Just about five miles from central Hanoi, there is the village of Nhat Tan which is well-known across the country for its peach blossoms. As Tet is soon approaching, growers in Nhat Tan are very busy taking care of their peach trees.
The weather these days seems to be on the side of the Nhat Tan villagers. When I visited Nguyen Van Hiep’s garden, he and his son were watering their peach trees and shaping their branches.
Heip told me he has nearly 500 peach trees in his garden, the main colors being pink, red and brown. He said that it is not easy to make peach trees as nice as bonsais and to have them in bloom at Tet.
"It depends very much on the weather and the temperature", he said.
Hiep said that about one fifth of the 500 peach trees are reserved for leasing, and with the remainder, he sells the branches.
Talking about prices, Hiep said they vary from one year to the next and depend on the size of each tree.
"With a nice peach tree in bloom I can charge from VND2-3 million. But sometimes, I can get as much as VND10 million", Hiep confided.
Though the price is very lucarative, it is not always easy to get what you want.
"The most important thing is how to keep the peach trees blossoming in good time", Hiep said, adding that he has to use different techniques such as "leaf plucking" and “floral designing“. In his garden, Hiep told me the design work is now done by his son.
"Sometimes the design is decided by customers long before the Tet festival", Hiep said.
Growing peach trees has been practiced by four generations of Hiep's family.
"We will keep growing peach trees as long as there is a demand for them", he said.
Leaving Hiep’s garden I went to another peach garden owned by Nguyen Van Dung, a local villager in Nhat Tan, who has 300 peach trees.
Just like Hiep, Dung said he believes that this year will be a good year for peach growers. He took me on a short tour of his gardens and showed me many trees that had their "owners" already.
Dung said that in the last a month, many customers from the city have come to his garden to choose a peach tree to display in their home during the Tet holidays.
He convinced me of what he said by giving me some addresses, like Mr Hoang from Trang Thi street or Mr Thai from Cau Giay street and many others.
In addition to growing peach trees, Dung also grows apricot. "In recent years, apricot blossoms have become more popular in Hanoi", Dung said. "The white color of the apricot blossom makes the festival atmosphere more lively."
The difference of apricot grown in the north and that grown in the south is the color – white for the north and yellow for the south.
One of the advantages of the apricot is it blossoms three times between 45-60 days. In the first week, the flower is whitish then it turns to the light pink color.
"This feature generates curiosity and is the favourite of many people," Dung said.
Price wise, Dung said they vary from VND2-2.5 million per tree.
"Apricot blossom has a higher value than peach blossom, but it requires much more effort" Dung conceded.
With his 400 apricot trees, Dung and his wife have to work from dawn to dusk in the garden and travel to many places to look for the best species.
Over the past few years, due to rapid urbanisation in Hanoi land reserved for growing peach flowers in Nhat Tan has been reduced. But the farmers there are resolved to cling to their old traditional craft that has been handed down from many generations. On an average, each household in the village has between 200-300 trees in their garden.
All they want to do is to brighten the festive atmosphere with more colours during the traditional Tet holiday.
In less than a month, the Vietnamese people will celebrate Tet - the biggest festival of the year. A branch of peach blossom is something that must be exhibited in almost every Vietnamese family during the Lunar New Year holiday. Our reporter describes this in more detail.
Ngoc Thanh
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