Owner of million dollar bonsai garden dreams of making bonsai museum

The profession chooses the person

During the busy preparation for the Sa Dec Flower and Ornamental Festival (Dong Thap province) taking place for the first time from December 30, 2023 to January 5, 2024, Giao thong Newspaper reporters met a unique bonsai repairman who owns a bonsai garden with many trees worth billions of dong.

Mr. Loc's bonsai garden is a place for many people to learn bonsai repair and creates jobs for local workers.

The bonsai repairman is Mr. Nguyen Phuoc Loc (53 years old, residing in Tan Khanh Dong commune, Sa Dec city, Dong Thap province).

40 years ago, Mr. Loc was a student at the University of Technology (HCMC). At that time, his family was in financial difficulty, so he had to live in the school dormitory.

After about a year, he asked to move out to live in his mother's flower and ornamental plant stall to both study and help sell flowers and ornamental plants following his family's traditional profession.

"This was 1993, at this time, the bonsai movement arose and was popular in Saigon.

After school, I sat helping my mother sell ornamental plants and listened to the uncles and brothers who were connoisseurs of bonsai talk to each other, so I gradually got used to it and started to like this type of ornamental plant," Mr. Loc confided.

Born in Sa Dec flower village and his family has a tradition of growing ornamental flowers, he started to practice bonsai business with his blood.

When he was a student, he came home once every two weeks and brought his bonsai pots back to his hometown by car.

The original plan was to just play with it, but when he saw the beautiful tree, people around asked to buy it, so he sold it and just like that, he had money to turn around and hunt for more beautiful bonsai trees.

"I was a student and suddenly became a bonsai trader without realizing it. But thanks to this trading, I had enough capital to buy one bonsai tree after another.

Every time I buy, I am introduced and share experiences, so I also learn a lot from this interesting hobby," said Mr. Loc.

Setting a record for bonsai

Nearly 40 years have passed in a flash. From a student at the University of Technology (HCMC), Mr. Loc turned to become a landscaper because in 1995, his family encountered an incident so he could not complete the course...

The profession has chosen him and Mr. Loc has increasingly "made a living" from the bonsai repair profession.

With the money he saved, he has now bought 30,000 square meters of land in Sa Dec city, owning thousands of flower pots, some of which are worth tens of billions of dong.

A pair of ancient bonsai tamarinds set a record in 2013.

Strolling through the bonsai garden, Mr. Loc's favorite is the pair of tamarinds that were recognized as the oldest bonsai trees in Vietnam in 2013.

Sharing about the opportunity to have this pair of tamarinds, he said: "When you have enough knowledge and experience, you can look at normal trees and turn them into bonsai, like this tamarind tree for example.

By chance, I passed by Cai Be district (Tien Giang) and saw this tamarind tree. I went and asked the owner if I wanted to buy it, but he refused to sell.

But I didn't give up, I kept coming back and forth, talking. Seeing that, the owner took pity on me and that's how I got this bonsai tamarind tree."

As for the tree next door, Mr. Loc did not look for it, but it came to him when his friend went to Cai Lay town (Tien Giang) and discovered a tamarind tree similar to the one Mr. Loc owned, so he came back to tell him to come and buy it.

After asking around, I found out that the tamarind tree Mr. Loc bought before and the tamarind tree that his friend introduced were taken care of by the same person, so they have similar features.

Although the tree trunk is not large, its age is now estimated by bonsai connoisseurs to be nearly 160 years old.

Currently, the carefully cared for pair of tamarinds is 6m tall, has a conical canopy with a diameter of 3.5m, and a four-sided mountain and water landscape.

"People come in pairs, and so do bonsai trees. If you have one tree, another will naturally come along.

The difference between ancient bonsai and bonsai is that with ancient bonsai, the player wants to infuse an Eastern philosophy into it, so when looking at the tree, it will exude ancient, strange, beautiful, and literary values.

Bonsai is different, with four criteria: ancient, natural, compact and shallow pot.

That is, when we look at a bonsai tree, even though it has been cared for and pruned by hands, when it is taken apart, the tree no longer has the trace of caring hands, like in nature," Mr. Loc explained.

And he added that after setting the record, the bonsai pair was determined to be worth one million USD.

In addition, in Mr. Loc's garden, there is also an ancient bonsai tree that set a record in 2020 for 500,000 USD and a pair of ancient cypress trees that set a record in 2021 for 500,000 USD.

