One afternoon in early March, for the first time in Da Nang, a meeting of nearly 50 ornamental leaf hobbyists took place.
Leaf ornamental players in Da Nang in an offline event in early March. Photo: Ngoc Quy.
Nguyen Ngoc Quy – admin of a forum of more than 5,500 people who like ornamental leaves, said that this is a hobby of plants with beautiful colors, strange shapes or plants with leaves that change shape and size according to each stage of life.
As a new player, Thu Hang, 32 years old, excitedly asked questions about how to care for each plant species and how to mix the substrate.
The criteria for whether ornamental leaves are expensive or cheap depends on their popularity.
Although newly introduced, the Vietnamese bonsai community also owns many rare plants.
In Da Nang, there is Chau Ngoc Thach Vi with a collection of secret gardens on the rooftop.
Dinh Han with a mutant Monstera White monster plant, priced at 150 million VND per leaf.
However, according to many players, whether the tree is expensive or cheap, mutated or not, the value of ornamental leaves does not lie in the price, but in the player’s true excitement.
This female ceramic artist has been playing with plants since childhood and collected orchids for many years before becoming `addicted` to leaf ornaments and dragon nests.
`At that stage, we grew by feeling and learning from each other’s experiences. But since last year, the community has been really vibrant with a sudden increase in players and trading transactions,` said the 35-year-old girl, who is currently working on her career.
Platycerium Foog Siqi is a fern that consists of two parts: the reproductive leaf (beard), which contains spores when the plant matures, and the shield, where the fronds protect the roots and adhere to the object the plant is clinging to.
As one of the first ornamental ornamental artists in Vietnam, architect Hoang Duy in Ho Chi Minh City has a collection of more than 100 ornamental ornamental species from strange to unusual.
Bonsai enthusiasts said that these plants all have the same price.
Mr. Hoang Duy said that under ideal conditions, the Monstera Deliciosa tree needs one and a half months to produce one leaf.
`The selling price of ornamental species in the world is quite similar and difficult to be inflated beyond the real value,` said admin Ngoc Quy.
Architect Hoang Duy advises new players to learn the names of plants (especially to use scientific names to avoid confusion with different types of plants even though they look quite similar).
`Many new players often don’t research carefully about the type of plant, they just see it as the picture and are cheap, so they buy it wrongly. Recently, due to the high demand for plants, fraudulent virtual accounts have appeared, so we need to research carefully and choose the suppliers.
Leaf ornamental players are looking forward to a large-scale offline event in Saigon in early May, gathering about 200 players.
See more collections of precious plants of Vietnamese bonsai enthusiasts:
