From a hobby adenium to a rooftop nursery: Tk 11.5 lakh of plants sold July to November, nearly all online

A homemaker in Natore finished a master's degree and had endless time at home. About a decade ago an adenium (desert rose) at a tree fair caught her eye. She brought it home and began caring for it, learned from online videos, and then began collecting. Her rooftop of roughly 2,500 square feet now holds thousands of varieties from Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines; recently she brought 35 colourful plants from Indonesia. Besides collecting, she makes new saplings from seed and grafting; she does the grafting herself and two workers work on the roof. The plant medium is made from rotted leaves, bone chips, horn chips, rice husk, sand and vermicompost, and is changed once at the end of winter. She bought one rare plant for Tk 30,000. The roof is out of public view, so buying and selling is mostly online. From last July to November she sold Tk 11.5 lakh of plants. Adenium sleeps in winter and does not do well in winter or heavy rain, so it flowers nearly all year except winter. To overcome this winter limit the agriculture department is trying to give her a polynet house. She plans another garden at Madhukhali, to enter the Dubai market, and to hold an exhibition.