How a leper settlement, Sungei Buloh, became the horticultural hub of Malaysia

Gardeners all over Malaysia know of Sungei Buloh as the hub of horticulture in Malaysia. Centred on the grounds of the old Leprosy Hospital and Settlement, Sungei Buloh has, during the past 50 years, become the place to see what is new and available in garden plants.

In the early years of the 20^th Century, lepers were sent into exile in islands such as Pangkor Laut and Pulau Jerejak. In 1930, the Hospital and Settlement in Sungei Buloh were established by the Government of British Malaya to serve as a central facility to treat and house leprosy patients, and the island settlements were gradually closed. Sungei Buloh became one of the largest leper settlements in the world and a centre for research on the treatment of leprosy. The patients lived in simple one-room duplex houses with a bit of land around each house on which they could grow vegetable and keep chickens. The patients and their families had practically no prospects of getting out and reintegrating with society at large.

By the 1950s the doctors were confident that leprosy was treatable and not as infectious as previously thought, but social acceptance of patients posed a huge problem. Then John Wyatt-Smith of the Forest Research Institute (FRI) at Kepong a few miles down the road decided to do something about it. He arranged for about 30 able-bodied men from the settlement to be employed at the Institute. This was no small undertaking. No other organization was willing to offer employment. FRI was able to take the lead because John Wyatt-Smith was such a respected and towering figure at the Institute.

When I joined FRI in 1964, Wyatt-Smith had just retired, but the men from Sungei Buloh had become indispensable. They did all the toughest jobs, moving heavy loads, felling trees, clearing land, and looking after the plant nursery. In the process they earned the respect of their co-workers.

Meanwhile, others in the Settlement were encouraged by the Hospital to take up the growing of ornamental plants, to sell by the roadside in front of their houses. Slowly overcoming their fears, people in Kuala Lumpur began to go to Sungai Buloh to buy plants, because such plants were cheap compared to elsewhere. In the 1960s, the Hospital organised a garden show, in which Lam Peng Sam and I were the judges.

My nurseryman at FRI was Mat Isa bin Bulat. He died a few months ago, by then a highly successful businessman and living in a big bungalow at Sungei Buloh. As a youth in Langkawi, Mat Isa’s world crashed when he was diagnosed with leprosy. Sent to Sungei Buloh for treatment, he was one of those selected to work in FRI. I was at that time making an encyclopedic survey of fruits, seeds and seedling of forest trees. This work would eventually be published in two thick volumes and to become the reference textbook for those in the business of raising forest trees for urban planting. At that time no such business existed.

Mat Isa looked after the hundreds of species of forest trees that I was raising, learning to recognise all the plants and their names. He learnt not only their Malay names but also their scientific names (Greek and Latin to most people) from the labels I attached to the plants. Then one day, he shocked everybody by announcing his resignation, to go into business. Kuala Lumpur was taking up urban greening in a big way and there was a willingness to try new species of trees from the forests. Mat Isa saw his opportunity. He could recognise and name hundreds of species of forest trees by their local as well as their scientific names. He rented land from his neighbours to set up nurseries in Sungei Buloh, and was able to supply the growing demand. I did not know how he was progressing until some years later, when he overtook me on the on road to FRI and waved cheerily. He was driving a Mercedes while I driving my Datsun. On another day, while having a drink with him in a coffee shop he told me how he had just lost a large sum of money. It was stolen from his car when he had stopped for lunch after withdrawing the money to pay salaries. It was something like RM 20,000. ‘Did you report to the police?’ He merely shrugged, ‘What’s the point?’.

Over the years, Sungei Buloh has become the centre of a highly innovative network of self-made men and women engaged in the horticultural business in Malaysia. This network keeps thousands of people employed, not only in Sungei Buloh but also in feeder nurseries outside KL, and as far distant as Cameron Highlands and Muar. New flower varieties are usually first offered in Sungei Buloh before they appear elsewhere.

