PART 2: MONEY DOES “GROW” ON TREES

NURTURING plants started off as a hobby for three gardening enthusiasts in Subang Jaya. Each of them was motivationally driven differently. For Crystal Wong, gardening started off as a hobby; dabbling in edible plants and vegetables. Erwin Tong stepped into the garden because he was curious about plants and wanted to test his one true skill – nurturing. For Yeoh Jit Shiong, it was a hobby he picked up to destress at home after work.

Gardening has however grown on them like moss growing on rocks along a stream. These three USJ9 residents have since graduated into turning their hobby into a sustainable initiative right from their garden. Crystal and Erwin have turned their hobby into a home-based business while Jit Shiong has turned it into one that helps pay for his hobby or to exchange plants with other gardening enthusiasts.

We caught up with them recently to find out more about their green venture.

ERWIN TONG

It all started with me who was curious about plants and wanting to test my one true skill which is “nurturing”. Back in the year 2020 when the pandemic started, my brother encouraged me to start planting. I then tried to propagate my mother’s Philodendron Red Emerald which she had had for almost 10 years. I managed to grow the top cutting into a 10 feet tall plant in one year. And that was how it all happened, from one plant into propagating 10s of plants, and then into hundreds and now a couple of thousands all carefully nurtured by me in my humble home-based nursery.

It all started as a hobby and ended up with hundred pots of home propagated plants that are readily available to share the passion of growing plants to new plant parents. The business started with little startup cost propagating the already available plants from my mother’s garden and slowly with the income from sold plants it was then reinvested back into getting more rare plants to grow and propagate while repeating the cycle again.

The first plant I sold was the Syngonium Albo! Still my most favourite plant I would say. And the buyer? She has become one of my very close plant friends until today!

Presently I specialise in Aroid plants, but my home nursery does sell a wide variety of plants from flowering to aroids to caudex and even orchids! We also try to be a one stop center for all your planting needs, so we do provide planting mediums such as perlite, pumice, cocochips and even aroid mix.

On top of that, we have newly imported a variety of renowned liquid nutrients from Australia. They provide premium liquid nutrients for your plants that are crop specific with a complete diet of all 12 essential nutrients for your plant.

This is definitely my forte. The passion for growing plants brings me much joy and great sense of achievement when sharing the final product to new plant parents. I definitely aim to continue growing this business for as long as I can, and my dream goal is to set up a big nursery that supplies rare plants with a different focus on the landscaping of the nursery set up design; making it totally different from our current look and feel of our existing local nurseries

I would say some of the great sellers from my side is definitely Syngonium Albo and Syngonium Milk Confetti, both are all propagated in-house and grown with full of love!

Fairly easy to care for, just need to place it in a shaded area like the car porch and watering every day is not a problem too! Most importantly, the price is fairly reasonable and affordable for any plant parents that love to add some touch of colours to their plant collection!

Erwin can be contacted at 016-335 8803

Find out more about gardening on Subang Jaya’s Plants & Gardens https://www.facebook.com/groups/SJGardens