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Winning a coveted Gold Medal at the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show is indeed a great achievement. A Sri Lankan BOI firm, Borneo Exotics won this honour at London’s Chelsea Flower Show held in May, for its display of Nepenthes cultivated in Sri Lanka.

Organized by the Royal Horticultural Society, the Chelsea Flower Show is reputed to be the most prestigious in the world and very nearly the largest.

This year hundreds of exhibitors from around the world competed for honours at the 2006 Chelsea Flower Show which was attended by over 175,000 people.

“We are proud of this achievement and happy for our staff in Sri Lanka who worked with such dedication to achieve an exhibit that approaches perfection when judged by the highest of all international standards,” said Robert Cantley, Founder and Managing Director of Borneo Exotics on winning the medal. “We are also proud to show the world that Sri Lanka is a country where investors can do business and create entirely new fields of activity such as this.”

Mr. Cantley, who established Borneo Exotics in Sri Lanka in 1997, is an expert in the field, having been a consultant to various conservation organizations such as the IUCN Species Survival Commission for the past 18 years.

The specimens of Nepenthes, used for the prize winning display have been cultivated in the two nurseries of Borneo Exotics. “Most of the plants were highland species from the nursery at Lindula, as they are more suited for the climate in London, but we also used some lowgrown species from the Thalawathugoda nursery,” said Diana Williams, a Director of Borneo Exotics, who manages the nursery and also did the design for the display.

Nepenthes are carnivorous pitcher plants from various parts of Asia. There are around 100 known species. In their nurseries many different species of Nepenthes are cultivated from seeds. “Every year, we discover new species. It is very exciting,” Diana said.

Borneo Exotics is introducing many species of Nepenthes into cultivation for the first time using tissue culture techniques that can produce an unlimited number of plants from a single seed. It makes artificially propagated plants available to growers and thus reduces pressures on the wild populations. “It is a conservation project as many of these species are endangered and their habitats destroyed by logging,” she added.

She said it was a long process, from the selection of plants twelve months before, to the final result. The selected plants are hand-fed with insects and nurtured carefully. The crickets, used to feed the plants are caught in the grass in the highland nursery. The other plants however, are fertilized with granular fertilizers.

Exhibiting at the Chelsea Flower Show is by invitation only, explained Diana and only previous medalists at the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) shows are eligible for consideration. Borneo Exotics first exhibited their plants at the RHS Great Autumn Show in London in 2004. The display won a Gold Medal as well as an additional award for ‘The best new entrant to the London Flower Shows for 2004’. An invitation was issued to make an application for a place at Chelsea 2005. At this show they missed the Gold but were awarded a Silver Gild Medal, which is between the Gold and the Silver.

Robert Cantley, Diana Williams and Export Sales Manager, Dickson Wickremasinghe, were involved in the preparation of the display for the 2006 Chelsea Flower Show. They flew to London on May 17, taking with them sixty boxes containing the plants and the other equipment for the display. It took three days to set up the display at the exhibition site, working day and night. The final result was an extraordinary arrangement of carnivorous Nepenthes in a natural jungle setting, growing on life-like but artificial dead trees, surrounded by moss and swampy beds.

“All our trees were made in Sri Lanka,” said Diana. “They were about 7 feet in height, made of metal and covered in bark. We had to cut them into sections and pack. They were reassembled in London.”

All the plants displayed had been grown from seed and tissue culture in Borneo Exotics nurseries in Sri Lanka. Many species have been introduced to cultivation for the first time by Borneo Exotics. One species, has never been exhibited before anywhere in the world. This tiny fragile species, Nepenthes aristolochiodes, is on the verge of extinction in its natural Sumatran habitat. Recent reports indicate that there are now less than ten mature plants remaining in their natural habitat. One of the largest species in the genus is Nepenthes truncate. One of the exhibits of this species is one of only four black plants of this species in cultivation anywhere in the world. Raised from seed in the nurseries in Sri Lanka, this plant has captured and consumed small mammals including shrews and rats.

Another specimen of the species, Nepenthes ampullaria, was discovered by Robert Cantley, in the wilds of Brunei, and has been named Cantley’s Red, after him.

Although Nepenthes ampullaria has been known, this shade of red has not been seen before.

Sri Lanka too has an endemic species, Nepenthes distillatoria, located mostly in Sinharaja Forest but occasionally seen in other areas.

Robert Cantley said he would like to thank various government officials and departments particularly the Tea Research Institute, the Department of Agriculture and Department of Wildlife Conservation. SriLankan Airlines too had been most cooperative in accommodating their baggage for the show.

Although winning a gold medal at the Chelsea Flower Show is a dream come true, Borneo Exotics is now aspiring for an even greater award; the Anthony Huxley Trophy for the best floral exhibit at all the flower shows in the UK for the entire year.

Their exhibit has been nominated and they anxiously await the results in October this year.