From its original hub at the hospital area, flower nurseries have been established in the surrounding area. Sungei Buloh provides a good example how the best commercial or industrial hubs come into existence ‘organically’ through time. It requires the interaction of many individuals, in unique ways, in some unique place. Such a hub can be easily destroyed but not easily duplicated elsewhere. As an example of how planned hubs can fall short, we have the so-called ‘green lane’ on the road from the Sungei Buloh junction to the Rubber Research Institute. All along one side of the road, the land has been divided and let out to nurseries, but such nurseries are strung out for several miles, and the road has become a noisy, busy highway. It is unpleasant to walk from one nursery to the next and dangerous to park and re-park on the roadside. It is also impossible to make a U turn. At the historic hospital hub, one can visit a large number of different nurseries within a small area, in peace and quiet.

Now that leprosy and been beaten and its hospital relegated to history, the horticultural hub and its historical buildings, especially the one-room duplex houses, survive as a monument to an ancient and terrifying scourge finally overcome by medical science. There are those eying the hospital land for redevelopment, who have no interest in history nor in the role of Sungei Buloh as the hub of the Malaysian horticulture industry—an industry that, unlike other industries, has been developed by gutsy individuals with little or no political support.

(An earlier version of this article was published in the Star Newspaper on 2 July 2011)

Putrajaya Floria 2011

I have just come back from Putrajaya after spending the day at this year's Flower Show or Floria 2011. This is the best flower show I have yet seen in Malaysia. It is certainly full of colourful flowers and some designs are finally reaching international standards.

In the evening, at 8 to 10 pm there was a splendid parade of decorated floats on Putrajaya Lake -- a first for Malaysia -- accompanied by fireworks and music. The concept and technology were copied from Soochow, China, and there was a team from Soochow in attendance to see how Malaysia was doing. Pretty good for a first attempt! Fourteen gaily decorated barges took part, sponsored by various states and corporations, including one from Brunei. We were told that one barge tipped over and sank during preparation.

The best time to go is morning when the plants are fresh. In the afternoon many plants are visibly drooping. They perk up again in the evening when it is cooler. Those going in the evening will not regret staying on for the float parade.

The show is for 9 days, which I think is far too ambitious. The plants are all in pots and many of them will have to be replaced from day to day. By the fifth day some of the exhibitors may run out of replacement plants.

The political protests in Kuala Lumpur today may have reduced the number of people at Floria 2011 but even so the car parks were full, and the evening crowd was dense.

Rooftop Secret Garden of 1 Utama under renovation

The Secret Garden is being renovated part by part so as not to inconvenience visitors. The pathways are being re-surfaced to make them less slippery. At the same time the drainage is being improved for storm water to drain out faster. The big palms are being removed because we are afraid they are getting too heavy for the floor, which is the roof of the shopping mall.

A new free brochure is being designed that will be more informative than the present one.

A new visitor's book will soon be introduced in which visitors will record the time they come to the garden. This will enable us to plan better. Flowers have their times too. Some are morning flowers that fade in the afternoon and several are late afternoon flowers. So far we have favored whole-day flowers. We also prefer plants that flower year round, to give us SPRINGTIME ALL THE TIME. We do not grow night flowers because the garden is not open at night. We are also giving up on plants like petunias that that are quickly destroyed by snails.

The number of visitors average 300 to 400 every weekend. Most visitors are locals. We have just been included in the Ministry of Tourism's new brochure entitled 'Parks and Gardens Trails of Malaysia', which should bring us to the attention of foreign tourists.

If one googles under 'Secret Garden of 1 Utama' one can read about 100 blogs on it. These, together with comments in the visitor's book have provided us with useful guidance.

Canna virus in Malaysia

Cannas in Malaysia are susceptible to what looks like a viral disease. The symptoms in Malaysia are stunting of plants, patches of dead tissue on young leaves, reduction of flower-size to half the normal size, and progressive stunting and weakening of the clump or bed until no more shoots appear. Separating out the rhizomes and cleaning them before transplanting does not help unless the disease is detected before it has spread to all the rhizomes.

