Very pricey plants

I have always been a keen gardener and I’m fortunate to live in a free-standing house with gardens on all four sides. Over the past 15 years I have developed the garden from literally a weed patch, to a tropical paradise.

In so doing I have spent a lot of money at nurseries in Rayong and further afield in my travels throughout Thailand, but I always found that buying plants here was a lot cheaper than at home in Australia.

With Covid lockdowns I have over the past year intensified my gardening, and have renovated several areas of the garden to give them a new look.

But the cost has been astronomical. What has happened?

Three years ago I could buy a mature caladium (colourful variegated-leafed plants) in a 20cm pot for one or two hundred baht. Now the nurseries here are full of miniscule specimens in 5cm pots, some as small as 2-3cm tall and with only two small leaves, ranging in cost from 300 baht to several thousand baht. One I saw in a nursery this morning had three leaves, stood about 8cm tall and had a price tag of 16,000 baht.

And if you look to buy on the internet the situation is even more ridiculous. Various types of banana plants less than a metre tall with a price tag of upwards of 300,000 baht, and other exotics are on offer for hundreds of thousands of baht.

Are plants the new Covid currency? Are Thais really paying these ridiculous prices? I don’t know; can someone enlighten me?

DAVID BROWN