Is the Chatuchak midweek plant market dying a slow but natural death? Last Wednesday I went to see how the market was faring after the latest coup d’etat, and found it to be just a shadow of its old self.
There were few buyers, and many stalls were vacant. It was only 3pm on Wednesday, but some of the stall owners were already preparing to take their plants home, when normally the market is open until Thursday. It seems gone are the days when the market was a beehive of activities as early as late Tuesday afternoon, when gardening enthusiasts converged on the market in order to be the first to get their hands at plants as they arrived.
“It has been like this for quite sometime, the coup has nothing to do with it,” a stall owner who gave her name only as Lek said.
Could it be because people did not want to venture out in the summer heat? Or that the new school year had just begun and parents’ priorities were their children’s tuition fees and other school necessities?
“I don’t think so,” Mrs Lek said. “It has been quiet like this since the State Railway of Thailand took over the market’s administration from the BMA [Bangkok Metropolitan Administration] three years ago. It wants the benefits but does not know anything about management, especially concerning the flow of traffic inside the market.”
To maximise space and collection of fees, stalls have been allowed to occupy both sides of the road, leaving only one lane for vehicles. On busy days, therefore, the unloading and loading of plants causes traffic congestion.
Other stall owners, however, did not share Mrs Lek’s sentiment. The real cause, they said, was the proliferation of nurseries and markets selling plants in and around Bangkok, so that gardening enthusiasts do not have to go to Chatuchak any more. At Chatuchak itself, a shop selling a wide diversity of plants opened a few months ago just behind the underground station in front of the Or Tor Kor farmers’ cooperative market on Kamphaeng Phet Road. It also sells flower pots, planting materials and fertilisers, and has an edge over those selling at the midweek market as it is open every day.
Many nursery owners, however, said that they would continue to sell their plants at the midweek market as they had no other outlets.
“I took my ferns here by taxi from my house near the Suan Luang Rama IX Park, and spent 350 baht on fare,” a stall owner named Heng said. “That’s 700 baht both ways, but I am already happy if I can sell 3,000 baht worth of plants as I had no financial capital, I grew them from spores myself.”
Not far from Heng’s stall, another fern grower, Surin Na-suan, was making brisk sales, with one customer alone buying 10,000-baht worth of assorted Platycerium ferns. In the old days the ferns would have fetched higher prices, but Mr Surin was gleefully selling his plants at reduced prices so he did not have to haul them back to his nursery in Chanthaburi.
For plant fanciers and gardening enthusiasts, Chatuchak on Wednesday and Thursday remains the best source of rare as well as not so rare plants. In one of the stalls I spotted what looked like a new cultivar of Ficus deltoidea, known in Thai as sai baipo hua klub, with golden leaves. Introduced from Hawaii, a bushy specimen in a 45cm pot was selling for 2,500 baht, but small ones can be had for just 100 baht per plant.
I was told flowering plants always sold well. This did not come as a surprise, for although the names — rose, gardenia, jasmine, hibiscus, ixora, etc — sounded old and familiar, the plants were new hybrids that were more compact and bushy than the older varieties. The flowers that stole my heart, however, were those of the new hybrids of Lagerstroemia indica. Commonly known as crape myrtle, or yi-kheng in Thai, the old variety had attractive pink flowers but those of the new hybrids ranged in colour from white, light pink, and dark pink to red, orange-red, purple and in combinations of purple and white, and red and pink.
Small to medium-sized trees, yi-kheng can be grown in a small garden or even in containers on the balcony, but make sure it gets full sun. It can be grown in any type of soil except clay, but for best results use loamy soil mixed with compost and a handful of well-decomposed animal manure. Water daily when newly planted, then as needed or when the soil is dry to the touch once it is fully established. Remember, however, that plants in containers need more regular watering than those planted in the ground.
Further down the road at Chatuchak, I came upon a pickup being loaded with palms known in Thai as mak lueang (Chrysalidocarpus lutescens). “I’ve sold out all my plants to a buyer from Surat Thani,” Ta Chuenon of Narong Phanmai in Prachin Buri, said. “But if you are interested there are more where these came from.”
Happily for some nursery owners, Chatuchak plant market is still alive and well.
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