Growing bougainvillea - a hot ornamental plant, blooming too fast to stop, a Ben Tre man has a revenue of hundreds of millions

Furthermore, at the 2023 Ben Tre Province Startup Ideas and Projects Competition, Ms. Phuong and her colleagues' "Cai Mon Farm" project excellently won first prize overall (in the Project category). Ms. Phuong shared that the project was implemented from the desire to promote sustainable economic development and connect community tourism with the Cai Mon ornamental flower village.

Born and raised in Ben Tre province, considered the "kingdom" of flowers and ornamental plants, which annually supplies tens of millions of products to domestic and international markets, Tran Thi Truc Phuong has had a passionate love for flowers since childhood, especially the vibrant beauty of bougainvillea.

Ms. Phuong said that previously, her family produced a variety of flowers and ornamental plants, from yellow apricot blossoms to kumquat trees, but due to prolonged drought, the quality of the products was significantly affected. In 2020, after 14 years working in a government agency, she decided to start a business specializing in growing bougainvillea.

According to Ms. Phuong, bougainvillea prefers sunlight and is drought-tolerant, so it grows and develops very quickly. After 6-8 months of care, it can be sold. Compared to many other plants, bougainvillea is very easy to care for. The most challenging part is when the seedlings are young, requiring more attention and care. Additionally, it's important to know when to repot so the plant can focus on developing its root system; the more beautiful the roots, the higher the selling price.

Ms. Tran Thi Truc Phuong regularly communicates with the leaders of the Cai Mon Seedling and Ornamental Plant Cooperative (Ben Tre province) to keep up-to-date with information on various plant varieties.

Ms. Phuong is growing over 1,000 original purple bougainvillea seedlings; these plants are usually grafted with additional colors before being brought to market.

While visiting the bougainvillea garden, she took the opportunity to dig around the base of the plant. With just a few gentle movements, a bougainvillea plant with its winding, intertwined roots gradually appeared. Usually, the most beautiful plants fetch higher prices, ranging from a few hundred thousand to several million dong per plant. At current prices, after deducting the initial investment in seedlings, labor, fertilizer, etc., bougainvillea plants provide a stable economic profit.

Despite being a woman, Ms. Phuong is knowledgeable about every aspect of bougainvillea cultivation. She is currently collecting many different varieties for grafting, creating a diverse range of colors in her garden to meet the needs and preferences of her customers.

According to Ms. Phuong, to have a beautiful and satisfactory bougainvillea plant, one must go through the grafting process. The grafting method is simple, but first, one must choose a rootstock with an unusual shape; for the scion (grafting scion), one should choose a plump, sturdy plant, avoiding scions that are too young or too old, as the survival rate will not be high.

Specifically, the grafting process is carried out in complete shade, and each grafted bud is covered with a plastic bag. After about half a month or more, when new shoots appear, the grafting is considered half successful. To be sure, leave it for another week before removing the bag… Once the graft has fully taken hold and is developing stably, it can be moved into the sun for care.

Mr. Tong Huu Toan assisted Ms. Tran Thi Truc Phuong in creating videos introducing paper flower products to post on social media platforms in order to expand the market.

Not only is she a true farmer in her garden, Ms. Tran Thi Truc Phuong also proactively arranges her time to register for training courses, workshops, and seminars, both online and in person, with many useful contents.

Thanks to this, she was able to interact, learn, and accumulate more knowledge and experience from the courses, and it was also an opportunity for her to introduce local products to friends inside and outside the province.

Instead of just using social media to connect and interact with friends, farmer Tran Thi Truc Phuong also sees it as an effective channel to find markets for her Cai Mon bougainvillea products.

Besides posting full images of various types of bougainvillea, she also posts videos about planting and caring for the plants, customer reviews of the products, and participates in groups of friends in the same profession from all over the country via Facebook.

Thanks to her flexible approach, many of her paper flower products have found a market, selling not only within the district and province but also to many provinces and cities both domestically and internationally. Her customers are mainly friends on her personal social media page, but there are also new customers who, after seeing her planting and caring for the flowers in various groups and forums, find it interesting and trust her enough to choose to buy from her.

Besides starting her own legitimate business to get rich, in January 2023, Ms. Phuong boldly established the Cai Mon Bougainvillea Club with 15 members who are bougainvillea growers from three communes: Vinh Hoa, Vinh Thanh, and Phu Son in Cho Lach district, Ben Tre province.

The club, chaired by Ms. Phuong, connects enthusiasts and encourages the development of bougainvillea cultivation in the local area. This fosters a spirit of unity and creativity, encouraging the sharing and development of new, beautiful, unique, and innovative products that suit market trends; improves the quality of professional and diverse care services to meet customer needs; and creates beautiful and unique gardens to support the development of farmstay tourism.

Ms. Tran Thi Truc Phuong chose bougainvillea rootstocks for grafting.

In 2023, Ms. Phuong and her colleagues founded the "Cai Mon Farm" project with the goal of combining agriculture and tourism; exploiting the rich resources and culture of Cho Lach district to promote sustainable economic development and linking community tourism with the Cai Mon ornamental flower village…

Having been involved with the "Cai Mon Farm" project in the role of technology manager, Mr. Tong Huu Toan – Mekong Invention Back Office Co., Ltd. (specializing in software and artificial intelligence - multimedia communication) said that, recognizing that local farmers and those in neighboring areas mainly sell raw products and have seasonal income, the team developed a friendly experiential model combined with providing seedlings, ornamental flowers, etc.

Since developing content on social media, Cai Mon paper flowers have become more widely known. This motivates the production team to create even better videos. However, the team believes that the most important thing is to create high-quality products with diverse designs to retain customers.

The expectation for the Cai Mon Farm Project in the future is to build an ecosystem connecting local products to the development of a "green lifestyle" experiential destination, forming a chain-network model that leverages local resources and technology.

The "Cai Mon Farm" project by Ms. Tran Thi Truc Phuong (second from the left) and her colleagues also excellently won first prize in the Ben Tre Province Startup Project Competition 2023 (archive photo).

Passionate about local traditional crafts, Ms. Phuong chose to work at the Cai Mon Seedling and Ornamental Plant Cooperative with the desire to contribute her youthful energy and intellect to building a stronger and more prosperous homeland.

According to Duong Van Huyen, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Director of the Cai Mon Seedling and Ornamental Plant Cooperative, Ms. Tran Thi Truc Phuong is a young, professionally trained officer; an exemplary, dynamic, and creative Party member who is always at the forefront of economic development and wealth creation in her homeland.

Since joining the cooperative, Truc Phuong has promptly advised on the development of production and business plans and proposed solutions to improve the cooperative's production and business efficiency. At the same time, Phuong has consistently shown creativity in contributing to making Cho Lach in general, and Cai Mon in particular, a unique and attractive destination in the Mekong Delta, based on exploiting existing advantages in local cultural resources, natural resources, and key local agricultural products.

Source: https://danviet.vn/trong-hoa-giay-cay-canh-dang-hot-no-hoa-can-cha-kip-mot-nguoi-ben-tre-doanh-thu-hang-tram-trieu-2024041613515789.htm