Two Small Parcels Air quicker & cheaper than One Parcel Air

Small Parcel Air ( Int'l Small Packet-Air ) are usually faster than Parcel Air
Two Small Parcel Air may also be cheaper than One Parcel Air, as show these rates to Ukraine :
One Parcel Air of 3960 gr costs 3000 thb
Two Small Parcels of each 1980 gr cost 2 x 996 thb = 1992 thb

Hoya and other plant collections are for sale on aleyagarden.com Plant care is available in various posts of this blog. Contact : aleyagarden@hotmail.com

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Dischidia, Eurphorbia milii and Hoya in the mail 26 days to Canada : report on their state.

Transport by Small Parcel Air to Canada in the month of May took 26 days.
The state of the plants after arrival was indicated as follows : 0 for dead, 5 for excellent.

Dischidia pectinoides plant not rooted cutting 0
Dischidia pectinoides variegata plant not rooted cutting 0
Euphorbia milii bare roots 4
Hoya burmanica non rooted cutting. 0
Hoya collina non rooted cutting 3
Hoya elliptica clone A non rooted cutting 0
Hoya elliptica clone B non rooted cutting 0
Hoya endauensis 4
Hoya forbesii non rooted cutting. 3
Hoya imperialis white non rooted cutting. 2
Hoya kastbergii non rooted cutting. 5
Hoya lobbii pink non rooted cutting. 4
Hoya mitrata non rooted cutting. 3
Hoya obtusifolia non rooted cutting. 4
Hoya odorata non rooted cutting 3
Hoya pachyclada I ( corona red ) non rooted cutting. 4
Hoya pachyclada II ( corona yellow ) non rooted cutting. 4

Hoya and other plant collections are for sale on aleyagarden.com Plant care is available in various posts of this blog. Contact : aleyagarden@hotmail.com

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Pros and cons in the use of gel

Pros and cons in the use of gel

1- what are the positive points of dispatching with the gel ?
- gel bits release slowly humidity in a non aggressive way
- they can store, if added by the sender, nutriments, fungi, bacteria, hormones .. that can be used after arrival to mix with soil or water.

2- negative point with the gel?
- if the air is humid enough during travel too much humidity around the plant will cause rot especially during hot periods.

3 - can cuts be sent in an envelope with gel ?
- gel can't be used in envelopes, but if envelopes are padded gel is not necessary : gel AND plastic sheet do not work together

4 - what is the price for cuts with gel ?
- additions of gel in boxes is free at aleyagarden

5 - is gel treatment and aid to send more fragile cuts ?
- yes gel bits may help more efficiently than plastic in cardboard boxes ( there is more air in boxes than in envelopes )

Hoya and other plant collections are for sale on aleyagarden.com Plant care is available in various posts of this blog. Contact : aleyagarden@hotmail.com

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Gibberellins reverse the inhibition of shoot growth and dormancy induced by abscistic acid

As a response to stress plants can go into dormancy ( the drop of their metabolic rate ) and shed leaves, the shedding of a plant body part being known as abscission ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abscission ).

Abscistic acid, ( ABA ) a growth inhibitor produced by the chloroplasts of mature leaves, and the gaseous ethylene cause leaves to drop and other changes associated with plant dormancy.

Gibberellic acid is an hormone that breaks the plant dormancy of rooted plants when used properly. Gibberellins reverse the inhibition of shoot growth and dormancy induced by abscistic acid. However experiments have shown that gibberellic acid when used on cuttings may either promote or ... inhibit root formation depending on light and the acid concentration used.

Finding out ratios of abscistic to gibberellic acid is a key to grow imported plants with increased survival rates.

More on plant hormones types and functions : https://onlinesciencenotes.com/plant-hormones-types-functions/

On French TV a broadcast by Telematin :
http://telematin.france2.fr/?page=chronique&id_article=21317
( press the button : Voir la video ) shows Jean Henkens the architect biologist who supervises the imports of plants for Center Parcs Europe. This man found the composition of a gel that by injection at the base makes the plants sleep for weeks, then he wakes them up at destination with a second product in a new injection. The rate of success is said to be 1 dead plant for 999 live ones. This works for trees too as the video shows.Most amazing is this five centuries-old tree, a Ficus religiosa, who was dying in a Buddhist temple and can now be admired at a Center Parcs in Europe after a trip of several weeks in a container by boat and truck.

( Question by Aleyagarden : this is really great and gives hope to our quest of growing plants in difficult situations; one wonders what are the formulas of the injected products and what are the other plant species on which these sorts of formulas work ? )

Aleyagarden translation of the french script by Telematin :
Jean Henkens' mission: to make domes and greenhouses, true living museums ! He knows perfectly over a million species of plants. From the famous oaks to the lesser known tropical plants, he is unbeatable. For 26 years, he has been managing and has enriched the Belgian plant heritage of seventeen European domains. In parallel, he also deals with the formation of teams of gardeners and horticulturists who help maintain forest and tropical areas. His field of expertise : he has invented a unique gel that allows the plants to sleep in order to remove them safely and then to wake up, once they arrive. A formula that has been proven to avoid the tree to suffer difficult conditions of transport: absence of light, low temperatures .... only one plant in a thousand dies after arrival.
Born in 1956, he grew up on a farm and got a passion for nature early on. He studied tropical agriculture for 6 years and conducts extensive research on the proliferation and improvement of species. He joined Center Parcs in 1984 as a gardener and soon became responsible for the botanical areas. .....
His latest mission is visible in the design of the Great Glasshouse and the Aqua Mundo Domaine des Trois Forêts Moselle / Lorraine. Anecdote: a five centuries-old tree, a Ficus religiosa, who was dying at a Buddhist temple by the Mekong river (the border of Cambodia and Laos) now lives in Center Parcs. The monks made an offering of this tree to Jean Henkens for him to save it and give it a second life but also to bring a message of peace because this tree according to Buddhist belief is a sacred tree: leaves heart-shaped, produce a white liquid that provides welfare to who wets her forehead. 10000km of travel, 13 meters high, 10 tons (the tree has been cut slightly to fit under the Grand Serre).Hoya and other plant collections are for sale on aleyagarden.com Plant care is available in various posts of this blog. Contact : aleyagarden@hotmail.com

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Aglaonema in the mail : bare cuttings, no roots, no leaves

A worth taking risk ? yes for sure !

