Princess d'Annam Debuts one of Tropical Asia's Premier Landscaped Gardens (Vietnam)
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Princess d'Annam Debuts one of Tropical Asia's Premier Landscaped Gardens (Vietnam)
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Category: Asia Pacific - Vietnam
This is a press release selected by our editorial committee and published online for free on 2009-11-05
The master hand of Singapore Botanic Garden’s Ginger Gardens applies a similar touch to the gardens of a Vietnamese resort
Resorts across Southeast Asia love to sing the praises of their tropical gardens. But most are appurtenances that serve only to adorn the architecture or the hardscape itself. Not so at the Princess d’Annam Resort & Spa on Ke Ga Bay in Vietnam.
And nothing proves the point more pointedly than the ceremonial planting of the specimen stakes here next month. The chief gardener at the exclusive new resort has identified 50 of more than 200 gingers for placement on aluminum placards that will serve as a guide to guests.
At the same time, the resort will debut tours of the remarkable new garden.
“Resorts enhance their appeal with pools, with spas, with children’s play areas and all kinds of amenities,” said Jean-Philippe Beghin, general manager of the Princess d’Annam. “Gardens are usually what you do to dress up pathways and buildings. But these gardens are a destination in their own right. There is nothing else like this in the region.”
Unless you reference the Ginger Gardens in Singapore Botanic Gardens. Alan Carle, who designed the one hectare Ginger Garden in Singapore, also designed the resort’s gardens at Princess d’Annam.
The Ginger Gardens command an 1800-square meter-site at the heart of the resort. The multifarious gingers hail from all across Asia, from Arabia, New Guinea, the Caribbean, Solomon Islands, Madagascar, Mexico, East Indies, North and South America, West Indies and the Pacific Islands.
The ceremonial planting of the garden stakes coincides with the first, fully vibrant flowering of the garden. In other words, the gardens, after three year’s gestation, are fully matured.
Like Beghin, and the Singaporean chief gardener, Alan Carle believes the resort’s garden is the only landscaped garden of this scale at a resort in Southeast Asia. In a recent interview, Carle said the greatest challenge to the development of these gardens was cultivation of the site:
“It was a tropical beach and a sandy site. The conditions for growing gingers were abhorrent,” said Carle. “Occasionally it was extremely windy, sand blew across the site like snow; the monsoon season was short, and most of the year was very dry, which is great for tourists, but not so good for humidity loving plants.”
How did you overcome these ‘abhorrent’ conditions?
Carle: “We had to ‘create’ an environment suitable for these plants, which meant bringing in soil to create mounds and beds, designing paths to ‘lead’ visitors to different places; but most importantly we had to create a ‘canopy’ of trees and palms to simulate a rainforest.”
Are there similarities between this garden and the Ginger Gardens of the Singapore Botanic Gardens?
Carle: “Yes, the similarities are that at PDA we designed a garden with an overstory to protect plants from the strong sun and winds, and we engineered pathways that invite visitors to leave the main thoroughfare to explore different routes, and different plants.”
What is the signature flourish of the Princess’s garden?
Carle: “The garden is a lung. It’s a stunning oasis of tropical splendour and variety, adjacent to the resort pools, on the way to the spa, restaurant and beach. The underlying hardscaping was designed to present plants to visitors in a visually stunning setting, yet with 'secret' positions.”
What’s the most remarkable feature to be found in the garden? Most remarkable plant?
Carle: “The garden itself is an oasis of verdant green herbaceous plants. Etlingera elatior gingers are a standout plant with large brightly coloured blooms, used in landscaping, as cut flowers and in food (rojak)! The spiral gingers —the costus, especially Costus woodsoniana are great right now with bright red terminal cones that linger for many months and each morning produce a small edible and delicious day flower.”
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