HortPark

Most parks want admiring. This one wants copying.

HortPark is for anyone who gardens, or would like to, and the way to use it is to steal from it. Pick two of the themed gardens, photograph the plant labels as well as the leaves, and go home with one idea for the balcony. Come on a breezy morning, before the heat; the gardens are free, and the only thing worth booking is a workshop.

The idea behind the place is the reason to go. When it opened alongside the Southern Ridges bridges in 2008, it was billed as South East Asia's first park built as a "one stop shop" for gardening: recreation, education, research and retail in one 23-hectare setting off Hyderabad Road. So it is less a landscape than a catalogue, laid out to be walked through. Even the locked buildings had a job. The prototype glasshouses, which are closed to the public, were used to test materials, cooling systems and humidity control for the conservatories at Gardens by the Bay. You can't go in, but it is a pleasing thought as you pass: the domes everyone photographs were rehearsed here first.

Choose your thread by what you have at home. Cooks should start at My Backyard Kitchen, with herbs, spices and edible flowers suited to Singapore and Asian cooking, then move on to the Valley of the Edibles and its heirloom vegetables used in local dishes. If you have a corridor rather than a lawn, the Espalier Garden is the useful one: plants trained flat against a wall, which is about the only direction an HDB corridor allows. Design-minded visitors get the Silver Garden, all grey and white foliage, and its warm-toned opposite, the Golden Garden.

The smaller gardens repay a slower look. The Native Garden groups more than 100 local species by what they were used for: medicine, food, timber or habitat. The Streets of Singapore Walk follows trees whose names inspired roads and towns, across 15 signboards, and it will change how you read a street directory. The therapeutic garden was the first in a public park in Singapore, designed for older visitors and people with dementia or limited mobility, which makes HortPark a good outing with a grandparent. And there is a large replica of the Toa Payoh dragon playground in the SG50 Community in Bloom Garden (anyone who grew up here will want a photo with it, and will deny wanting one).

Families with preschoolers should go straight to the Nature Playgarden, which beats the usual slide: a stream children can redirect from log to log and hollow bamboo poles that each sound a different note. Pack a change of clothes for anyone who takes the stream seriously, and look for the terrapins by the pond on the way out.

HortPark also makes the gentlest start or finish to the Southern Ridges. The Floral Walk leads to Alexandra Arch, the leaf-shaped bridge designed by LOOK Architects, and on to Forest Walk, so you can do the gardens first and walk off the inspiration after. Labrador Park is the nearest MRT, with a short bus ride or walk to Hyderabad Road. Workshops and events such as Gardeners' Day Out are booked separately through NParks.

Good to know HortPark is at 33 Hyderabad Road; Labrador Park is the nearest MRT, with a short bus ride or walk from there. Workshops and NParks events such as Gardeners' Day Out need separate booking, so check the NParks site for current hours, map and programmes before you go.

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HortPark | 33 Hyderabad Road, Singapore 119578 | Nearest MRT: Labrador Park