Min’s Garden closes a chapter after 36 years, but will live on in condo garden

SINGAPORE – For the last 36 years, Min’s Garden has thrived as a testament to the beauty of rare tropical flora.

The garden’s carefully curated tapestry of scented flora framed with lush foliage in a 7,800 sq ft bungalow off Clementi Road, has become one of Singapore’s best documented private home gardens on social media.

Its co-creator Irene Ngoo, 70, who has successfully grown some of the most finicky and temperamental flora in the Southern Hemisphere, has a talent for giving practical tips with poetic flourishes.

Take the True Jewel Palm (Licuala cordata), a rare and demanding species prized for its round, pleated leaves.

Ms Ngoo’s success with this plant, which she calls “a jewel in my garden”, has drawn admiration from fellow gardeners who follow her exploits on Instagram and Facebook.

Other rare flora which she assiduously documents include the King Fern (Angiopteris evecta), regarded as one of the largest ferns in the world; the Black Bamboo (Phyllostachys nigra), known for turning ebony black with age; and the Exotic Elephant Ears (Colocasia and Alocasia varieties), with their dramatic, outsized foliage.

Min’s Garden – named after Ms Ngoo, whose Chinese name is Ai Min – has been a back-breaking labour of love for her and her husband Ronnie Lim, 76, since they bought the property in 1990.

About 5,000 sq ft of the space is taken up by plants, such as the willowy Australian Weeping Tea Tree – with pristine white bark and drooping branches – which welcomes visitors at the entrance to the home.

But all that is about to change in the following weeks.

The Singaporean couple, both former journalists, recently sold their home, which includes a double-storey bungalow, and are “right-sizing”.

They are moving to a smaller, more manageable condominium with just a patch of green. Gardening will continue, but on a much smaller scale.

The buyers of Ms Ngoo’s property have indicated that they would like to reimagine the commodious space, so Min’s Garden has to go.

“It is a time of transition and quiet upheaval, and by far, the hardest chapter in the long story of Min’s Garden,” Ms Ngoo tells The Straits Times.

“We are in the thick of unmaking our sanctuary that took 36 years of devotion to shape and nurture – built not just with blood, sweat and tears, but with every heartbeat and breath of love we poured into it.”

She was a former vice-president of ST’s editorial projects unit. Before that, she was an ST journalist for 30 years.

Over the years, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, Min’s Garden has inspired garden lovers around the world. It has notched more than 136,000 followers on Instagram and Facebook combined.

Ms Ngoo has recorded her toils and triumphs in nurturing more than 1,000 plants from over 200 tropical species on her social media platforms since September 2016.

These were carefully pieced together with Mr Lim, a former news editor and oil and energy editor at The Business Times.

He started writing about his affinity for nature in a long-running series from 2000 to 2006 in BT. The column was titled Gardener’s Log By Thien – the character “Thien” in his Chinese name, Thien Woon, means “sky” in English.

Mr Lim said in a 2006 book compilation of his columns, A Gardener’s Log By Thien, that it was “a record of how our garden has grown, just as we have grown as gardeners”.

The home garden has won a string of accolades.

Four years after moving into their abode in Sunset Heights, the couple entered the Gardens of Singapore Competition in 1994, organised by Singapore Post in conjunction with Clean and Green Week. Their garden was named a finalist in the landed garden category and received a Merit award.

The following year, in a 1995 competition jointly organised by the Housing Board, National Parks Board (NParks) and Singapore Post, Min’s Garden won first prize in the Landed Garden category.

Then in 2006, Min’s Garden won first prize in the Best Home Gardens (Semi-Detached or Bungalow) section of the Community In Bloom contest, organised by NParks. The landed home category was later discontinued.

The inaugural Community In Bloom contest by NParks was launched in 2005. The programme was aimed at encouraging community participation in gardening and enhancing Singapore’s green spaces.

The judges looked for a range of qualities, such as gardens which had healthy plants and which were not treated with harmful pesticides.

But it was during the Covid-19 pandemic, starting in 2020, that Ms Ngoo’s posts on “lockdown gardening” – posting tips and tricks online about indoor gardening – found global success with netizens looking for ways to boost their mental resilience through gardening.

Min’s Garden online went from a visual hub for posts about a Singapore home sanctuary to a global inspiration.