( from Taiwan : )
" HI; I'm a hobbyist of tropical plants and just have place an order to your nursery. Can you prepare the Aglonema plants without roots & leaves , just the stem only for me. Please mail the purchases cuttings by 2 or 3 in envelopes with a note .. on the cover of every envelopes. I will take the risks of non delivery. Many thanks!. "

5 days later :
" Hello,
With great pleasure, I have received the first envelope you sent.
I shall be eagerly awaiting the arrival of the next two. Thank you very much for your time and effort."


Sincerely yours,
Hoya and other plant collections are for sale on aleyagarden.com Plant care is available in various posts of this blog. Contact : aleyagarden@hotmail.com

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Black Adenium

Double Color Adenium : the " Black Adenium "

As far as I know, on August 2010 Thailand has not produced a 100% black Adenium. At Aleyagarden is on sale the " Double Color " Adenium, http://www.aleyagarden.com/addoublecolor.html to which they added a synonym " Black Adenium ". This variety does not often produce seeds, one can wonder where, or how some shops collect the so many " Black Adenium seeds " that they sell !

Hoya and other plant collections are for sale on aleyagarden.com Plant care is available in various posts of this blog. Contact : aleyagarden@hotmail.com

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Behind the efficient networks of gardens in Thailand : the law of comparative advantage

Small nurseries are often said to be unable to sell cheap because they must buy from outside the plants that they cannot produce. Would bigger nurseries be more competitive to produce plants as they use more of their own factors of production, such as land, gardeners etc ?



Working for a relatively small nursery in Bangkok area I thought for years that per $ of factor of production used, the bigger nurseries should have a greater output. This was also suggested to me by the many visitors from abroad prospecting plant nurseries who asked to be guided to the biggest in priority. But over the years I noticed two things : first the bigger the nursery, I mean the larger in size, more active and prosperous it is, the least workers can be seen per unit of area; second while among the visitors almost all beginners and would be importers were mostly interested by the greater sizes, ( especially if they saw before coming to Thailand some giant nurseries in Australia or Florida ) the more professional importers seemed instead not to pay attention to the size but were more concerned by experience, quality, price, search service of new products etc. So do bigger nurseries, as they theorically use larger production factors that they own ( instead of trading ) have an advantage over the smaller nurseries with little land and reduced employment ?

Let's remember that with his law of Comparative advantage Ricardo explained how trade can create value for both parties even when one can produce all goods with fewer resources than the other. The net benefits of such an outcome are called gains from trade. It is the main concept of the pure theory of international trade and we could substitute two nurseries in a given country to the two countries envisaged by Ricardo.
See on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage : " Origins of the theory. Comparative advantage was first described by Robert Torrens in 1815 in an essay on the Corn Laws. He concluded it was to England's advantage to trade with Portugal in return for grain, even though it might be possible to produce that grain more cheaply in England than Portugal.
However, the concept is usually attributed to David Ricardo who explained it in his 1817 book On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation in an example involving England and Portugal. In Portugal it is possible to produce both wine and cloth with less labor than it would take to produce the same quantities in England. However the relative costs of producing those two goods are different in the two countries. In England it is very hard to produce wine, and only moderately difficult to produce cloth. In Portugal both are easy to produce. Therefore while it is cheaper to produce cloth in Portugal than England, it is cheaper still for Portugal to produce excess wine, and trade that for English cloth. Conversely England benefits from this trade because its cost for producing cloth has not changed but it can now get wine at a lower price,closer to the cost of cloth. The conclusion drawn is that each country can gain by specializing in the good where it has comparative advantage, and trading that good for the other."

Let us replace Portugal and England with the " Hoya garden" and the " Adenium garden ", then let's assume that by employing the same resources : land, manpower, water ( and also, why not, marketing and sale opportunities so the output envisaged is the output - sold ) the Hoya garden has an absolute advantage in producing ( selling ) Adenium and Hoya, in the sense that per unit of factor it can produce 6 Hoya or 5 Adenium whereas the Adenium nursery can produce for its own market 4 Hoya and 2 Adenium only. At first sight there seems to be no mutual benefit in trade between the two gardens, as Hoya garden is more efficient at producing both products.

But this is not true, although the intuition is widely shared among the many prospectors I have seen of plant nurseries.
Despite the fact that the Hoya garden has absolute advantage in all activities, it is not in the interest of either of them to work in isolation since they both can benefit from specialization and exchange. If the two gardens divide the work according to comparative advantage then the Hoya garden will specialize in plants at which it is most productive, while the Adenium garden will concentrate on plants where its productivity is only a little less than that of the Hoya garden.
Such an arrangement will increase total production for a given amount of labor supplied by both gardens and it will benefit both of them.
This is why, I think, I could notice that the bigger the nursery the least laborers can be seen working on the spot : to put it in a nutshell, they sell more because they buy more from partners.


Hoya and other plant collections are for sale on aleyagarden.com Plant care is available in various posts of this blog. Contact : aleyagarden@hotmail.com

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