Whole Chinese red apples for Tet: Poisonous, forbidden to eat
Bonsai apples are creating a new trend in the ornamental plant market for Tet Mau Tuat. This is a fairly new type of ornamental plant in Vietnam. After Tet, it can be planted in the garden to continue playing next year, but buyers are absolutely not allowed to eat the fruit on the tree.
Although appearing on the Tet ornamental tree market a few years ago, with an insignificant quantity due to having to be imported from China, bonsai red apples are not known by many people.
However, this year, this bonsai has been cultivated in Vietnam. Players can easily find a satisfactory tree to display during Tet.
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| Ornamental apple trees are only under 1.2m tall, suitable for growing in pots indoors during Tet. This type of apple is toxic. |
Bonsai apple is actually a dwarf red apple variety, about 1.2m tall, with a wide canopy. The apple leaves are oval, with sharp, serrated tips. Apple leaves usually fall in the fall, and in the spring the flowers begin to bloom with new buds. The apple flowers are pinkish-white, the ripe fruit is red, split into five segments shaped like a 5-pointed star, each segment has 1-3 seeds. This is an apple variety commonly grown in Central Asia.
Because the tree is only of moderate height, it is easy to grow in pots, suitable for placing indoors during Tet. However, to have a beautiful pot of ornamental apples with many fruits, it is necessary to cross-breed.
Grasping the player trend from previous years, some gardeners in Tuyen Quang province this year hired people from China to guide them on how to propagate and cross-breed in order to increase the number of bonsai apples on the market for Tet Mau Tuat. It is estimated that the price of the trees will not be higher than in previous years.
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| A tree with enough flowers and fruits will cost up to a million dong. |
Currently, on social networks, there are many stalls selling bonsai apples, with different prices. A beautiful bonsai apple tree, in addition to its eye-catching shape, also depends on the number of fruits on the tree. Depending on whether the tree has enough leaves, fruits and flowers or not, the price can differ by several million VND.
Currently, a 60cm tall tree with 10 or more fruits is being sold for 5 million VND.
Ms. Nhung, a personal Facebook account selling bonsai apples, predicts that this year's Tet, this type of ornamental tree will create a new trend.
“This year, bonsai apples are a new wave in the ornamental plant market for the Lunar New Year. To take care of them, you only need to water them twice a day and they can last until the full moon of the first lunar month. After that, you should plant them in the garden. If you take care of them properly, they can flower and bear fruit next Tet,” said Ms. Nhung.
If you want to play with bonsai apples for Tet 2018, buyers must order now, 1 week before Tet to have goods.
Ms. Nhung added that because bonsai apples must use fruit-setting stimulants and preservatives during the care period to keep the fruit durable, the seller recommends that players should not pick the fruit after Tet, as it can easily be poisoned.
Wanting to buy a bonsai apple pot to play Tet, Ms. Mai (Thanh Xuan - Hanoi) is worried because the market is currently in chaos with prices increasing by several million VND/tree. She has to go online to carefully research the standards to choose a satisfactory tree without being fooled.
"Not only am I worried about getting ripped off, I'm also learning how to properly care for it so that after Tet I can plant it in the garden and bring it out to play with next Tet," Mai shared.