“Covid-19 brought everything to a standstill, so people suddenly had more time to notice their surroundings, the green spaces around them,” recalls Ms Ngoo.

“During those uncertain times, sharing glimpses of my garden on Facebook and Instagram became a way to stay connected. What surprised me was how much those posts took off. My little ‘tropical jungle’, as many began to call Min’s Garden, became an escape for followers who were stuck indoors.”

Commenters said seeing her posts was like visiting a “green sanctuary online”, proof that life carries on – lush and abundant – even in the middle of one of the worst global health crises of a generation, disrupting every facet of life.

“The posts that struck the deepest chord were those that revealed the raw abundance of Min’s Garden. Followers were fascinated by how I managed to grow healthy and happy plants in the tropical heat, and the way I packed such a wide variety, including towering trees, into what is really a modestly sized space,” Ms Ngoo recounts.

Unlike manicured, orderly gardens, she says Min’s Garden looked more like a jungle to the global online community – and it thrilled them.

“People found it useful that they could learn from my approach through my many posts – how to work with the climate, embrace density and let nature express itself without always trying to control it.”

To her surprise, some of the most popular posts turned out to be those she had uploaded on rainy days when she was battling the elements, especially videos of tropical downpours and thunderstorms, which somehow drew thousands more viewers.

One such post garnered more than 10,400 views on Instagram, with over 130 comments.

“Perhaps it is proof that people secretly love watching other people get drenched, as long as it’s from the comfort of their own dry homes,” says Ms Ngoo with a laugh as we sit on a rustic bench with our cups of coffee, in another part of her enchanted garden.

Another follower joked that Ms Ngoo must have “whispered a secret fertility spell” to her plants, commenting that no ordinary gardener could coax them into growing with such exuberance.

Yet another fan, going by the Instagram handle of nicholas_fletcher, said: “Watching your garden was what got me through the Covid lockdowns.”

But as the pandemic dragged on for a few more years, the devotion of Min’s Garden’s followers revealed the quiet power of Ms Ngoo’s tireless work through rain or shine.

At a time when people were masking up and wary of proximity to others, one follower by the name Maioccominoyshi wrote a tribute on Instagram, expressing the belief that in nurturing plants, people also nurture one another.

“Thank you for sharing with us your beautiful garden, Miss Irene. When I was at my lowest low and struggling with my mental health, I watched your videos and it gave me warmth, peace and serenity. You are a part of my healing journey.”

Visitors from overseas came to see her garden while in Singapore – with a few even returning for a second visit.

The couple welcomed groups from as far away as New England and the Bay Area in the US.

When Ms Ngoo posted in June 2025 that she was leaving Min’s Garden behind and that it would be dismantled by September, the reaction was overwhelming.

Thousands from around the world – including from Thailand, the Czech Republic and South Africa – flooded her social media pages with messages of heartbreak, dismay and healing.

For many, it was not just the end of a garden. It also felt like the closing of a cherished chapter they had been a part of.

“To Min’s Garden’s followers, it had become more than a physical place. It was a sanctuary and a reminder of gentler rhythms,” Ms Ngoo says.

Some said they cried, while others compared the farewell to the loss of a dear friend.

Instagram follower Sommerapril said: “I will miss this paradise of yours. It’s been three years since I started following and you are my inspiration in gardening. I’m looking forward to your coming paradise.”

Others were more optimistic, anticipating new beginnings with a “Mini Min’s Garden”.

In the last few weeks, Ms Ngoo has been hard at work in her garden, trying to salvage as many plants as she can, and rehoming some.

Several lorry-loads of her plants have gone to friends’ gardens and a greenhouse plot she has rented as a temporary holding place. Others have gone to a community farm.

Many of her biggest and rarest plants – some of which are over three decades old – have been packed off to Shangri-La Singapore, to be showcased at the hotel’s Atrium Garden in the Garden Wing.

Even as the last potted plant finds a new home, Min’s Garden is blooming in perpetuity as an online resource for novices and enthusiasts on Facebook and Instagram.

But the new iteration – call it Mini Min or Min’s Garden 2.0 – is full of possibilities. Ms Ngoo and Mr Lim are upbeat about their new condo garden space, which is slowly finding its legs.

She adds: “Like the ancient Indian and Balinese beliefs in Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva – the energies of creation, preservation and destruction – there can be no creation without destruction.”