Garden Centre in China Guangxi Nanning (2 of 5)

After thinking long and hard about it and considering all the difficulties associated with such a Chinese venture, not speaking the language, not knowing or being aware of any suppliers, seeing just how competitive a market placement would be and not least considering the fact that my wife has no experience whatsoever with plants, not the growing of or the selling of, But she was keen as mustard, Oh and finding out that if a unit did become available, which is highly unlikely in this busy market then the 'Key' money, the money one would need to pay the seller would probably be in the region of 80,000 RMB I very quickly decided, NO, its an impossible task.

A few months past and I was still hankering for plants in my life again. We created a roof garden at our apartment in Nanning, which in itself was very nice and pleasurable.

Interestingly, it brought us in touch with Nanning China suppliers of plants, nurseries and the like as too find plants for our garden meant asking around and searching out any establishment that looked like it might be horticultural in some way.

During this time we visited the other Nanning market areas on a regular basis and made a few contacts which to my delight meant we were often invited around for 'Tea', which in turn meant allowing about 3 hours and making room for copious amounts of Chinese Tea but the best bit for me was the opportunity to visit 'Chinese Plant Nurseries' and chat, using my wife as interpreter, with the owners.

It was while we were on one of these invited 'Tea' jaunts that the Nanning Qingxiushan market area was first mentioned.

A few days later my impatience got the better of me, so off we went to have a look.

Photo taken Feb/March 2008. As it was, just before my wife took over in April 08.

September 2007 was our first sight of an area within this market that, at the time was already occupied, but the owner was already thinking about selling the 'Key', that would eventually become my wife's plant centre.

We quickly discovered that at this time, as the market was new and still an unknown quantity, the then present occupier was asking far too much for the 'Key'.

So with this in mind and still considering my earlier decision that to 'do this' would be asking too much... I didn't get too upset with the thought that this would be a 'no go'.

After this first visit we often returned to look around and see how things were progressing, it is a nice area, we made a friend or two of some of the early pioneer shopkeepers there, some are still there to this day…

To be continued...