An ornamental plant market recently opened on Kim Nguu Street in Ha Noi’s Hai Ba Trung District to meet the increasing demand for bonsai and other ornamental plants.

An ornamental plant market recently opened on Kim Nguu Street in Ha Noi’s Hai Ba Trung District to meet the increasing demand for bonsai and other ornamental plants.

Nguyen Ngoc Hung, 55, a resident of Ha Noi’s Thanh Nhan Street, says he likes to keep ornamental trees like the areca nut and dracontomelum to help counteract the effects of dust and pollution in his house, which is situated along a busy thoroughfare.

“Taking care of these trees helps relax me,” added Hung. “I’ve become so interested in ornamental trees that I often tour around the city to buy nice new ones for my collection.”

While ornamental plants such as a lemon trees and roses can be had for VND15-VND30,000 per tree, some serious money is made in the bonsai market, where some older and more unusual trees can fetch thousands of US dollars, Hung said. But there were a lot of fake and low-quality trees out there, he warned.

“One should be careful in choosing one,” he said. “Many bonsai lovers join a club to exchange information on how to take care of and tend to ornamental plants,”

The Buoi Market in Ha Noi’s Tay Ho District also sells bonsais grown in the flower villages of Nhat Tan, Nghi Tam, Quang Ba and Phu Thuong, and sellers from the surrounding provinces of Lang Son, Bac Ninh, Hai Duong and Hung Yen have made the market even more bustling.

Truong Van Dau from the nearby province of Bac Giang, who sells plants from a stall at the Kim Nguu Market, said he often contracts mountain farmers to collect rare ornamental plants for him.

“Seeking out these trees is a lucrative trade and many wholesalers have made impressive profits,” Dau said.

Thousands of ornamental plants from the forests of the northwest region are transported to Ha Noi for sale every year, particularly ahead of the Tet (lunar new year) festival, said Ha Van Chau, an environmental police official in the northwestern province of Son La.

“The province really has no strict measures in place to prevent the locals from illegally exploiting nature,” Chau said.

With Tet just around the corner, most of the nation’s households will be in the market for an ornamental tree. The traditional favourites of peach blossoms in the northern region and apricot blossoms in the south are seen as a sign of good fortune during the Tet holidays.

Housewife Hoang Thi Van said she always chooses a kumquat tree or a peach tree with many young buds as she thinks they will bring her family luck and prosperity year round.

Once a shopper has found an ornamental plant, it’s easy to find a pot for it to call home. Traders from the famous pottery village of Bat Trang deliver pots to people’s homes for VND40-100,000.

When visiting Viet Nam visitors should not miss the chance to visit flowers villages in Ha Noi such as Nghi Tam, Quang Ba, and Nhat Tan as well as major flower sites in Me Linh and Tay Tuu where many farmers households have become rich thanks to the tradition.

“In Tay Tuu we’ve kept up a beautiful tradition,” Nguyen Huu Suu, the head of a co-operative group in the village, says. “Though, like the rest of the country, we’ve joined the market economy, we’ve never lost our community spirit.”

Suu says the flowers are in many ways just like the humans who tend them.

“In bad weather we catch a cold, and it is just the same with the flowers,” he says.

“When it is too sunny or too rainy, or when there is a flood, a storm or too much fog, without the meticulous care of the growers, how can the plants produce fragrant and beautiful flowers?”

Tay Tuu’s farmers used to grow the flowers seasonally, but many now plant all year round, seeking out seeds and saplings in Da Lat and as far afield as Taiwan and mainland China, where breeding techniques are more advanced.

For Taiwanese daisies to flower in time for Tet, the growers must ensure the right levels of fertiliser while protecting the plants from dew and pests and stimulating their growth with lights at night to encourage more branches, bigger buds and leafier stems.

Suu was not among the first flower growers in the village.

He left the army and tried his hand at growing rice, melons and tomatoes, and raising cattle and poultry.

His flower-growing neighbours grew rich, but he did not, and in 1996 he joined them.

“Big daisies, yellow or white, sold for VND6,000 each,” he remembers. “The successful flower crop of the 1999 spring festival brought me a brandnew motorbike and a two-storey house.”

VNN/VNS