PAPER NATIONAL LANDSCAPE CONFERENCE 2004

BOOST OF NEW LIFE :

COLOUR DIVERSITY IN TROPICAL GARDEN ADORNED WITH BRIGHTER FUTURE

By

Datuk Dr. Saharan Hj. Anang
Director General
Malaysian Agriculture Research and Development Institute
MARDI HQ, P.O. Box 12301 General Post Office
50074 Kuala Lumpur

Abstrak

Kehidupan masa depan yang lebih selesa dan ceria dapat ditingkatkan dengan membangunkan landskap yang berfungsi dan berkualiti. Tumbuhan landskap masa kini dan hadapan mempunyai peranan penting untuk mengujudkan landskap yang ceria dan selesa di taman tropika. Pengenalan dan penggunaan spesies baru untuk landskap masa kini dan akan datang akan menambah kepelbagaian dalam rekabentuk landskap tempatan. Warna yang terhasil dari tumbuhan landskap memberikan input yang amat besar kepada kita untuk merancang dan menghasilkan landskap yang harmoni untuk masyarakat. Pembangunan spesies baru dengan kepelbagaian warna seharusnya melalui proses penyelidikan dan pembangunan teknologi yang akan menjadi pemangkin kepada perkembangan industri landskap. Teknologi seperti penggunaan spesies hutan tempatan, pemilihan pokok eksotik yang sesuai, pembiakbakaan spesies orkid/hibrid dan juga kaedah bioteknologi dalam menghasilkan warna dan bahan tanaman akan membantu menambah kepelbagaian warna dalam landskap. Proses pemilihan dan pembangunan spesies berdaya maju dijangka akan dapat merealisasikan kehidupan masa depan yang lebih berkualiti, bersinar dengan pengolahan konsep yang tepat dan bersesesuaian dengan kehendak serta situasi landskap di masa hadapan.

Abstract

A better and comfortable life can be improved through creation of functional and quality landscape. Currently, landscape plants play important role of creating beautiful and conducive environment in tropical garden. Identification of new species for current and future landscape will add diversity to the local landscape design. The colour from the landscape plants gives very deep impact to man in planning and creating a good landscape design for the public. New species development with colour diversity is important through research process and technology development to enhance the landscape industry. The identification of local forest species, selection of the right exotic species, breeding of orchid species/hybrid and the use of biotechnology techniques in producing colour variety will help adding colour diversity in landscape. The selection and development of promising species is expected to develop better future. These include the process of conceptual planning and implementing an appropriate landscape garden.


Introduction

This working paper aims to outline the planning strategies and use of landscape plants, either native species or exotic in the future by focusing on various aspects of colours. Plants play important role as fillers on some landscape features and more importantly they add the aesthetic values to the landscape of a location. In today, manmade world, the aesthetic values of plants are becoming more highly appreciated. Plants provide a basic contact with nature and heighten pleasure in our surroundings. Their aesthetic value is more difficult to quantify than the values already discussed and is difficult to describe, in fact, without seeming trite or overly sentimental. Without elaborating on the principles of landscape design, the following are some of the aesthetic advantages that plants can provide:

1) Plants provide varieties of colour, form, texture, and pattern in the landscape.

2) Plants soften architectural lines and accentuate structural details.

3) Plants can form vistas, frame views, provide focal points, and define spaces.

4) Plants relieve the monotony of pavement and masonry.

5) Plants, particularly trees, make enticing play areas.

6) Plants offer cooling shade, pleasant fragrances, intriguing sounds, and serene settings.

7) Plants create the impression of a well-established place in new residential areas and minimize the raw, unfinished look.

8) Plants unify, giving coherence to visually chaotic scenes.

(Richard, 1983)

From the visual angle, colour on plant parts can increase the visual landscape quality in the city. Thus, people will interest to do activity with related to recreation for enjoyable life. Combination of softscape and hardscape to get colour balance will influence the surrounding temperature. Choices of various colour from plant in our country partly depend on newly introduce species through cultural manipulation, breeding programmed, and biotechnological research. Through this approach, plant characters such as free flowering plant, flowering longevity and uniformity could be identified.

Colour diversity in landscape plant

Colour is one of the inherent characteristics, through which a plant type could be usually distinguished. It has physiological effect to mankind and environmental quality (Booth, 1983). Bright colour plant give more conducive enviroscape and cheerful while plants with dark coloured give impact of dim and gloomy. All plant parts like leaf, flower, fruit, branch and trunk have unique colours to distinguish with other plant types (Ahmad Makmom, 2000). Plant colours help to strengthen their character in landscape composition, especially for large trees or any ornamental plants. Various colours will add variety and reduce monotone composition in any landscape design (Booth, 1983).

