Exporting our horticulture services

8 Sep 2011

Singapore is internationally known as ‘a city in a garden’, with almost 50% of the city covered by greenery. However some of the city’s horticulture students are being taught by Brisbane based landscape architect and horticulturist Arno King.

Arno is an associate director at Deicke Richards and is involved in a range of education and advocacy projects.  Over the past two years, he has been contracted by Annette Irish of A.I.M.S, a Brisbane consultancy, to help facilitate the Certified Practising Horticulturist program for Singapore’s Centre for Urban Greenery and Ecology (CUGE). The program provides students with an internationally recognised certification in horticulture and landscape practice and is the ‘peak apex’ program for all senior staff in Singapore’s private and public sectors. It covers subjects including botany, water and soils, plant selection, landscape estimation, landscape design and documentation.

The opportunity to teach in Singapore arose following A.I.M.S’s participation in a Queensland Government trade mission in 2006. Arno spends about four weeks annually in Singapore to intensively deliver components of the program.  He believes there are important lessons to learn from the clean green city. ‘Singapore’s image is very much based on the landscape,’ says Arno. ‘Its identity is about the idea of  ‘a city in a garden’. We can still do so much more in Queensland, in terms of greening our public realm and urban spaces.’

Arno also worked for A.I.M.S researching and writing standards for training frameworks for Horticulture, Landscape and Floristry for the Singapore Government and the standard for the Certified Practising Horticulturist program for CUGE.