At the early stage of infection, the bed should be dug out and the pieces of rhizome bearing swollen buds separated out for replanting. When new shoots emerge, the plants that are infected can be recognized by dead patches of tissue on their leaves. Such plants should be eliminated immediately, leaving healthy plants for starting new colonies. The virus takes several weeks to spread through a bed of cannas so there is time for such corrective action if one is alert to the symptoms of infection.

The virus does not travel in the air or soil. Plants in the next bed a short distance away may remain free of infection. I think the best way to prevent infection is to remove all canna shoots as soon as they have finished flowering. Such spent shoots should be cut off at their base. A regular once-a-week pruning programme will improve ventilation of the canna bed and deter white flies from settling on the leaves. White flies suck sap and are probably the agents spreading the virus in Malaysia.

In temperate countries, where cannas are sold as rhizomes, the canna virus has been disastrous for the canna trade because it is impossible to tell whether a rhizome is infected until it is grown out. In Malaysia and elsewhere in SE Asia, cannas are sold as full-grown plants, usually flowering, so it is immediately apparent from the condition of the plant whether it is infected.

Availability of the book Tropical Horticulture and Gardening

The hardcover edition of Tropical Horticulture and Gardening, published by the Academy of Sciences Malaysia and listed at RM260, is no longer available. I understand that the stocks were stored in a room that was too hot and humid for book storage. The pages got stuck together, making the books unusable.

I was provided with a number of hardcover copies of the book instead of royalties. Of these, 30 copies are still available. In response to requests, I have arranged to place autographed copies at the Hort Park Nursery in 1 Utama (next to Mamak Corner) to sell at RM 100 each. Hort Park Nursery does not have a place to display books so one may have to ask the shopkeeper, Nizam, where he keeps them.

The manuscript was originally offered to Times Publications to publish but it was politely rejected. I also made approaches to Oxford University Press and Timber Press but they declined.

I then worked with a designer to obtain the tightest possible integration of pictures with text. My aim was to provide maximum useful information in the minimum number of pages, while making every page a visual treat. Normally a designer works to a fixed template and leaves the text alone. By working side by side, the designer and I were able to arrive at a nice design solution for every page, sometimes by adjusting the pictures and sometimes by adjusting the text, making full use of the flexibility and power of modern publishing software to resize and move things around instantly. When everything was ready, I had a complete full colour sample hand-printed and bound, which I took to the Academy of Sciences Malaysia.

The Academy had received a grant from Government for publishing scholarly books. It published the book, but it had no marketing experience. The books stayed in its store room during the two years when it had the marketing rights. When that period was over, I searched for a new publisher. A friend took it to the boss of MPH and that is how the book finally made it to the MPH bookshops as an inexpensive soft-cover edition. All set up costs had already been absorbed by me and the Academy.

Thank you, John and Jacq www.jaycjayc.com and Autumnbelle http://www.mynicegarden.com/ for reviews of the book in your gardening blogs.

Avocados for Kuala Lumpur

After my blog about avocados in 2007, I have been getting requests for avocado plants that I have found difficult to respond to on a case-by-case basis. Yesterday I made a deal with a retail outlet at the 1 Utama Shopping Mall. This is a small place called Hortpark Nursery on the Lower Ground Floor, next to the Mamak Corner. I have placed two plants there, which are all that I have to spare at present. Hortpark Nursery will take care of them and sell at RM25 per plant to cover their expenses. Hortpark also sells horticarbon in 5 and 10 kg bags. Shoppers should bring bring their own strong bag for big items. Hortpark is open from 10am to about 6pm.

The avocado plants being made available are seedlings from the best plant of about 20 selected clones that I have tested. The clones were acquired by MARDI (Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Centre) through international collaboration many years ago. The Research Assistant in charge of the collection offered me a duplicate set of this collection. I was at that time establishing the Fruit Tree Arboretum at FRIM (Forest Research Institute Malaysia). He brought me a set of bud-grafted plants all the way from MARDI to FRIM, a considerable distance to cover on his motorcycle, at his own expense. This person was about to retire and felt that his many years of effort would disappear without a trace unless he could pass it on. He was right! Avocados have disappeared from MARDI’s agenda.