Many birds’ species are attracted to bright coloured flowers. Usually landscape plants with characters such as good canopy, bearing fruit and bright flower are suitable habitat for nesting. Plant characters such as bright flowers, aromatic and produce honey are some suitable criteria for attraction of insects like bees and butterflies. Some examples of these plants are Melastoma malabrathicum, Ardisia elliptica, Clerodendron spp. and Ixora spp.

Native plants

Native plant is a plant that grown naturally in any country (Corner, 1998) According to Muhammad and Mustafa Ali (1994), there are 250,000 around species of flowering plant in the world and 8000 species are estimated from Malaysian forest. From that estimation, it is not impossible to make these native species the biggest contributor in terms of flower, leaf and also fruit on colour diversity in landscaping.

The government has given encouragement and advocacy on native plant research. According to Ministry of Science and Environment, only 3% from the plant in our forest were used in research especially for medicine and health food purposes. This low percentage shows that too little research efforts have been done on local native species. Research in landscape development is still new and not much research has been done in this area.

In this millennium era, awareness on the important of local species planted has started. This is indicated through several new domesticated species in the tropical landscape garden. Malaysian native species like Eugenia oleana (Kelat paya) give very good impact in landscape through the bright colour on the leaf. The leaf colour change gradually from red, maroon to green is due to the phenological process of plant growth. Likewise, Bauhinia kockiana, a native species can produce very attractive orange flower with free flowering. Turnera sp. which produce yellow flower and glisten leaf colour has good landscape impact if planted with other ornamental plants.

Colour diversity that is produced through various part of plant such as leaves, flowers, stem and fruits need to be explored further in term of plant requirements to grow well in urban parks or green spaces. This is to sustain the natural of the plant and provide dominant impact to the landscape. As such, adaptation of native species should be done through specific procedures to ensure that data on certain growth requirement is always documented (Mustafa and Zulhazmi, 2003).

Evaluation and characterization of identified species against to new landscape environment is very important for the native plant. to determine plant function and usage in landscape. Basic procedures in selection of newly native species for used in landscaping should be followed as shown in figure below.

Figure 1. Development of adaptive procedures on native species


Exotic plant

Exotic plant means plant that is introduced by man to a new place (Corner, 1988) for certain feature such as attractive flowers, leaf colours or medicinal values. Previously, exotic flowers were introduced by navigators when they migrated from one place to another. Today, these exotic plants are commonly introduced in this country through demand in landscape industry.

For example, Hibiscus sp. which was brought from China long time ago were adapted to Malaysian environment and have been chosen as our national flower. These flowers have good characteristics like big flower, attractive shape and red colour, which symbolizes the courageousness. Since thereof, various hibiscus varieties with various colour spread in every space in the country.

The development throughout the nation was further boost up as Malaysia became the host country for the Commonwealth Games in 1998. Consequently, the landscape development was further enhanced. This was observed through the increasing demand for the landscape plants. This situation encouraged the local nursery and other landscape entrepreneur to introduce attractive species that produce flower and leaf with various colours. Consequently, ornamental plants like Heliconia sp., Turnera sp., Iresine hebstii, Duranta gold, Ficus yellow and other various species gained popularity. The different bright colours from these species give contrast to the existing green landscape. Dramatically colour produced by the exotic plant symbolizes that certain event begins.

Temperate plant

Many temperate plants were introduced during colonial era and a few varieties gained popularity in the local landscape such as Impatiens, Petunia, Poinsetia, Tagetes, Salvia, Catharanthus etc. The specialty of these temperate plants is the ability to produce bright coloured flowers or leaves. Visually this would attract attention to the viewers.

The ability to schedule the flowering time is an advantage to be planted in tropical garden. Temperate plants also have the ability to give instant effect on colour in landscape protocol areas such as roundabout, government buildings, prime avenues and royal palaces. Coloured leaves and flowers will increase the aesthetic value of landscape garden especially in the large cities like Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya. Although the cost of planting material and maintenance is quite expensive its impact in landscape is very significant. These plants will give instant colour when planted at flowering stage in landscape garden. It also produces colour for a long time with frequent flower development or replace with new plants. Using temperate plants will enhance the scenario of a place due to the colour effect. Bright coloured flower will give visual effect on the compactness and further harmonise the place.

Orchid

Planting orchid as one of the landscape elements does not require high cost and maintenance as compared to other ornamental plants. This is proven through organized planning. Several factors that should be considered are as follows:

1. Selection of suitable variety
2. Quality of planting materials
3. Proper planting techniques
4. Proper plant maintenance

If all these procedures are observed, orchids will always produce flowers with various colours. Orchid selection for landscape is based on their flower uniqueness and colour. The following factors should be considered in varietals selection of orchid for landscape use:

1) Hardiness and vigour in growth

2) More tolerant to major pests and diseases

3) Fast growing and easily adapted

4) Free-flowering

5) Preferably produce big flowers with bright colour or small but many flowers

(Rozlaily and Hanim, 2003)

Orchid, with appropriate selection of variety and good maintenance, will give diversity of unique colour and attractive garden.