Intending to do tourism with bonsai museum

When his garden had many beautiful and valuable bonsai trees for many people with the same hobby to admire, in 2007, Mr. Loc established the Sa Dec Ornamental Flower Tourist Area located in Tan Khanh Dong commune, Sa Dec city (Dong Thap).

This place is always the choice of visitors when they have the opportunity to visit the largest flower and ornamental capital of the West.

Ms. Phan Ngoc Lan (24 years old, living in Ho Chi Minh City) shared: "On weekends and days near Tet like this, my family was introduced to visit Sa Dec flower village to witness with their own eyes how people take care of flowers and prepare for the upcoming Lunar New Year.

On this occasion, I stopped by to visit the bonsai garden. It was very beautiful and interesting because there were all valuable bonsai trees.

Sa Dec Ornamental Flower Tourist Area is a place for visitors to experience, explore and learn about bonsai hobby.

Joining the tour group with Ms. Lan, Mr. Nguyen Van Vo (56 years old) said: "Actually, I have been to many places with bonsai trees. But I have never seen a bonsai garden as majestic and with many trees that have set records like this one."

Every year, Mr. Loc's tourist area welcomes many visitors to come and experience interesting activities while staying on-site with homestays arranged in the family's bonsai garden.

Since then, the tourist area has created jobs and helped many workers learn bonsai repair and earn extra income to cover their living expenses, with monthly salaries ranging from six to nine million VND.

Having worked at Mr. Loc's bonsai garden for seven years, Mr. Nguyen Phuc Hau (45 years old, residing in An Thanh Trung commune, Cho Moi district, An Giang province) said that with his passion for bonsai and knowing that Mr. Loc's garden has many valuable plants, he asked to come work and learn the trade.

"I came here to work and live in the bonsai garden. Whenever Mr. Loc opened a bonsai repair class, I would come along and practice in the garden, so my skills improved very quickly," Mr. Hau added.

Ms. Le Nguyen Thao Nguyen (23 years old, living in Tan Khanh Dong commune, Sa Dec city, Dong Thap province) said: "My husband and I applied to work at Mr. Loc's tourist area. Our monthly income helps our life become better, less difficult than before."

Ms. Vo Thi Binh, Vice Chairman of Sa Dec City People's Committee (Dong Thap) informed: "As far as I know, Mr. Loc is very passionate about bonsai and has a lot of knowledge in this field.

This helps him collect many valuable bonsai trees, contributing to the richness of Sa Dec Flower Village.

At the same time, it is also from this passion that Mr. Loc boldly accepts and trains many people with the same interest with the desire to replicate the bonsai model.

From there, build a unique tourist destination to create a highlight to attract a large number of visitors from near and far to visit and experience."

"In the future, I will build Sa Dec Ornamental Flower Tourist Area into a bonsai museum so that when visitors come here, they will be able to share knowledge, experience and techniques of creating bonsai.

In addition, I also formed a team of tour guides just to share with tourists about the history of the bonsai trees that I set records for and are currently on display at this tourist area," said Mr. Loc.

Currently, the total area for growing flowers and ornamental plants in Sa Dec is nearly 950 hectares, concentrated in Tan Khanh Dong commune (324 hectares) and Tan Quy Dong ward (320 hectares).
The whole city has about 4,000 households producing flowers and ornamental plants, accounting for about 50% of the agricultural households in the city; more than 200 flower and ornamental plant businesses. Sa Dec has 4 cooperatives, 1 credit fund, 10 cooperative groups and 3 guilds operating related to the flower and ornamental plant industry.
The largest flower and ornamental capital in the West currently has about 2,000 varieties of flowers and ornamental plants of all kinds. Of these, ornamental plants for construction and interior decoration account for 65%, flowers of all kinds account for 20%, and bonsai plants account for 15%.
Popular flowers are chrysanthemums, forget-me-nots, sunflowers, primroses, gerberas, lisianthus, periwinkle, peonies, orchids of all kinds... Along with flowers, many gardeners in Sa Dec have high incomes from growing ornamental plants such as yellow apricots, ornamental leaves, bonsai...

Source: https://www.baogiaothong.vn/nguoi-so-huu-vuon-kieng-trieu-do-ap-u-lam-bao-tang-bonsai-192231225083735237.htm