ELEVATING HOTICULTURE WITH PASSION - EMBRACE NATURE, REAP REWARDS

BY MERCY NAMFUKWE

MEET Inutu Siyanga Mwiya the Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Thuthu Lifestyle Gardens Ltd located at the Show grounds in Lusaka.  

She is adedicated and passionate woman who has ventured into gardening of different types of flowers for sale, as she believes in taking gardening to another level and to make the world a better place.  

“I started dealing with plants when I was very young, I got the motivation from my mother because she used to love gardening and we never used to buy vegetables because she was able to grow variety of vegetables for home consumption,” she stated.

She decided to transform gardening into a business in 2021 after the death of her mother; it was during the hard times when the country was faced with covid 19 pandemic.

“After the passing of my mother I found it hard such that I could not manage to cope staying in the house as needed a breakthrough with something that would help to occupy my mind, for this reason I decided to step out in the garden just to find something to do and I would go out in the garden as early as 6 hours and I would go back home around 19 hours,” she explained.    

She added this took her about 7 months to a year of her spending much of her time in the garden to experiment and also to try out different types of plants and to increase the stock.

Ms Siyanga had from a mother plant learnt how to multiply in order for her to have a variety of plants by making use of reading literature online on how to improve and to make the plants more than one.

Interestingly, in the period of 6months she was able to notice that she had over 500 different types of plants which were small by then and going through the year she had increased the number of plants.

“I find joy in what I do, and I am optimistic and I am good with what I do because the most beneficial thing that I obtain from gardening flowers is “peace of mind” with flowers no matter how upset I was or how stressful I am, the moment I walk into the garden I sit there cut down pluck out the bad leaf, I pour water on them and check out it the soil is good to keep the plants happy and it smiles back at me by looking pretty and lush on the leaves ,”she said.

She has quite a number of favorite plants from her garden because at first, she used to deal mostly with the indoor house plants with the plants that appreciate indirect sunlight for growth compared to plants like palms that may require sunlight for growth.

“I have quite a number of my favorite plants; I love anthurium plants because they are indoor flowers with unique colour such as red, peach in colour. Over the years I have learnt how to nature them, how to grow them and how best to multiply them despite most people thinking that it is very difficult to manage the flowers,” she added.  

She noticed that as time went on, people were so much interested and started asking her for the other plants. This prompted her to start the land scaping and the suppling of plants adding that if she was able to increase the number of indoor plants she would also increase on the outdoor plants.

Ms Inutu further started collecting seeds and started reading further on how to grow plants from the seeds as she feels it’s now successful as she realized that some plants are very difficult to nature noting that she would invest in a thousand of seeds and only obtain a quarter of it especially the indigenous trees.

Further, she said her clients from abroad are able to come through to her to buy and export the flowers, others are able to buy them in form of soil and they are able to appreciate the locally grown Zambian flowers on the market and they are able to manage them well from our Zambian climate.

She added that with watering, most house plants have similar needs in terms of water noting that it is also important to plant them in a place where there is less air with total shed to prevent them from losing moisture.

In cold season they can be watered twice compared to the hot season where they need water at least 3 times in a week, during the hot season they tend to lose moisture depending on the place and the soil.

“I don’t notice much of the termites in my plants, sometimes I notice when the ants are eating the leaves Iimmediately mitigate that through the use of pesticides depending on the type of the plants, the other solution to mitigate the pests is by using wooden upwards stands because when you place the stands below the ground you would notice that the termites would still invade from the soil on the ground and attack the plants and I spray insecticides every week to prevent insects from eating the leaves ,” she said.    

She further said that she has employed 6 permanent workers and I who comes on board to help her when there is lack of man power, means of transport for her employees has not been a challenge because they stay nearby while 2 have been accommodated at the farm. I also manage to drive myself and deliver the plants to the clients.

She says the demand for plants is high and hopes to have a bigger farm for her to have a variety of flowers. She indicates that this is a lucrative venture because from the same business, she is able to take care of her family and to sustain her livelihood.  

Furthermore, she is advising people to venture in this type of business as she feels that anyone can manage it. People need to have a sense of patience and time for the plants to grow; unlike only depending on white collar jobs or street adulting can be mitigated through this business.

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