The original ten million dong

Me Linh Flower Village is located in Me Linh Township, Me Linh District (Hanoi), on National Highway 23B, about 30 km from central Hanoi.

Regarding Me Linh Flower Village, many people know that this is the place where many beautiful flowers are produced, which are shipped to every province and city across the country.

Mr. Pham Duc Tai, 53 years old, owns nearly 200 precious species of inflorescences and owns a flower garden covering an area of ​​2,000 m2, which generates profits of VND30-40 million/month.

When we were present in Mr. Tai’s flower garden, we took advantage of the gentle scent of roses and thousands of blooming flowers. Mr. Tai confided in me, “I have been in floriculture for 30 years. From 2014 the plant switched to potted flowers. This job looks like it, but it’s also very hard. Sometimes it is very difficult and expensive to find new varieties of flowers.”

“On average, each rose tree needs 2 years of care, shaping, pruning and eye finishing before it can be sold. Especially some demanding plants need a lot of time, for example the price is high. For example, the flower umbrella (the rose tree is curved in the shape of an umbrella) is sold for an average of VND 15 million depending on the size,” Mr. Tai added of the meticulous care process.

Me Linh (Hanoi) is famous as the “capital” of flower cultivation, mainly concentrated in communities like Me Linh, Tien Phong, Van Khe, Trang Viet… with a total area of ​​up to 200 ha.

As we walked through Mr. Tai’s flower garden, we could see many “super products” with our own eyes. For example, the original rose trees are ancient, beautiful colors, bright and durable flowers, many flowers bloom evenly, the price can be as high as tens of millions of dongs, even hundreds of millions of dongs/tree.

Having decades of experience in this profession, the owner of the flower garden shared: “Consumer demand is increasing, the decision to buy flowers is not only beautiful in color and fragrance, but also in design.

With the background that the cut rose and dalat rose market has reached saturation and isn’t as strong as it used to be, I’ve been researching and searching for new flowers and bonsai designs that suit the taste. Especially looking for many new varieties of imported roses for artificial propagation (pink bonsai) to meet the high demands of customers’ flowers.

Choosing varieties, embryos, cuttings to create your own poses takes a lot of time. I had to work very hard and I am very happy that the product is well received by consumers. Accurate evaluation and the right market demand will make this profession a success.”

In order to grasp the needs of the market, gardeners in Me Linh often have to search for potential seedlings, add new varieties of flowers and bonsai miniatures, then find suitable rose trees for pruning and bend into many different shapes to serve customers.

A work after the completion of the design of trees and miniatures is carefully cared for, fertilized at the right time, regularly pruned, until the tree blooms, it is sold.

“The theory is that, but there are many trees that are unsuitable for the soil after being brought back, but die anyway, even though they are tended to very carefully. At this time, farmers have to suffer losses and find other seedlings,” the gardener noted.

Grow flowers in a sustainable way

Before he planted roses, Mr. Tai also only worked in agriculture and, like many other households, grew traditional vegetables. The income from vegetables is not high, sometimes it is precarious.

“Growing roses is quite easy compared to growing vegetables because roses are not difficult plants. Growers only need to rely on the weather to get the right treatment, pay attention to disease prevention, provide enough water for irrigation and nutrients to keep the flowers growing large, even and beautiful. Roses from August grow well. In the hot season, the tree grows slowly,” said Mr. Tai.

According to Mr. Tai’s experience, especially for cut roses, a one-time investment can produce 7-8 years of uninterrupted harvest, so the profitability is high. If the flowers have already faded, the branches should be cut off. When cutting branches, it is necessary to keep 2 layers of leaves so that the tree has the strength to form new branches. If the new branch is dark red and the branch is strong, this is a sign that the plant is getting enough nutrients, the flowers will produce large buds and beautiful wings.

In addition, it is necessary to regularly fertilize once a month, in combination with spraying of pesticides (biological), spraying in combination according to the time of detecting pests. Some common diseases on rose plants like baby thrips in summer or red spider mite destroying plants in winter…

In his flower garden, Mr. Tai uses organic fertilizers, including snails and fish, to add fertilizer to the plants. “Applying natural organic fertilizers helps both the plants to add nutrients and the flowers to last longer and more beautiful,” Mr. Tai shared his experience.

Thanks to the crop conversion initiative, Mr. Pham Duc Tai’s family has become one of the paradigms of planting roses, which brings great economic benefits and is studied by many people.

In order to take care of a large flower garden, Mr. Tai needs 4 workers who work from dawn to dusk. There are even times when many jobs have to work overtime to continuously deliver goods on time. Not so long ago, the garden owner invested VND 30 million in installing an automatic irrigation system to reduce labor for watering and caring for the plants.

Mr. Tai shared more about the hardships and difficulties involved in cultivating and propagating roses, and recounted a memory: “While visiting Thai Nguyen to look for new varieties of roses, we overheard people here saying to each other, ‘Do not sell to me Linh people”.

When asked, they knew the reason why the Me Linh people propagated flowers so quickly. And they want a monopoly on seedlings, so they don’t want to sell. When we saw the unique variety of persimmons, we had to hide our identities by saying we went to another province to buy them and by making many convincing attempts to buy a satisfactory seedling.”

With good quality products, many beautiful varieties of roses, large flowers… More and more customers are coming, combined with long-term termites, Mr. Tai’s flower garden has stable production. The family economy is getting better and better.

However, the recent Covid-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the production and business operations of flower garden owners. “Trees that are not cared for have often died. There were trees that could be well cared for and sold, but travel was restricted… At that time, our farmers were having a hard time and the economic loss was immeasurable,” recalls Mr. Tai.

So far the epidemic situation is under control, but input factors such as petrol, fertilizer… have become more expensive, while the price of flowers still does not dare to rise for fear of losing customers. “Compared to the time when there was no Covid-19 epidemic, business activity has only recovered about 70%,” said Mr. Tai.