Singapore's World Heritage-listed Botanic Gardens: Famous fans and rare orchids

How many World Heritage-listed sites include an orchid named after Bindi Irwin? The Dendrobium Bindi Irwin, to give it its full name, takes pride of place in the Singapore Botanic Gardens, which was given UNESCO World Heritage List status this year.

The VIP Orchid Garden has been an attraction at the gardens since 1956 and it honours several dignitaries from Bindi, to Quentin Bryce and Princess Diana (a delicate white hybrid bred from a Pattaya Beauty and a Fairy Wong). The garden has hundreds of orchids along twisting paths containing burbling fountains, flower-covered arches and neatly trimmed hedges that look like giant heads of broccoli.

At the centre of the orchid garden is the colonial Burkill Hall, once home to Sir Henry Nicholas Ridley, the garden's first director in 1888. But playing spot the celebrity flower is just a small part of the appeal of this stunningly curated garden that has resisted the longing stares of condominium developers in the Lion City for more than 156 years.

This green oasis – Singapore's location almost bang on the equator makes for tropical weather all year round – is where locals and expats go to remind themselves why the high-octane, high-rise, high-finance city is also known as the Garden City. Enter via the main, or Tanglin, gate on the Tanglin Mall side of the gardens and you delve into a world of manicured gardens, hidden dells and sweeping lawns. One of the first things you will see is Swan Lake that was added to the gardens as far back as 1866, but by 1892 the lake had to be fully drained. The reason? A rogue crocodile had taken up residence and had attacked someone who had gone to the lake for water. Now the lake is an important water source for the gardens as well as containing actual swans, both real and sculptural – by all accounts it is now croc-free.

A little further along the path is The Dell, which may be the only place in this crowded city-state that you can truly feel alone. One of the things I love about Singapore is that, despite the fact it is shore-to-shore concrete and steel, as soon as you get a patch of green the plants go crazy in what is essentially a year-round greenhouse without no need for a roof. The Dell is no different. Starting life as a fernery in 1886, this tangle of labyrinth-like paths, rockeries and secret pools has so many ferns they appear to reach out to grab you as you pass by.

In the botanic gardens, stories are almost as plentiful as plants. As well as the aforementioned rogue croc, near the Plant House there is a set of brick steps that were built during the Japanese occupation of Singapore in World War II. These steps were made by Allied POWs forced to work long hours and if you look closely at the bricks many have arrows marked into them by the prisoners as a protest against their hard labours. There is also the fact that this is not the original botanic gardens, those were started by Singapore's founding father Sir Stamford Raffles on the slopes of Fort Canning Hill near Orchard Road.

If you are walking the full length of the gardens you will happen upon the visitors' centre in the middle of it all, as well as the Healing and Fragrant Gardens, but many families just make a beeline for the Jacob Ballas Children's Garden at the eastern end near the Bukit Timah Gate. Here kids can run wild in a haven of tree houses, hedge mazes and water parks while parents plant themselves at the nearby cafe.