Ms. Nguyen Kim Loan, the garden owner, said that her husband and she originally ran some business, but they loved ornamental trees so much. Two years before, they had bought a couple of chicken-shaped ornamental trees made from Ixora flowers with which they had been very satisfied. Since then, they had an idea of collecting many kinds of ornamental trees with unique shapes. Currently, the garden has got thousands of unshaped trees and more than 200 completed works. Today, Ms. Loan’s garden can offer ornamental trees vividly and intricately shaped into most of the animals on customers’ demands.

Because the garden is situated on the front of 91B Boulevard and features some huge sacred animal-shaped ornamental trees from 2-3 metres with flamingly red blossoms attracting lots of people. Many domestic and international tourists come to see and take photos. Mr. Nguyen Quoc Hoang from Lap Vo District, Dong Thap Province, enthusiastically complimented after a visit to the garden, “Previously, I just think of Ixora as a kind of flowers for erecting fences or worshipping, I did not expect them to be this big and splendour.”

Big size dragon-shaped ornamental trees

Mr. Le Tan Hai is the artisan who makes these animal-shaped ornamental trees. His homeland is in Tan Hung Ward, Thot Not District, Can Tho City. More than two years ago, he practised making animal-shaped ornamental trees from the flower clusters in front of his house. His passion gradually got bigger every time he completed a work successfully. Until now, there are dozens of beautiful animal-shaped ornamental trees in his house. Thanks to his passion, he became an artisan for Van Truong Ornamental Tree Garden. According to Mr. Hai, in order to make a completed animal-shaped ornamental tree, an artisan is supposed to dedicate lots of his efforts and enthusiasm. First, the artisans have to make a frame which is similar to the original model and stable enough. Then Ixora flowers will be planted and shaped based on the frame. It takes from 6 months to 1 year to complete a big work. Concerning the source of Ixora flowers, Mr. Hai shared that he had to hunt for those flowers at rural dwellers’ gardens, particularly those who had the custom of planting Ixora flowers for making fences and worshipping. It has to be Ixora flowers because their canopies are large and easy to use.

Ixora flowers are one of the familiar ornamental trees in Southern Vietnam. They are easy to plant and look after. As artisans suggest, once watered enough and protected from leaf-eating worms, Ixora flowers can bloom all year round, which is very beautiful. Depending on the size, the difficulty to shape, an animal-shaped tree may cost from hundreds to hundreds of millions of Vietnam Dong.

With their talent and creativity, Can Tho people have contributed to the diversity as well as enhanced the value of produces and plants, and left an impression on the urban agriculture of the city.