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Young love of flowers blooms into business
"I may be luckier than many since I can make my dreams come true," said Huynh Thi Thu Hang, director of Phong Lan Viet Company. The 24-year-old flower enthusiast is the proud owner of orchid gardens with many rare species worth billions of dong.
"As a girl, I had a thing for orchids. I pursued my dream of having my own garden for years. Now, my friends and I own two: one in [the southern province of] Binh Duong and the other in Ha Noi," said Hang.
Vietnamese tropical orchids dominate both gardens, separating Phong Lan Viet Company’s gardens from many others in the country.
"I chose them because they’re not only beautiful but also fragrant while many other species are just nice to look at. I love the absolute vitality of tropical orchids," Hang said.
"I cherish the garden in Binh Duong more; it really is my baby," Hang said. "I set up it when I didn’t have much other than passion and determination."
Hang was born in HCM City, but grew up in Da Lat. Like many others in Da Lat, she loves flowers very much. However, she fell in love with Vietnamese tropical orchids after plucking an orchid sprig when out with friends. That gave her a chance to take in its strange and delicate beauty.
"At the time, I didn’t even dream of having a small pot of orchids since I only knew of flowers growing in the jungle. Or if they were for sale, they were just too expensive," Hang recalled. "However, I never had the intention of giving up my passion for orchids."
Hang began realising her dream of creating an orchid garden of her own when her family moved to HCM City and became better off.
"My first orchid garden was on my house’s terrace. I roamed the streets to buy tropical orchids from street vendors, and often stayed up until 3 a.m. to plant them in small tree roots. All my leisure time was spent caring for this little garden."
Hang’s efforts eventually paid off. She accumulated an impressive collection of many tropical orchids and her list of specimens got longer and longer. However, still not satisfied, she began asking friends and family for support in securing a bigger space.
Hang eventually rented a 7,000-sqm plot in Thuan An District, Binh Duong Province in 2004. Now, the over VND6 billion orchid garden has nearly 3,000 giant Ngoc Diem (Rhynchostylis-Rhyn) orchid roots in addition to hundreds of other orchid species.
A green thumb at work
Viet Nam’s orchid-growing industry is still in its infancy. Breeding technology and training remains limited so many orchid growers go to Thailand, a mecca of orchid farming.
"Knowing that growing orchids requires lots of scientific knowledge, I decided to attend training courses and visit several orchid gardens in Thailand and HCM City," she said.
Hang’s lack of experience in growing certain kinds of orchids let her down many times. Fresh specimens would quickly wither and die when she brought them in. She experimented with different kinds of orchids and means of cultivation, and amassed a veritable library of orchid books, magazines and documents.
"It is said that to successfully make an orchid bloom, gardeners must have a pure heart and a saint’s patience. I agree," she said.
Orchids need light, but cannot stand direct sunlight. Their environment must be airy but not too windy, humid but not water-logged. Neglect an orchid for a day or two and one may return to find a plant destroyed by fungus.
"Orchids demand daily care. Some varieties reward you with flowers only two weeks a year. Others make you wait years for a blossom," she said.
"The Ngoc Diem-fox tail orchid at my garden is a good example of this. I like growing them because while they only bloom once a year their flowers last a long time. I implanted 10 or 50 of them in each star fruit root, and now I have almost 3,000 giant plants in the garden."
To create better conditions for them, Hang decided to found Phong Lan Viet Company a year after establishing her garden.
"Even though my plants go for VND3 to 5 million, I still don’t sell them since it’s hard for me to part with them. I worry that the Ngoc Diem plants might die if they’re not properly taken care of," she said.
Her current business model is to rent the rooted orchids out and sell pots of flowers and decorative orchid baskets.
In addition to the two orchid gardens, the Phong Lan Viet Company also has two showrooms in Minh Sang Plaza in Binh Duong and the Phu My Hung Urban Area in HCM City.
It is also working with gardens in Long An and Lam Dong Provinces to meet customer demand.
"I also plan on cooperating with some friends to start a new orchid garden and raise butterflies in Lam Dong Province to create a Flower-Butterfly eco-tourist park there," she said.
"My new dream is for the Vietnamese orchid industry to invest more in technology to guarantee supply of standard orchids for both domestic and overseas markets."
VNN
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