Inside Mazumder Greenery’s blooming business of orchids
Inside the Mazumdar Greenery nursery, a two-storey thatched house on 10 katha of land on the outskirts of the city, live all the many reasons to invest in the orchid garden business
On a wintery morning, 45-year-old gardener Abdur Rahman was busy spraying water, ever so lightly, on an orchid plant. The plant is called Oncidium Sharry Baby. Among the green leaves of the orchid plant, the maroon and white-coloured flowers were standing out because of their arresting colours.
A hybrid, Oncidium Sharry Baby's parents are native to South and Central America. But, Sharry Baby flowers are now giving off sweet scents in Dhaka rooms. The popularity of orchid plants keeps rising day by day in the country.
"Sharry Baby is famous for its fantastic chocolate scent which remains strongest from morning to the afternoon," said Rahman, while showing the flower.
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Sharry Baby blooms twice a year with long, arcing bloom spikes of small maroon and white flowers that produce a lovely chocolate-like scent. The plant Oncidium Sharry Baby typically blooms in spring and fall.
Oncidium Sharry Baby is one of around 8,000 orchid plants at the Mazumdar Greenery, which trades a variety of orchid plants in the country. The nursery is a two-storey thatched house standing on 10 katha of land at Fakirkhali village in Beraid on the outskirts of the city.
The nursery houses nearly 100 species of orchid plants. It is among a few nurseries in the country that are exclusively dedicated to growing orchids, including the Camellia-Duncan Foundation Orchid Project in Brahmanbaria and Dipta Orchids Limited in Mymensingh.
Saroar Hossain, the managing partner of Mazumdar Greenery, said that the total value of all of his orchid plants would be around Tk20 lakh now.
Hossain, a former Grameen Bank employee and restaurateur, became more familiar with orchids in 2016 after reading books about orchid flowers. Then he decided to set up an orchid garden for pleasure.
One of his friends told him in 2016 that they had a piece of land that was left unused.
Realising that many of those types of flowers were not that available in the country, Hossain and his friends decided to set up the orchid garden in the Fakhirkhali area.
"First we thought that the garden would be enchanting, only later did we explore how to commercially cultivate the orchids. The orchid garden was set up in 2016," said Hossain.
They were familiar with a man called Khokon who provided service (such as gardening, plant care) to different apartment buildings in the upscale Gulshan and Dhanmondi area. Khokon's job is to take care of the orchids door to door.
"Mainly, we started collecting the orchid plants through Khokon in the beginning," said Hossain, which led to the establishment of their orchid plant business.
Mazumdar Greenery has around 5,000 orchid plants of the Dendrobium genus, the second largest genus in the family Orchidaceae. Most of them (around 3,000) are Dendrobium white, Dendrobium pink and Dendrobium red while the number of Dendrobium miniatures is around 900.
They have around 1,000 genera of orchids including Cattleya white, Cattleya red, and Cattleya yellow.
The number of green leaf orchids, lipstick orchids and hoya orchids is around 1000, 600 and 600 respectively.
The price of an orchid plant depends on the variety of the plant which is between Tk200 to Tk2,500. For example, they sell a green leaf orchid for Tk150 the lowest while and highest is Tk2,500.
"Dendrobium genus orchid plants and its flowers are popular among orchid lovers in Bangladesh because the life of the flower is around one month and the orchid has adapted to our country's weather," said Naseem Iqbal, president of Bangladesh Orchid Society, "The nursing of these species of the plant is easy."
The president of the Bangladesh Orchid Society said that the popularity, as well as demand for orchid plants have risen over the last few decades. Lots of people are buying and selling orchid plants on the Facebook pages too. Some are even exchanging orchids on Facebook.
In the peak season, when most of the orchid flowers bloom between April to August, the company sells orchids worth about Tk1 lakh monthly.
However, some orchids that bear flowers like the Cattleya, bloom in the winter season. Yet sales drop in the off-season.
However, orchid lovers who have a good understanding of the plants buy them in the off-season too. And, the price of flowerless orchid plants is lower.
For example, they sell an orchid with flowers for Tk400 while the same plant without flowers costs Tk300.
Mazumdar Greenery sells most of its orchid plants online. They also sell orchid plants wholesale to small nurseries. In the future, Hossain plans to expand his market by importing newer varieties of orchids so he can offer his customers a larger range of orchids.
