The Supertrees at Gardens by the Bay look like trees, but each one is a piece of working machinery. Twelve of the eighteen steel towers stand in the Supertree Grove, rising 25 to 50 metres over ground that was seabed until Singapore reclaimed it, and their trunks carry more than 162,900 ferns, orchids and bromeliads — over 200 species growing vertically, held in panels instead of soil. Some canopies are studded with photovoltaic cells that light the grove after dark. Others are chimneys, venting the hot exhaust of the furnace that keeps the park's two glass conservatories cold. The Flower Dome, which Guinness measured as the world's largest glass greenhouse in 2015, holds a cool, dry Mediterranean climate under 3,332 panes. Beside it, the Cloud Forest raises a 42-metre mountain planted with vegetation from tropical highlands 1,000 to 3,000 metres up, a 35-metre waterfall falling down its face — a cold, wet, misted peak one degree north of the equator.
Ground level is free, and it stays free after dark. Twice every night, at 7.45pm and 8.45pm, the grove runs a light show called Garden Rhapsody. The canopies pulse in time with music played through 68 speakers, and the towers glow against the Marina Bay Sands skyline behind them. It is the most reproduced image of modern Singapore, and you can watch it from the lawn without paying anything. Overhead, the OCBC Skyway strings a 128-metre walkway between two Supertrees at 22 metres, and an observatory deck sits on the tallest one. The conservatories are the ticketed half, and they are where the gardens actually change: the Flower Dome's central field is pulled out and replanted several times a year, cycling through cherry blossom in March, tulips from late April, orchids at midyear, and a Christmas display that runs into January. The park opened in June 2012, and Singapore has been filling it ever since.