I planted most of the clones at FRIM, and a few around my house. Over the next 20 years, some of the trees failed to flower and fruit under our conditions. One flowered but never fruited. One remained stunted at about 3 ft tall. One fruited only after 10 years. One produced oversized fruits, but only in small numbers. The collection in FRIM gradually died out after I retired, but I had already identified and propagated the best tree.

This tree fruited at 6 years old and has been fruiting every year. The fruits are smooth-skinned, green in colour, and medium sized (supermarket size), with smooth pulp. It is self-fertile, which means a single tree is enough to produce fruits. This is the tree that I have been propagating and giving away, but I can only produce a small number at a time.

At about the same time as the avocados were offered to me, another scientist, working at an oil palm research centre, Bakasawit, was about to retire to England. He offered me an international collection of coconut varieties that he feared would be lost upon his retirement. Sadly, I had no place for coconuts in FRIM.

Those were times when scientists collaborated across institutions and did what they thought was best in the public interest. That spirit no longer exists.

There are extensive ‘germplasm’ collections of rubber, oil palm, bananas, sweet potatoes, etc in our research institutes, many acquired through exploration and exchange at great cost and effort. All are in danger of being lost upon the retirement of the scientists who built them up, but it is almost impossible for outsiders to get anything out. They are treated like official secrets.

I am working with UTAR at its university campus in Kampar to set up an agricultural resource centre where we hope to establish our own collections for research, teaching, propagation, distribution and exchange. Avocados will be on the agenda, with other fruits and plants of agri-horticultural interest. We hope to establish an ethical model of trust and collaboration between scientists and the public, without which Malaysian agriculture will stagnate.

Fakery versus reality in Malaysia

The Malaysian Press has been busy during the past few days covering the forthcoming Sarawak State Elections and the news of fake eggs being sold in a market in Penang.

The fake egg issue is the more immediate. A non-government expert on fake eggs, interviewed by the press, has warned that fake eggs are made with chemicals, which are dangerous to health. The Consumers Association of Penang has raised the issue with the government, which responded immediately by sending officers to raid the market and seize hundreds of eggs. After cracking open the eggs, the government experts declared the eggs to be real, but to be doubly sure, they decided to send some of the eggs to the Chemistry Department for DNA tests. The results have not yet been announced. Meanwhile the sale of eggs in Penang has plummeted. To ensure the safety of consumers, the government has declared that it will devise a system to ensure that only certified eggs will reach the market. The Consumers Association alleges that the Government officers confiscated and tested the wrong eggs.

The finger of suspicion has been pointed at the usual suspects--unscrupulous entrepreuners in China, who have already been implicated in faking milk powder, buns, music CDs, Omega watches, Gucci handbags, etc, etc. They seem to have now targeted Malaysia, capitalizing on the inability of Malaysians to distinguish real eggs from clever fakes. If they can fool people in Penang, they can fool people anywhere. The shop keeper from whom I buy eggs is a very worried man because he does not know how to tell a real egg from a clever fake although he has been selling eggs for 50 years. He is thinking of giving up the egg business because DNA sequencing is too high tech for him. It may be easier to sell cameras, but another friend, who sells cameras, says that one has only six months to sell a new model before it is obsoleted by the next model from the same manufacturer. The shelf life of cameras is approaching the shelf life of eggs.

Fake flowers have never been an issue with anybody. But real flowers have posed problems. There was a big scare last year with flowers that allegedly have the power to trigger cancer in people who come near them. Nobody was willing to test the allegation, and the furore seems to have died down.

On the back-burner is the issue of whether the video of an alleged political celebrity filmed in the act with an alleged prostitute is real or fake. The police have checked the video and found it to be real, but nobody is sure whether the celebrity is real. The celebrity in question refuses to cooperate with the police and hand over his DNA. The police are now looking for the alleged prostitute to confirm whether she is real.

To be continued...