i need some foliage to spruce up my balcony and would even consider some garden furniture. Does anyone know where to buy such items???

Chatuchak market is one place. Each Wednesday the large plant section is restocked, hundreds of stalls and reasonable prices.

Plenty of garden furniture at any department store. HomePro, Index and Koncept come to mind.

Where do you live, Avon? Are you still on the Liberator, or planet Earth?

I wish this was one of my problems

Am confused - is my question really so bizarre?

I live in bangkok by the way.

Will check out the market as Highwayman kindly suggested.

I found the plant prices at Chatuchak to be very expensive. I purchased 4 plants for my house here in Nonthaburi(bankok suburb) for about 600 baht.

I purchased a 7 foot tall palm tree, a large fern, a vining plant about 5 feet tall and a large succulant plant about 3 feet tall with nice pots!


Greg Riser

excellent garden centre on s/vit soi 63 Ekkamai. Not sure though if they sell furniture, but great choice of plants...

On the corner of soi 6.

The reason I asked where you lived was because I didn't want to tell you about all the places in Phuket where you can buy plants and furniture, if you don't live here! Sorry if my 'Planet Earth" quip made you feel that I thought your brain was in outer space - I didn't mean it that way. Maybe I should've asked "Are you in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket, Pattaya or still on the Liberator?".

Thewet market has cheap plants. Open all week.

Chatuchak market has cheap furniture.

If you have a weekend to spare, go up to 3 Pagodas Pass in Sangkhla Buri. Beautiful stuff up there. Sure, you need a pickup truck to bring it back, but it is worth the trip just for the sceney, even if you don't buy anything.

As an example, you can pick up solid teak outdoor settings (they look like tree trunks sort of) for about 10,000Baht (I think). Sounds expensive, but they are really lovely. Weigh a ton, but look great.

Soi Ekamai, (63) adjacent to the station, and then up to the soi 6 corner on the right.

Many thanks for all this useful advice - when my balcony is lush with flora I will invite you all over for G and Ts. By the way do you think any of these places will deliver (for a fee of course)?

Yes, when I lived nr fluffy Emporium they del free, go in the morning and they may del in the arvo.
I spent a small fortune there but I lost most of the plants when I moved to smaller digs.

The place at Ekamai does deliveries - that's where many of our plants came from. THe delivery is free from there but there may be a minimum spend to qualify for that. We live near Chatuchak and they give us free delivery so they seem to have a fairly wide delivery area.

The sellers at Chatuchak are usually less willing to deliver (so I've no idea how people get some of the trees back from there!)

Another good place near Chatuchak is on the road that goes past the "bottom" side of Chatuchak (i.e. the side of the market closest to the city centre). There are a few plant places there that often have better prices than the people in the market.

Grahamb,
Sounds like you might mean opposite the entrance to Jatujak Plaza (new area)
in Kamphaeng Phet 2 Rd, runs nth south, not sure about del, same goes for the shops on Kamphaeng Phet Rd., runs east-west.
I'd stick to Ekamai if you don't have wheels.

Any keen gardeners here?

With my house now completed I have to stock the garden. Fortunately we have a couple of decent garden centres in town, so finding plants and flowers is no problem. But I would rather like to set aside a little area for an English garden stocked with some familiar flowers using packet seeds brought from the UK.

Two questions.

1) Are there any import restrictions in bringing packet seeds into Thailand?
2) Does anybody have any experience in growing flowers from seed in Thailand? I'm thinking of Nasturtians, Sweet Peas, Lupins, Fuschias and the like.

Many thanks

This post has been edited by Baht Simpson: 2005-04-12 22:02:56

I'm bringing 15 Kg of Oz mixed bird seed back to LoS, no worries.
Could never do it the other way.
Where do you live in LoS?

I've seen numerous garden and plant shops with tall racks of seed packets just like the ones 'back home'. All the flowers you mentioned, plus vegetables, too.
Seems like you wouldn't need to bring much from the UK, except for maybe a decent spade. The thing they call a spade here is more like a metal spear with the end flattened to about 4 inches wide..

You can buy seeds direct from the UK at Thompson & Morgan

Go for flowers that in UK need a greenhouse!

Thanks for the replies folks. I'll look out for packet seeds when I go in May. But I'll probably take a few varieties with me as well and do a little experimentation.

Udon, my house is in a small village about 8km. from Mae Sot in Tak province, not far from the Mae Sot border with Burma.

Currently I live and work in the UK, but I am 50 in February and hope to move permanently, soon after on a 1 year "Retirement" Visa. As I won't be able to work I want to restablish my interest in gardening amongst other things.

Ajarn, I'm not sure about trying to board the airplane with a large spade. I think I might be wrestled to the ground. I agree though, I've seen the way the locals hack at the ground with those implements. Fortunately where I live labour is plentiful and relatively cheap for the heavy digging. There is always someone looking for some work. I'm getting a little too old for all that digging anyway.

Pnustedt, thanks for that link. Some good information on there.

//<snip> Don't even JOKE about illegal substances being brought into Thailand.

This post has been edited by RDN: 2005-07-20 12:56:12

Yeah, that's why I haven't sweated it much. It ain't my problem, either

This post has been edited by Ajarn: 2005-04-13 19:46:16

I'm an avid gardener/landscaper, and one of the perks of living in Thailand for me would be to have a tropical garden, but when I was over there I didn't see any plant shops. I'm sure there are some, but where? Is there an assortment of non-native/non-invasive species? What about rare plants?

Another question -- does a nice garden add equity to your home in Thailand like it does in the States and the UK?

there are plenty of gardening centres where you can buy a good selection of plants and pots , i have always found a very good selection.
and they cost little.
i had one large plant that opens and closes it leaves at morning and evening.
the family chopped it down and planted papaya ! weird plant .
i tried to grow cardomom from seeds but no joy. maybe i didnt soak the seeds first

I've never seen garden centers like we have in the West.
There are many small sellers all over the country.

Bring plenty of seed packets with you from home.
Just about anything will grow in LoS's humidity.

It may or may not you will still have problems selling the place anyway.
Houses here are for sale for years on end without a purchaser. I should know this is how I make my money in the UK.

As to plant shops there are thousands of them, here in Chiang Mai just around from Tesco Lotus is the garden centre, you can buy anything you want there from a small tree (if you want to buy a full size tree head for SanSai plenty for sale there) to stone and all you requirements for landscaping.

If you get bored you are more than welcome to do my garden.

When I am in the UK I find the only good thing I can say about snow is that it makes my garden look as good all the other ones.

G'day maerim.
can you buy good potting compost, seeds and bio sprays?