Words and pictures by Ida K. Rigby for Let’s Talk Plants! April 2023.
The Art of Container Gardening in Vietnam
As a follow up to the previous article titled Botanical Encounters: Lunar New Year in Vietnam, 2012, I decided to share photos of gardens and nurseries in Vietnam. In Vietnam, the use of containers and the careful trimming and pruning of specimen plants is a fascinating adaptation to living in crowded cities or on the water. Container gardens are tended on balconies, ...
... rooftops and floating wooden plank platforms that are the front yards of homes clinging to the banks of a river or floating on a bay or watercourse.
These small space gardeners cultivate a mixture of ornamentals and vegetables. Sometimes the containers are aesthetic choices, sometimes reuse of a utilitarian container. For orientation, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) is 10 degrees North of the equator. Hanoi is 21dN; by comparison Cabo San Lucas is 22dN. This partially explains why when we visited in January 2012, although it was very wintry in Hanoi and Halong Bay (20dN), plants like elephant’s foot palm were growing out-of-doors, ...
... and bougainvilleas and poinsettias were producing a blossom or so on the dock at Halong Bay.
In Chau Doc (10dN, like Cartagena, Colombia) they bloomed with abandon in front yards.
Throughout Vietnam vendors and apartment dwellers ferried plants about by bicycle ...
... or motorcycle. Temple gardens have carefully pruned topiaries and bonsai specimens. A temple in Hanoi ...
... and two in Chau Doc ...
... are good examples. Formally trimmed hedges and shrubs along boulevards ...
... and in public parks ...
... still evidence the influence of formal French colonial gardening styles alongside the artfully controlled potted trees and shrubs. Public parks also present container grown specimen bamboos.
Water features, such as this tribute to Ho Chi Minh often feature lotuses.
Container plants found on balconies of waterside homes, ...
... urban terraces ...
... and backyards ...
... are sold by individual vendors on the street, ...
... alongside boats,
... from large scale commercial nurseries ...
... and businesses along the avenues ...
... from where they are lovingly accompanied home.
