The big pluck: Part One

I used to wake up on lazy Sun­day morn­ings to the sound of rustling palm leaves and new­born birdies chirp­ing madly in their nests hid­den some­where in those palm trees. I used to look out the win­dows and watched the red palm trees in the gar­den, thank­ful for the shade they provide.

I used to tell my friends that my house is the one sur­rounded with red palms and that they won’t miss it. I used to stare at the wel­com­ing sight of tow­er­ing palms around my home every time I drive into our neigh­bour­hood after a long day at campus.

I used to fuss about how those palm trees man­aged to effec­tively block our view of fire­works dur­ing Chi­nese New Year. Or how they seem to be a make our already-small gar­den look more crowded.

But damn. I can no longer feel all that now.

Red palms, eight of them to be exact, were the pride of our gar­den ever since we moved into our house. They were since a part of our life in many ways. Uncon­sciously, they played impor­tant roles in our every­day life. And only when they were gone did we feel the impor­tance of their exis­tence, how­ever insignif­i­cant, in a sig­nif­i­cant way.

It all started in Novem­ber last year, when my dad decided for some rea­sons that we had to have the palms in our gar­den removed.

So my par­ents con­sulted with a few fam­ily friends who had con­tacts, and one of the plans even involved saw­ing off all eight palms and even charg­ing a couple-hundred per tree. Very cruel okay? But even­tu­ally we went for none of those plans involv­ing dead red palms.

It was a real pity to just bloody saw-off those lovely red palms! 8 years is no short time.

Palms going public?

Then my dad had this sud­den idea of giv­ing the palms a whole new home — not just any­where but at the spanking-new BDC Interchange.

Then, it was mid-November, 2007. Land­scap­ing work had just begun on the land­bank between the inter­change, now known as the Kenyalang Inter­change. It is the very first impres­sion vis­i­tors to Kuch­ing have once they dis­em­bark their flights from the Kuch­ing Inter­na­tional Airport.

So my dad approached one of the labours work­ing on the land­scap­ing there and found out that the man behind the land­scap­ing con­tract was Cyril Lim of Seng Gar­dens. Con­tact and emails fol­lowed as my dad e-mailed Cyril of our plight.

The offer was that we give away the red palms to Seng Gar­dens, all eight of them, free of charge. My dad even sug­gested that those palms would be more than suit­able to be planted at the BDC Inter­change project Cyril is work­ing on. The only deal on the part of Seng Gar­dens is that they cover all the effort and costs of remov­ing and trans­port­ing eight mature red palms of an aver­age height of about 15 metres.

And hey, they have noth­ing to lose since our red palms would def­i­nitely be a great addi­tion to the new BDC Inter­change land­scap­ing! And every­one knows mature red palms like those costs a bomb, we’re giv­ing away eight of them — for free! =D I don’t know about you, but it does sound like a great deal for anyone.

Well at last, it was safe to know that the palms aren’t going to waste. Instead, they will be placed in the view of pub­lic and first-time vis­i­tors to Kuch­ing. At that point in time, I didn’t feel that bad any­more, and even thought those palms would be bet­ter off in the mid­dle of the BDC Inter­change rather than cramp­ing among them­selves in our garden.

Wrap up.

So, did Seng Gar­dens give a favourable reply to my dad’s offer? Did the palms sur­vive the rather dan­ger­ous feat of trans­plant­ing them to a whole new sur­round­ing? Stay tuned for Part two! =D

(is it just me or does the above para­graph sound like a com­mer­cial break? LOL. xD)

4 thoughts on “The big pluck: Part One

  1. Pingback: tehCpeng.net » Blog Archive » The big pluck: Part Two

  2. Pingback: tehCpeng.net » Blog Archive » The big pluck: Part Three

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