The young man spends half his salary each month playing bonsai 2
For many months, Nguyen Ngoc Quy’s daily habit has been to make video calls to his mother in Bao Loc, Lam Dong in the early morning.
`Lately, my mother and I are playing with the ‘Pharaoh mask’ tree, so we send pictures back and forth all day to update because the leaves will gradually change,` said the young man, a former biotechnology engineer, working for a
Nguyen Ngoc Quy is a knowledgeable bonsai artist who regularly shares his experience in tree care with the community.
In the community of bonsai hobbyists in Vietnam, Nguyen Ngoc Quy is recognized as one of the members with the most extensive knowledge thanks to his knowledge of English, expertise in biology, and diligent research of scientific documents.
Four years ago, through indoor plant Instagram pages, this guy began to learn about leaf ornamentation.
This tree was ordered by Quy from Ecuador three years ago, when almost no one knew about it.
In Quy’s nursery, there is also a Monstera deliciosa albo plant that is considered very rare.
In the collection, there is also another `favorite`, the Philodendron Pink Princess Marble, which he chose out of 2,000 seedlings imported from Thailand.
Since becoming `addicted` to leaf ornamentation, Ngoc Quy has invested 60% of his monthly income in this hobby.
In November 2020, Quy bought the `Pharaoh mask` plant from the US.
You buy the Pharaoh mask plant when you first buy it, at 3 months, at 5 months and when it matures (from left to right).
`The excitement and anticipation of waking up every morning to discover a transformation in the tree is the greatest happiness of bonsai enthusiasts,` Ngoc Quy shared.
Quy once refused a customer who asked to buy the `Pink Princess` tree for 40 million VND, 8 times its real value because this tree had been with him since the first days, playing a few times in his motel room.
It’s not natural that Quy spends so much money on this hobby.
The young man from Lam Dong revealed that taking care of ornamental plants is not complicated, you just need to understand the light rules for each species and the principle: Only water when the surface 2 cm of soil is completely dry.
The princess next to the pink princess tree was paid many times its real value (left) and the largest Queen’s Anthurium tree in Vietnam with leaves 1.2 meters long.
Every day, Quy receives hundreds of chats related to how to save trees and which direction to plant trees.
On the weekend morning, Ngoc Quy woke up early, spent three hours listening to botany professor Thomas Bernard Croat share about his journey of collecting 108,000 plant species from 40 countries and taking notes of interesting things to share with his friends.
`My biggest expectation is to lead genuine players in the ornamental leaf community to collect and play for passion, not for unrealistic profit,` Quy said.
