Horticulturist and bonsai artisan Nguyen Van Nam poses beside his latest bonsai at an exhibition last year

From collecting plants he knew nothing about to selling arrangements for US$30,000.

As a boy in the southern province of Binh Duong, Nam often followed his father, a local horticulturalist, to the forest where his father picked odd plants and flowers to grow in his garden.

The artisan’s inspiring search for strange plants instilled an appreciation for flora in the young boy.

The 58-year-old can’t remember how many plants he spotted and took home with his father over the years, but their shapes and colors have remained in his head.

He remembers dream-like details: flowers with nine or ten colors on the same petal; stems reaching up to the sky; and radiant ray-like petals.

Nam didn’t know the plants’ names until he studied at the province’s Agriculture and Forestry School in the early 1970s.

Learning of the plant’s medicinal qualities only deepened his love for such herbs as the hoang lien (green lotus), kim tuyen (golden string), and ha thu o (flowery knotweed).

But of all the exotic plants in the world, carnivorous plants found in tropical countries fascinated Nam the most.

Each is beautifully seductive with bright reds and pinks disguising the plant’s true nature, he says.

Small spots that look like dew drops are in fact specks of poison. Insects are attracted to the bright flowers, but once they land, glue-like secretions trap the bugs before deadly toxins and digestive fluids help the plant devour its meal.

After spending most of his life in pursuit of rare plants, Nam says that a plant’s peculiarity isn’t restricted to its first-glance appearance.

Even the most ordinary plants look peculiar in different circumstances, he said.

“For example, I once spotted a palm tree whose withering fan-shaped leaves were flapping gently as if to soothe the midday sweltering heat,” Nam recalled.

“As dusk fell, the leaves looked like giant feathers of a bird that danced as if it was waving farewell to sunlight.

“Many plain-looking plants grow everywhere and people hardly notice them. But if the grower tends them with great care and love, they will spring to life and have their hidden beauty exposed,” Nam said.

He began turning ordinary plants into ornamental decorations and bonsais in 1998 but he had a tough time in the beginning, meeting strong objections from his wife.

She was angry that her husband kept buying seemingly worthless plants, no different from those found in wild for free, for very high prices. But as she watched him turn the plants into valuable works of art, she accepted her husband’s craft. As he became more well known, his creations became all the more precious.

His nursery, located at 13/1A Thanh Loi Quarter, An Thanh Town, Binh Duong Province, now features some 500 ornamental plants ranging from rare to ordinary.

One of his artistic principles is taking advantage of the plants’ natural beauty and refusing to use wires while shaping the plants, he says.

Nam, who also serves as deputy chairman of Thuan An’s Association of Ornamental Plants and Animals, has garnered some 170 local and international prizes at ornamental plant and bonsai competitions.

Earlier this year, he applied for a spot in the Vietnamese records book, Vietbooks, as horticulturalist with the most awards.

Many of his works now fetch incredibly high prices, such as five arrangements he recently sold for VND500 million ($28,600).

The constant gardener has also won three gold medals at the National Ornamental Plant Expo held by the Ministry of Agriculture late last year.

Reported by Giao Huong