Prize-winning plant parents

Exhibitors and sellers faced off in a hall filled with green plants, stunning colourful flowers, and lush foliage. The competition was intense, with each eying the different categories of KHS awards.

Bonsai plants

The Bonsai plants were a big part of the Show. Bonsai is an art that originated from the Japanese. It involves pruning, root reduction, and designing branches into desired shapes with the sole mission being to create a small tree that resembles the mature one.

Prachi Shah from Prachis Creation travelled from Mombasa to showcase her bonsai plants collection. She won the second place position in the Bonsai Plants category.

“I have been practising Bonsai for 22 years now. I went commercial in 2009. Bonsai requires a lot of patience, perfection and perseverance. I learned everything on my own by reading and practising. Bonsai means a plant thriving in a much-designated area or a pot for a number of years. After five or six years you may have to change the pot or prune the roots,” she tells the BDLife.

A bonsai plant can cost anything from between Sh2,500 and Sh60,000 depending on the age, type and structure of the plant.

A bonsai plant can live up to 200 years. “The best plant that I have is the baobab. It has strength and a thick and nice stem. It gives an aesthetic look as the branches grow very fast after they are cut out. In Bonsai you follow the measurements of the pot in relation to the plant.” Prachi says.

Joseph Kihoro, a member of the Kenya Horticultural Society and the founder of Intriscapes Plant Nursery attended the Flower Show as it was an excellent opportunity for him to access new customers.

And to cap his outing, he won several prizes including first position in the single foliage plants section, second position in the hanging plants display and third position in the climbing plants display.

His journey with flowers began in 2008 after acquiring his education in Ornamental Horticulture and Landscaping. He started with landscaping then found that there were no quality plants for landscaping.

“I then decided to venture into the production of healthy and nice plants for my clients. Now I grow plants for landscaping. We grow over 50 species of plants on our farm in Red Hill, Limuru.”

While the whole expo was impressive, the keyhole garden stood out. The stand that was placed right at the entrance caught everyone’s eye.

A project by The Kenya Horticultural Society in Naivasha, the keyhole garden is a sustainable farming method that was initially designed in Lesotho in the 1990s to make farming easier for the farmers who were affected by HIV/Aids as they did not have to struggle to bend in the gardens.

Keyhole gardens are ideal for organic gardening, places with little rain and people with small pieces of land who’d want to venture into farming.

Kym Arensen who helped to introduce the Keyhole Garden in Naivasha says that you can grow anything in the garden including flowers, vegetables, and fruits.

“It is a good garden for the elderly as you do not have to bend while working,” she says.

How it works

Soil is made through a compost system (layering greens, browns, sticks and manure) filling a circulated elevated structure.

“You take cartons and put them at the bottom, then collect green leaves, hay, sticks and you lay them. The layer should have greens and browns. In the middle is a compost heap where I put all the waste from the kitchen including potato peelings and egg shells. The compost heap should be at the same level as the soil so that the fertilizer can sip through automatically to the soil. The keyhole garden can be surrounded by stones, used plastic bottles, and wire mesh on the side. To start you can use an inch of soil and the other soil will be formed with time from the decomposing of the green and brown layer,” she says.

Desert Roses

In the middle of the expo hall was a stand from Herbivore Gardens. Cecilia Karanja introduced us to desert roses. “Desert roses should be watered utmost once a week in the morning and be exposed to sunlight for over six hours. During the cold days it can go for like three months without needing to be watered,” she tells BDLife.

The Kenyan Desert rose is single-petalled and has a pink and white colour. “Any other desert rose of a different colour is an exotic grafted desert rose. Exotic desert roses are double-petalled. Overwatering the desert roses will only result in them rotting,” Cecilia tells BDLife.

The desert rose has a large stem in which it stores the water. It is potted in the sand as it requires well-drained soil. It also doesn't require fertiliser. Cecilia says, “You just let it grow. We kill most of the plants by smothering them with love.”

Bromeliads

Bromeliads are air plants that have an array of beautiful colours and textures. Seema Devani had an exhibition at the Flower Show and her bromeliads were nothing short of blooming and colourful plants.

Seema who runs Funky Bunches Flower shop says, “I import then propagate my bromeliads. Bromeliads are partly sun-loving and shade-loving plants. You need to water them once a week and put water in the middle of the cups. The main important thing is water in the cups.”

Bromeliads are epiphytic, therefore, they can grow anywhere.

The Flower Show was a success story with so many visitors coming in to buy the plants as well. There were big trolleys filled with plants. It was nice to see the love that gardening had evoked in many people.

There were many young people at the show as well who had exhibitions as well as those who were interested in buying the plants. This is probably a result of the growing trend of young plant parents.

The Centenary Plant and Flower Show was also a social event where strangers met and became friends united by the love of plants.

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