest detail. “The walkway is actually designed as an infinity loop, so there is no dead end to the garden experience,” says Mrs Khoo.
Even the location of the garden—right by the Marymount gate—reflects the teachers’ wish for students to be able to enter school happy, and leave school happy.
The plants that were planted are also specifically chosen to attract certain butterflies. For example, the Tabernaemontana divaricata or pinwheel flower (Mrs Nair’s favourite plant in the garden) were planted to attract the Oleander hawk moth, which is green, black and white in colour.
Mrs Khoo’s favourite plant, the Asclepias curassavica or bloodflower, was planted to attract the plain tiger butterfly.
A key aim for the teachers was to encourage students to learn about biodiversity conservation. Mrs Nair describes it as a step by step process beginning with exposure to the local flora and fauna. “There are a lot of things to learn from the plants. The more you know about the plants around you, the better you can conserve them.”
The garden’s interactive nature allows students to fully immerse themselves. It provides an opportunity to learn about the plants around them while taking a break from hectic school life. The first step of conversation is to create interest, and what better way than captivating it through plants and insects?
Nurturing the Magic
The meticulously curated plants are complemented by the attention to sustainability. The fairy lights in the garden are solar powered and only turn on at night, ensuring that electricity is not unnecessarily wasted.
The teachers fondly remember when the fairy lights were put up in the garden initially. They had decided to wait in school till sunset to see the lights turn on. “We were the first three people to visit the garden at night,” recalls Dr Ng.
While mapping out the features and plants of the garden came easily, the main issues were logistical—finding construction companies—as well as balancing their existing workload with their plans for the garden.
Teachers and students alike have reacted positively to the fairy lights. Many say that seeing the lights makes them happier after a bad day. A teacher has even said that walking around in the garden gives them inspirational thoughts.
The garden is far from complete. The teachers teased new additions to the garden, but declined to give specifics. “Every time you enter the garden, there’s something different to see. Today it could be caterpillars, and tomorrow you might see moths and butterflies,” Dr Ng says.
Students are encouraged to interact with the garden—without damaging its biodiversity, of course. Mrs Khoo stresses the importance of being considerate of others and the environment. “You can tear off a small part of the pandan or lime leaf to smell it, but you shouldn’t tear off a whole bunch of leaves.”
We hope the garden continues to blossom as time goes on. Pay it a visit when you can!
It is undeniably a treat for all the senses.