Mr. Ho Bao Long taking care of his Monstera Deliciosa trees

The passion 

On the social network Facebook, if you type the words “indoor plants”, countless pages and groups with thousands of members will be shown. For example, the group Indoor plants lovers with 196 thousand members; or right here in Vietnam, the group Cay trong nha - Indoor plants has nearly 70 thousand members.

Sharing the same passion with thousands of people, every day, Duong Duc Vinh, a guy from Hue, "scrolls" his phone searching indoor plants groups and teams. Not only connects with Vietnamese groups, with good language skills, Duc Vinh has also made friend and exchanged his passion for growing indoor plants with many foreign friends.

He said: “I used to work as a tour guide, because of the pandemic, indoor plants came to me as a natural thing. Not only helps me admire the beautiful ornamental plants with a variety of styles, participating in those groups also helps me learn how to take care of ornamental plants when they have problems or diseases."

Meticulously taking care of each alocasia dragon scale leaf

Every day, the 9X guy leaves his home in Phuoc Vinh ward (Hue city) to go to Tran Cao Van street. Here, Duong Duc Vinh's passion was aroused when his like-minded friend Ho Bao Long suggested building a small garden to grow indoor plants.

"It's not just a passion only for ornamental plants to play with leaves, it's also a joy when the living space becomes more beautiful and greener. Every day, people with the same passion like me can take care of each tree, admiring the new leaves reaching out, and this is an effective solution to reduce stress in life," said Mr. Long.

With that passion, Ho Bao Long together with Duong Duc Vinh opened a small garden to sell indoor plants. “I just opened my garden about 3 months ago and am still developing it with more kinds of plants. My desire is to share my passion for indoor plants so that more people get to know and taking up this hobby. As the pandemic is becoming complicated, a little bit of green will bring joy and hope for a brighter future," he said.

Various forms

Stemming from the need to grow plants inside the house to create a cooler and fresher space, indoor plants mean moving plants that only survive in the natural environment into the balcony, living room, bedroom and even in the kitchen…

Diverse and rich in species, indoor plants are often divided into herbaceous and woody plants with completely different characteristics. Ho Bao Long analyzed: “Money Tree, Singaporean Fiddle-leaf Fig, Schefflera Heptaphylla, Japanese palm... are the most common woody plants. Herbaceous plants are extremely diverse such as Monstera tree, Zanzibar Gem plant, Snake plant, Aglaonema Pseudobracteatum trees.”

Learn from the experience of taking care of indoor plants on foreign sites

In addition, for experienced gardeners, indoor plants are also classified based on the appearance and "the rise" of new types of plants. “In Hue, currently the Monstera tree, alocasia dragon, alocasia frydek, and alocasia polly trees are “hot” because of their very own beauty and unique color. They all have tropical origin, often living under forest canopy with high humidity and low-light environment,” Long analyzed.

Therefore, unlike most woody plants (which cannot live without light, often have to be placed next to a window or balcony), these plants can all live in low light, fluorescent light and with the ability of air purification.

Carefully wiping each patch of dust on the leaves of the Monstera tree, Duong Duc Vinh said: "It still looks small, but when grown to its maximum size, this tree can be tens of meters high. With the beauty of sawn and hole leaves and strong vitality as well as spiritual values, if you pay attention, you can see that Monstera leaves have become the pattern of many products such as blankets, mattresses, pillows, fabrics, curtains…”.

Normally, the cost of Monstera tree ranges from a few hundred thousand to several millions VND depending on the level of development and the shape of the leaves. However, with the mutant form, the price can be up to hundreds of millions VND depending on the "unique" level. Recently, a mutant Monstera tree on New Zealand's Trade Me auction site was sold for over 400 million VND.

“Of course, besides its collectible value, Monstera tree has many uses such as creating a cool, green space, absorbing toxic gases. To compare, Monstera trees and indoor plants are all mini air purifiers,”  Duc Vinh analyzed.

For indoor plant lovers, each person, depending on the feeling and the way of looking at them, chooses their favorite plants. It can be as simple as beautifying the space, or the house architecture, or breathing the air filled with trees; or more in depth, to express personality.

Or as Duong Duc Vinh shares, “The joy of indoor plants is also the joy of hope as the green color of each leaf spreads on their own living space, which is the closest and most familiar living place of each person”.

By MAI HUE