When the pandemic broke out, Ms. Thao turned to gardening and after three years turned it into a fairy garden that won every competition.
Ms. Schroeder Thao's family in California has a garden that used to grow shade trees and fruit trees. In 2020, when the pandemic spread, Ms. Thao's life was like "a horror movie", with curfews everywhere, sadness and mourning. The Vietnamese woman decided to grow roses to create a peaceful space.
Ms. Thao hired someone to dig up about 10 cm of soil, then bought sand mixed with cow manure to pour into the whole garden and rented a machine to drill holes to plant trees.
"The worker could only make 20 holes before the drill bit broke, so I had to dig for many days to finish," said Ms. Thao, nearly 50 years old, currently working as a human resources manager at a school.
Land in California is expensive, houses are close together so "you can stop and look at the garden at once". Ms. Thao's garden is the same, only about 200 m2 divided into vegetable and fruit growing areas and a flower garden.
To make the flower garden grow many kinds of flowers and have a spacious feeling, Ms. Thao made a winding path. It is also from this path that she can freely create.
"I'm the type of person who likes change, so every few years I fix up the garden a little. The purpose is to come up with ideas and arrange them reasonably so that when you look at it, it's not confusing, but you'll see flowers blooming in layers, creating a more aesthetic look for the garden, which is also quite important," she said.
Some years she planted all kinds of colorful petunias along this road, other years she covered it with hundreds of colorful tulips. In 2020 she started planting roses, her garden is decorated with iceberg roses that bloom white on warm days and light pink in cold weather.
This year, the road looks like a fairy garden. The highest and furthest level is filled with ancient trees and maple leaves. Next are climbing rose trellises and bush roses laden with flowers. Weeping cherry trees bloom white like waterfalls. And the lowest level is filled with colorful daisies and tulips.
Ms. Thao said that there are many varieties and types of roses. Each variety has different growth characteristics, so you have to research carefully before planting.
Now, just by mentioning the name of a flower species in the garden, she can grasp its growth characteristics, whether it is sun-tolerant or shade-tolerant, tall or short shrub; wide-spreading or small tree; thorny or thornless tree to allocate suitable planting locations.
Roses are susceptible to all sorts of diseases and pests, making gardening a challenge. She doesn’t like spraying chemicals for fear of affecting beneficial organisms, so she studies natural methods, combining planting other types of flowers to control pests and maintain a balanced ecosystem.
From having only a few rose bushes at first, Ms. Thao became addicted to roses, collecting 80 different varieties, many of which are rare.
Spirit of freedom is the flower with the most petals of David Austin and is no longer for sale. The flower is fragrant, blooms all year round, and grows quickly. Forever rose is a large flower, can withstand the sun well, blooms quickly, has a light fragrance, and is quite rare that I have collected.
Since gardening, Ms. Thao feels her life is more relaxed. To her, the roses that bloom every day are like precious gems, creating a peaceful and hopeful space.
The happiest feeling is when the garden brings home awards. In September 2023, Ms. Thao happened to learn that Heirloom Rose - a 50-year-old rose business in Oregon - was holding a beautiful rose garden contest. She submitted her garden to participate.
After three months of competing with hundreds of other gardeners, her garden won the top prize. She said she received valuable gift certificates from the company, but she donated all the prizes to a group of gardens, hoping to spread her passion to every home.
Heirloom Rose commented that Ms. Thao's garden is a small corner of relaxation, honoring the beauty of nature. Different from the neatly trimmed English gardens, here the priority is given to the harmonious combination of plants and space. The charm of the garden lies in the asymmetry, bringing a simple, less constrained beauty.
This Lunar New Year, her garden won second prize in a gardening competition held by the Vietnamese American Horticultural Association. Previously, in June 2023, the garden also won first prize in another Vietnamese American group.
"I am very happy and proud that all my years of hard work have now paid off," said the Vietnamese woman.
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