Recently I have started to buy tree saplings and plants online instead of going to my usual plant nurseries. Usually I would be quite reluctant to but plants or tree saplings from online shops as you could never be sure the plants would arrive in good conditions. Besides, I have read so much about people being cheated and didn’t get what they paid for. The cost of transportation of bulky trees and plants could top up the whole bill. I always enjoyed walking around plant nurseries and inspecting new plants. We could also haggle and negotiate for better prices or for bonus plants for being regular customers.
So, there are more reasons for visiting local plant nurseries than shopping online. But I couldn’t find or order some specific trees from my friendly plant vendor. One day, I searched for the trees I wanted via the well known online shopping. I found two nurseries offering small saplings at reasonable prices though the difference in transportation was quite puzzling. The varieties of trees and rare plants on offer were just staggering. I spent hours looking up these strange trees and plants to find out their medicinal properties. This led me to going crazy at ordering more than thirty plants and tree saplings online in one day.
There’s quite a new development in plants packaging by several plant vendors. From the comment sections of some shops, I could see photos by dissatisfied customers showing plants turned upside down, broken with soil scattered inside those boxes. The negative feedback had led to amazing creativity in packaging plants for long distant transportation. These saplings and plants would have to endure up to five days to reach their destinations, so sometimes they got crushed among boxes inside the trucks. So, I preferred to select strong and healthy plants to local nurseries.
However, I would buy only smaller size tree saplings and plants online. If they were damaged on the way, I wouldn’t get so upset and the cost would still be affordable. Last month, I thought I had all the trees and plants I ever needed. After spending hours searching for rare trees and medicinal plants, I have come up with a long list of new plants for my garden. Hopefully these would motivate me to become more knowledgeable about herbal medicine in the future.
It’s just amazing to know that we have so many plants whose leaves could be used as salad or cooked in sour soup. Some of these leaves have high calcium and beta carotene content. These plants would reduce my vitamin bills in the near future. The barks and roots of some hard wood trees could be used as disinfectant and anti-fungi medicine. I was particularly interested in trees whose leaves could be chewed to keep teeth healthy.
I have found out about rare trees with nitrogen knots in their roots. So, I would plant these saplings near the fruit trees; these trees will supply natural fertiliser for other trees. We would trim these trees and place their branches around fruit trees. These are hard wood trees which grow very slowly so they would not be too shady for other trees. I found it very exciting when I tried to visualise how my garden would look like in three to five years’ tine. The garden would become a forest full of fruits, edible bushes or plants, trees for making charcoals and organic fertiliser.
May be I have been overly optimistic about being able to grow all these trees and plants successfully according to my dream. The weather would play a decisive factor in how well and fast these young saplings would grow this year. I just hope there would be no natural disaster, like the bursting of dams in China and Laos, in the next ten years. The last two times the dams in China and Laos collapsed, flood water came down the river and caused a lot of damage to our fruit trees and fruit garden. The fruits trees were under two meters of water for over two weeks.
So, I had to plant trees that wouldn’t mind being soaked in water at the lower end of the land. I tried to remind myself to plant trees which were grown from seeds at the water soaking area in rainy season. These trees would take several years before giving us fruits but they would survive the flood or heavy rain for weeks. Gardening has been an interesting learning process for me with unexpected rewarding moments when some trees decided to come to fruition after several years of non-action.
I found out that after praying while watering these trees and talking to them for about a year, they began to bear fruits. My gardener was overjoyed one day when several pomelos appeared on these trees. The coconut trees have started to blossom this year out of the blue. So, from now on I would be praying whenever I walked around the garden or watered these new saplings and plants.
Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.
Stay strong and cheerful.