Tianwei: Taiwan’s Commercial Gardening Center
The built environments of
Taiwanese cities provide their residents with very limited access to green
spaces. For those raised on the farms
and in the villages of the fertile plains of central Taiwan the price of admission
to urban life is questionable. They lament the dwindling rural landscape, I suspect, in the vein of Joni Mitchell’s, “They
Paved Paradise:” ‘you don’t know what you got till it’s gone.’ The productivity
of the soil holds a revered place for them, if only in the modest form of
houseplants.
A trip to Tianwei, Central Taiwan’s premier commercial gardening
center, is in this sense a pilgrimage. The planned section
of the township has many side attractions for less committed visitors –
dramatic fountains, rides for the kids, performing artists, pedal surreys, and
food vendors –packed around centralized parking lots. The commercial nurseries
and plant stores are located along the main road and lanes radiating from this
busy hub.
The biggest attractions are the
nurseries selling bonsai. The original Chinese term,
punjai, refers to the miniaturization of landscapes in pots.
Yet these
hand-crafted horticultural gems, priced in man-years of labor, are scarcely affordable. Similar sculpted flowering shrubs,
ranging from about two-feet to ten-feet tall, are even more tempting. Understandably these
giants attract more gawkers and photographers than buyers.
One could spend hours selecting plants,
but the nurseries
close at dark.
I brought home several cacti, mint and lavender herbs, and a prolific chili pepper plant.