Technology contribution for production of various ornamental plant colours

Cultural manipulation

Growth and flowering manipulation of ornamental plants should be explored further. Several aspects like budgrafting technique, hormonal effect, light intensity and agronomic practices are a few approaches in manipulation and initiation of flowers.

The phenology and growth of individual plants should be documented to determine the time to first flowering, flower longevity and scheduling of colours in landscape. This could assist in manipulation of plant characteristic, whether to synchronize with the market demand or to manipulate their flowering, growth and form. Growth control is particularly important for potted plants. The various possible methods used are through mechanical technique, cultural practices, environmental manipulation and chemical treatment.

Plug system

Currently, both vegetative propagated flowering groundcovers and shrubs for bedding or indoor decoration are raised in polybags. The plant cuttings are normally stuck into medium in polybags and they are managed and handle individually. A propagation system that allows handling of plants in-group may increase production efficiency. One of the possible systems is plug system. Using this, the plants are sown or grown in specialized plug trays that are partitioned into individual cells per tray. The seedling or plant produced in each cell is called a plug. Production of plant materials using plug system has been recognized as the greatest improvement to date in bedding plant production industry in the United States and Europe. Use of this technique has influenced the materials handling methods, greenhouse design and automation, benching design and even determined the design of new cultivar and variety. The development of above technique also can produce big amount of planting material in one time and uniform. The plants are generally grown in a close proximity in a uniform media. Its can produce a big scale of colour to be use in landscaping (Hanim.et.al., 1999).

Biotechnology

Biotechnology is the technique or process use science related to living things such as micro organism, animal or plant for solving problems or make product which are useful to mankind. New biotechnology techniques allow researchers to take certain genes from a source organism and put those genes into another plant or animal. These techniques are called genetic engineering.

Biotechnology was practiced about 10,000 years ago when men domesticated animals and cultivated crop for food and clothing. In recent years, genetic engineering has been used for improvement of ornamental plants. It would help in the production of certain flower characteristics or traits that are desired in a directed manner. As opposed to normal breeding techniques which involves crossing, the genetic engineering approach would help in the transformation of the plant with the sole purpose of introduction certain traits that can be changed by genetic engineering. Several areas of flower crops have been studied most intensively using the techniques. One of which is the production of novel coloured flowers by the transformation of genes in the anthocyanin biosynthesis pathway. Using the antisense technology on genes such as Chalcone synthase and Dihyroxy flavanol reductase (DFR), new colours had been produced in Petunia. Other areas include enhancement of fragrance, plant that glows at night, pattern of flower and prolong the vast-life of flower by inhibition of ethylene production using antisense gene technology.

Today, however, transgenic approaches are also being introduced. The impressive results of traditional breeding are obvious to anyone who visits flower exhibitions and auctions (Joseph, M. 1998). These varieties, with their range of colours and patterns, constitute an enormous mutant collection for scientific study.


CONCLUSION

The use of plant in tropical garden will add colour diversity. The domesticated local forest species will contribute to colour diversity in landscape. Colour development is obtainable through saintific research. Several technologies such as genetic engineering, breeding program, cultural manipulation and plug system will contribute colour diversity in ornamental plants. With the above technologies production system could be carried out more efficient.

REFERENCES

Ahmad Makmom, A., Marzuki, I. and Tay, A.C. (2000). The role of plant in landscapes. Proceedings of the National Horticulture Conference 2000. pp. 22-23.

Booth, N.K. (1983). Basic Elements of Landscape Architectural Design. Elsevier Science Publishers Inc. New York.

Corner, E.J.H. (1988). Wayside Trees of Malaya. Vol. 1 & 2. Third edition. The Malayan Nature Society, Kuala Lumpur.

Hanim, A., Ab. Kahar, S., Yahya, A. and Zulhazmi, S. (1999). Production of planting materials for ornamental ground covers and shrubs using plug system. Occasional paper No. 6/1999, MARDI

Joseph, M., Enrich, G and Ronald, K (1998). How genes paint flowers and seeds. Trends in plant science, reviews. Jun 1998 Vol3 No.6. pg: 212-216

Muhamad Zakaria and Mustafa Ali. (1994). Traditional Malay Medicinal Plants. Fajar Bakti. Sdn. Bhd.pp 1-8.

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Richard, W.H. (1983). Arboriculture: Care trees, shrubs and vines in the landscape. Prantice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. pp.10-11

Rozlaily, Z and Hanim, A. (2003). Vandaceous orchid for recreational park. Proceedings of the National Landscape Seminar 2003. pp. 210-211.