Nursery owners enjoy strong monsoon sales
August 30 - September 5, 2010
SALES of nursery shady plants are up this rainy season because of increasing demand from plant donators and Nay Pyi Taw’s order for road side shrubbery, a number of shop owners in Yangon said last week.
Shady long-life nursery plants such as Starflower shrubs, Khant-kaw and Cuba palms have seen the biggest sales increases this year. Starflower shrub are bought to line roads in the capital, while Cuba palms, jei tama bin and Kant Kaw are bought and then donated to monasteries, meditation centres and hospitals and other dry places, said Ko Yae Min Tun, owner of Yae Min Tun nursery in Insein township.
“A number of retail shops in Nay Pyi Taw are buying nursery plants from me – I’m selling an average of about K5000 a day to these buyers. Daily sales in August have improved by about 30 percent above those in July,” he said.
Other big buyers include schools in Yangon that buy the plants to fill their gardens, and estate owners who buy roses, lime trees, hatchway trees and many others to beautify their housing complexes, he said.
U Pan Nu, a nursery owner in Mingalardon township, said starflower shrubs and Cuba palms have some qualities that make them attractive to buyers.
“Starflower shrubs and Cuba palms are my best-selling species because both require little maintenance and water, and are quite attractive. People living in drier climates prefer these kinds of trees,” he said.
He added that prices vary depending on species and size: Starflower shrubs 1-foot-high (33 centimetres) sell for K500 apiece but when they have grown to 8 feet (about 2.4 metres) U Pan Nu sells them for K15,000. The same is more or less true for Cuba palms – juvenile palms only 2-feet-high (66cm) are sold for K1000 but when they have grown 8 feet or more they are sold for K10,000, he said.
“My prices are the same as they were last year but demand is much stronger. This year I don’t have time to personally care for trees outside the nursery. If somebody asks to have a tree or trees looked after at their house, I have no choice but to assign one of my workers to do it. I charge K5000 a tree for this service,” he added.
“Growing trees is good for everybody and the environment. And it seems to me that more people are planting trees in Yangon this year,” he said.
He added that nurseries rely on good weather and a strong economic environment to survive, explaining that people buy trees when they feel happy but do not if they are stressed or sad.
“If the weather is particularly bad or the economic situation is unhealthy my business suffers,” he said.
He said rainy season sales average about K3 million, with at least K5000 in daily sales. However, he said that on one day in July he sold plants worth K3.5 million.
A nursery owner in Mayangone township said his best seller this rainy season has been foxtail palms.
“Developers in Yangon and the Yangon City Development Committee have been buying foxtail palms from my shop in large numbers. In July and August I made a total of K3.5 million, compared with only K1.5 million for those two months last year,” he said.
U Hla Maung, 81, who says he often buys and then donates plants, said: “I always try to grow trees wherever I go and I think I’ve grown about 10,000 trees, which I’m quite proud of. Nursery owners and their staff members are usually helpful and send the plants where I want them to go.”
