Jasmine, despite being known for its fragrance, has been considered something of an underachiever in terms of its flower market sales. However, the plant is making a comeback thanks to a Pingtung County flower farmer who introduced the plant to the area 20 years ago.
Tsai Yu-sheng (蔡玉生) started out planting moth orchids on a tiny plot of land in his hometown, Fangliao Township (枋寮), but he could not compete with corporate-run orchid farms.
After carefully studying the flower market, he identified an unexploited niche: jasmine.
Photo: Chen Yan-ting, Taipei Times
Few people planted jasmine then, and the flower’s price was relatively stable, Tsai said.
He leased a 1 hectare plot so he could plant more, not thinking that he would still be in business more than 20 years later.
Jasmine is a low-cost perennial that can be pruned throughout the year, Tsai said.
“The more you prune them, the better they grow, and the vines sell for a good price,” he said.
Remembering his formative years, Tsai said he often felt amused, but frustrated, because his neighbors often asked him: “Who are you going to sell all this ceylon spinach to?”
Ceylon spinach is one of the names for Basella alba or Basella rubra (落葵), a perennial vine with edible leaves.
However, that does not matter anymore as his jasmine field not only yields better profit margins than ceylon spinach, it is also more profitable than “mainstream” flowers such as gladioli, evening primrose and dancing-doll orchids.
Since jasmine grows slower in winter, that is when its price more than doubles from summer, to about NT$30 a bundle, Tsai said.
Tsai gets to take a bit of a break from September to November, after harvesting his crop in late August.
During this time, he trims all the bushes to the bottom and waits for them to bloom again in December, he said.
The average lifespan of a jasmine plant is seven years, but the vines produce new sprouts after they trail to the ground, so there is no need to sow new seeds, Tsai said.
The vines become more valuable after they grow taller and more resilient, he said.
“The vines are sold at flower markets after the plants are pruned at 5am daily. Usually, they come in two lengths: 60cm and 70cm,” Tsai said.
According to Pingtung County Agricultural Department, Fangliao Township has an ideal environment for growing jasmine.
Additional reporting by staff writer
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater